The northern Russian dialects make up one of the main groups of the

Russian dialects Russian dialects are spoken variants of the Russian language. Russian dialects and territorial varieties are divided in two conceptual chronological and geographic categories:Tomasz Kamusella, Kamusella, Tomasz. (2018). Russian: A Monocentric or ...

Territory

Russian dialects and territorial varieties are divided in two conceptual chronological and geographic categories: Kamusella, Tomasz. (2018). Russian: A Monocentric or Pluricentric Language?. Colloquia Humanistica. 2018. 153–196. 10.11649/ch.2018.010. * The territory of the ''primary formation'' (e.g. that consist of "Old" Russia of the 16th century before Eastern conquests by Ivan IV) is fully or partially modern regions (''oblasts''):

Vologda Vologda (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located on the river Vologda (river), Vologda within the watershed of the Northern Dvina. Population: The city serves as ...

Kostroma Kostroma (, ) is a historic city and the administrative center of Kostroma Oblast, Russia. A part of the Golden Ring of Russian cities, it is located at the confluence of the rivers Volga and Kostroma. In the 2021 census, the population is 267, ...

Yaroslavl Yaroslavl (; , ) is a city and the administrative center of Yaroslavl Oblast, Russia, located northeast of Moscow. The historic part of the city is a World Heritage Site, and is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl rivers. ...

Novgorod Veliky Novgorod ( ; , ; ), also known simply as Novgorod (), is the largest city and administrative centre of Novgorod Oblast, Russia. It is one of the oldest cities in Russia, being first mentioned in the 9th century. The city lies along the V ...

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

Nizhny Novgorod Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət, t=Lower Newtown; colloquially shortened to Nizhny) is a city and the administrative centre of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast an ...

Arkhangelsk Arkhangelsk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina near its mouth into the White Sea. The city spreads for over along the ...

. * The territory of the ''second formation'' (e.g. where Russians settled after the 16th century) consist of most of the land to the North and North-East of Central Russia, that is

Karelia Karelia (; Karelian language, Karelian and ; , historically Коре́ла, ''Korela'' []; ) is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for Russia (including the Soviet Union, Soviet era), Finland, and Sweden. It is currentl ...

, Murmansk Oblast, Murmansk, Vyatka, Perm, Komi,

Udmurtia Udmurtia, officially the Udmurt Republic, is a republics of Russia, republic of Russia located in Eastern Europe. It is administratively part of the Volga Federal District. Its capital city, capital is the types of inhabited localities in Russi ...

, and as well as

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

and

Far East The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In mod ...

List of sub-dialects

* Pomor dialects *

Olonets Olonets (; , ; ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative center of Olonetsky District of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, located on the Olonka River to the east of Lake Ladoga. Geography Olonets is located ...

group *

group * Siberian dialects *

- Kirov group * Vladimir-

Volga The Volga (, ) is the longest river in Europe and the longest endorheic basin river in the world. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchment ...

group

Phonology

* Lack of

vowel reduction In phonetics, vowel reduction is any of various changes in the acoustic ''quality'' of vowels as a result of changes in stress, sonority, duration, loudness, articulation, or position in the word (e.g. for the Muscogee language), and which ar ...

: unstressed does not merge with ( okanye). Unstressed , and after soft consonants also do not typically merge. * Some dialects have high or

diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...

al (in the

subgroup even ) as a reflex of . * In the eastern part of the group the change of every to before hard ( unpalatalized) consonants occurs (in Standard Russian only in stressed syllables). also changes to in these positions but only in stressed syllables. * Also in the eastern part of the dialect group there is in certain positions instead of Standard Russian . * Tsokanye: the merger of Standard Russian and into one consonant whether , or (like in

Pskov Pskov ( rus, Псков, a=Ru-Псков.oga, p=psˈkof; see also Names of Pskov in different languages, names in other languages) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city in northwestern Russia and the administrative center of Pskov O ...

and

Ryazan Ryazan (, ; also Riazan) is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Ryazan Oblast, Russia. The city is located on the banks of the Oka River in Central Russia, southeast of Moscow. As of the 2010 C ...

Southern Russian dialects). * In the

region, final hard is replaced by a semivowel . * , , are like in Standard Russian (differs from Southern Russian). Nevertheless, in some sub-dialects , can also be replaced with semivowel like in Southern Russian. * In some dialects traces of unreduced , which normally reduced to in all of East Slavic: "the

sound In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the br ...

between Lake Pskov and Lake Chud" (instead of expected ), from earlier "reread (past tense)" (instead of standard ). In these examples, the groups *''tl, dl'' dissimilated to , instead of reducing to . Some ( Shakhmatov, Durnovo) see this as an indication of possible West Slavic admixture in those areas, while others ( Trubetzkoy, Lehr-Spławiński) treat it as an archaism from Proto-Slavic times.

Morphology

* A suffixed definite article ''-to, -ta, -te'' similarly existing in Bulgarian. * 3rd person verbal ending with non-palatalized ''-t'' as in Standard Russian.

Vocabulary

Northern dialects are characterized by a number of words like, ('log hut'), , ('winter crop'), ('to bark'), , ('to plough'), ('rye'), ('gathering'), ('very much'), ('beautiful') and others. They also have about 200 words of Uralic origin.

Notes

References

* * *

External links

* Michael Daniel, Nina Dobrushina, Ruprecht von Waldenfels
The language of the Ustja river basin. A corpus of North Russian dialectal speech
2013–2018. Bern, Moscow.