Southern Russian is one of the main groups of

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

dialects.

Territory

* The territory of the ''primary formation'' (i.e. that consists of "Old" Russia of the 16th century before Eastern conquests by Ivan IV) is entirely 11 modern regions (''oblasts''): Belgorod,

Bryansk Bryansk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Bryansk Oblast, Russia, situated on the Desna (river), Desna River, southwest of Moscow. It has a population of 379,152 at the 2021 census. Bryans ...

Kaluga Kaluga (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Kaluga Oblast, Russia. It stands on the Oka River southwest of Moscow. Its population was 337,058 at the 2021 census. Kaluga's most famous residen ...

Kursk Kursk (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Kursk Oblast, Russia, located at the confluence of the Kur (Kursk Oblast), Kur, Tuskar, and Seym (river), Seym rivers. It has a population of Kursk ...

Lipetsk Lipetsk (, ), also Romanization of Russian, romanized as Lipeck, is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Lipetsk Oblast, Russia, located on the banks of the Voronezh (river), Voronezh River in the Do ...

Oryol Oryol ( rus, Орёл, , ɐˈrʲɵl, a=ru-Орёл.ogg, links=y, ), also transliterated as Orel or Oriol, is a Classification of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast, Russia, situated on the Oka Rive ...

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 ...

Smolensk Smolensk is a city and the administrative center of Smolensk Oblast, Russia, located on the Dnieper River, west-southwest of Moscow. First mentioned in 863, it is one of the oldest cities in Russia. It has been a regional capital for most of ...

Tambov Tambov ( , ; rus, Тамбов, p=tɐmˈbof) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative center of Tambov Oblast, Central Federal District, central Russia, at the confluence of the Tsna River (Moksha basin), Tsna ...

, Tula,

Voronezh Voronezh ( ; , ) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on the Southeastern Railway, which connects wes ...

; and some southern parts of 3 regions:

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

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

Tver Tver (, ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and the administrative centre of Tver Oblast, Russia. It is situated at the confluence of the Volga and Tvertsa rivers. Tver is located northwest of Moscow. Population: The city is ...

* The territory of the ''second formation'' (i.e. where Russians settled after the 16th century) consists of most of the land of lower Don and

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 ...

, the Northern Caucasus, as well as Southern Ural,

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 ...

Phonology

* Unstressed undergoes different degrees of vowel reduction mainly to (strong akanye), less often to , , . * Unstressed , , following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to (like in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced in such positions (e.g. несли is pronounced , not ) – this is called yakanye/яканье. * Fricative instead of the Standard and Northern . Soft is usually . * Semivowel in the place of the Standard and Northern and final . * where the Standard and Northern have . * Prosthetic before and stressed : ''во́кна, ву́лица'', Standard Russian ''окна, улица'' "windows, street". * Prosthetic before and : ''етот'', ''ентот'', Standard Russian ''этот'' "this". * In

(southern) and

sub-groups only one

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...

affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...

exists. Merging of Standard Russian and into one consonant whether or .

Morphology

* Palatalized final in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects): ''он ходить, они ходять'' "he goes, they go" * Occasional dropping of the 3rd person ending at all: ''он ходи, они ходя'' "he goes, they go" * Oblique case forms of personal pronouns ''мяне́, табе́, сабе́'' instead of Standard Russian ''мне, тебе, себе'' "me, you, -self".

Relation to other languages

Some of these features such as akanye/yakanye, a debuccalized or

lenited In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...

, a semivowel , and palatalized final in 3rd person forms of verbs are also present in modern Belarusian and some dialects of Ukrainian (Eastern

Polesia Polesia, also called Polissia, Polesie, or Polesye, is a natural (geographic) and historical region in Eastern Europe within the East European Plain, including the Belarus–Ukraine border region and part of eastern Poland. This region shou ...

n), indicating a linguistic continuum.

References

Bibliography

* * *

External links

* М.О. Garder, N.S. Petrova, А.B. Moroz, А.B. Panova, N.R. Dobrushina
Corpus of Spiridonova Buda dialect
2018. Moscow: Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, HSE. * A.V. Ter-Avanesova, F.A. Balabin, S.V. Dyachenko, A.V. Malysheva, V.A. Morozova
Corpus of the Malinino dialect
2019. Moscow: Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, NRU HSE. URL; Vinogradov Russian Language Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences. * A.V. Ter-Avanesova, S.V. Dyachenko, E.V. Kolesnikova, A.V. Malysheva, D.I. Ignatenko, A.B. Panova, N.R. Dobrushina
Corpus of Rogovatka dialect
2018. Moscow: Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, NRU HSE. Russian dialects {{Russia-culture-stub