Southern Russian is one of the main groups of Russian 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,

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,

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,

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