Moscovian dialect

The Moscow dialect or Moscow accent (Russian: Московское произношение, tr. Moskovskoye proiznosheniye, IPA: [mɐˈskofskəjə prəɪznɐˈʂenʲɪɪ]), sometimes Central Russian,[1] is the spoken Russian language variety used in Moscow. Influenced by both Northern and Southern Russian dialects,[2] the Moscow dialect is the basis of the Russian literary language.[3]

Overview

The 1911 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica wrote:[4]

Literary Russian as spoken by educated people throughout the empire is the Moscow dialect... The Moscow dialect really covers a very small area, not even the whole of the government of Moscow, but political causes have made it the language of the governing classes and hence of literature. It is a border dialect, having the southern pronunciation of unaccented o as a, but the jo for accented o before a hard consonant it is akin to the North and it has also kept the northern pronunciation of g instead of the southern h. So too unaccented e sounds like i or ji'.

Examples

Dialect	понятно I see	что what	ничего nothing	Explanation
Moscow and Central Russia	[pɐˈnʲatnə] (listen)	[ʂto] (listen)	[nʲɪtɕɪˈvo] (listen)	unstressed /o/ becomes [ɐ] or [ə] ⟨ч⟩ is pronounced [ʂ] Intervocalic ⟨г⟩ is pronounced Russian pronunciation: [v]
The North	ponjatno	što	ničevo
Old St. Petersburg	panjatna	čto	ničego
The South	panjatna	što	ničevo
Source: [1]

References

1. Rough Guide Phrasebook: Russian (Updated ed.). London: Penguin. 2012. pp. 16–17. ISBN 9781405390576.
2. Sokolʹskiĭ, A. A. (1966). A history of the Russian language. Impr. Taravilla. p. 106.
3. Винокур, Григорий Осипович (1971). The Russian language; a brief history. Translated by Forsyth, Mary A. Edited by James Forsyth. Cambridge University Press. p. 15. ISBN 9780521079440.
4. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Russian Language". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 913–914.