# Russian: is it uniform?



## papillon

Hello,
I would like to get several opinions on the uniformity of the Russian language. I am a native speaker, and my European firends have a hard time believing that I cannot exacly "place" other Russian speakers based on their language . It seems that in Europe (and many other places) every town has its own distinct dialect/manner of speaking.

I find Russian to be a lot more homogeneous than other languages, despite the vast area where it is in use. Am I just "tone deaf" or do other people find this to be the case?


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## Etcetera

I've thought on the subject, too.
Our native language seems to be rather homogeneous; unfortunately, I haven't much experience in talking wih people from different parts of the country, but still it's rather easy for me to detect if a person is a Petersburger, a Muscovite, a Ukrainian/Belarusian, and so on. The differences don't seem to be so radical, though.
I wonder what Cyanista would say on the subject.


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## papillon

Very true, although I don't think I would be able to pick up a St Petersburgh accent.

Interestingly, despite the homogeneity, the ward "chto" (="what", cyr: "что") is amazingly variable with prononciation going from the standard "shto" to "cho" to "sho" (ukrainian influence?) to the famous Odessa "shö".

Are there more words that are so characteristically regional?


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## Etcetera

What about the famous "St. Petersburg/Moscow correspondences"? For example, поребрик/бордюр, парадное/подъезд, шаверма/шаурма?

Speaking about accents: in fact, it is very easy to recognise a Petersburger by their accent. They tend to pronounce words as close to their spelling as possible, whereas Muscovites, for example, usually pronounce "чн" as [шн]. Then, it seems to me that Muscovites speak a bit more slowly, and they never drop vowels, as we Petersburgs sometimes do, actually.


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## wanderer

Siberian folks sometimes have different pronounciation for 'o', 'e' and 'ч' as I've noticed... 
Belarusians are tend to have different 'a','я','г', for theirs language are softer then russian. 
Also sometimes it's funny how say SPB folks are not accepting various words and phrases. Like my friends from SPB are making very suprised faces when I say something like 'булка хлеба', for they differentiate 'хлеб'(dark bread) and 'булка' as white bread. Probably it's not the case for the most people...at least that I've heard.

Btw, one interesting question. I used to call a drawer 'шуфлядка' and recently I've accidentaly figured out that my russian friends don't use that word and they said that there is now such word in russian language at all 

Anybody heard/used this word before?

*Mod note: further discussion about 'булка хлеба', 'хлеб' and 'булка' has been moved here.*


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## papillon

Very interesing,
I've bever heard the word "шуфлядка", is that from bielorussian? I guess I had a similar case with the word "trempel" (тремпель) for hanger (плечики). I was shocked to find out that only people from Kharkov/Kharkiv use the word.

Interestingly, as far as I can tell there was a factory in Kharkov owned by Trempel (before 1917 of course) that manufactured these hangers out of wood. Similarly, people in parts of Ukraine used the word Giletka (жилетка) for  a shaving razor.


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## wanderer

Well regarding жилетка I guess it came from that Gillette razors  

Actually I don't now the roots of the 'шуфлядка'. It might be descended from belarusian word, yet I don't know from which one. My parents are from different parts of the country and theirs parents are speaking different belarusian languages. Not like extremly different but there are many words that are not known for some. Sometimes it's even funny that in different part of the country the word have completly different meaning


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## cyanista

шуфлядка is a Belarusian word, probably borrowed from Polish. German also has "Schublade".
 I've found an interesting comment to the subject: Лингвистический экскурс


> Второе удивление ждёт уже белорусов, когда те обнаруживают, что россияне не понимают русский язык. Оказывается, россиянам незнакома мера величины _«жменя»_ и деталь интерьера "шуфлядка". Россиянин едва ли поймёт просьбу «принеси _шуфель_ из ящика инструментов». Понятное каждому белорусу русское слово _«бурбалка»_ и вовсе приводит россиянина в замешательство.


 Zhmenja is a handful, and burbalka is a bubble. 
There are more Belarusian words that are commonly used by Russian-speaking Belarusians but I can't think of any just now.
Apart from that many Belarusians speak Russian almost "accent-free". Fricative "g" is the prerogative of rural population and our president. Most Belarusians are probably given away by their a-sounds. We pronounce all unsrtressed o's as distinct a's whereas most Russians pronounce a 'schwa' in such cases.


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## wanderer

Interesting  Thanks for the explanation!


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## papillon

cyanista said:
			
		

> Zhmenja is a handful, and burbalka is a bubble.



In Ukraine "zhmenja" is a very common word even in Russian, a friend can ask you for a "zhmenja" of sunflower seeds.
Additionally, the word "buriak" is often used in Ukrainian Russian instead of svekla (beet).



			
				cyanista said:
			
		

> We pronounce all unsrtressed o's as distinct a's whereas most Russians pronounce a 'schwa' in such cases.


What is 'schwa'?--thanks


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## cyanista

Schwa is a linguistic term for a neutral unstressed vowel. 

Belarusians are known for their "аканье". Most would pronounce хорошо as [harash*o*] - whereas a Russian would say [hərash*o*]or even [hərəsh*o*]. But I am told in some areas of Russia they do likewise.


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## jester.

cyanista said:
			
		

> Belarusians are known for their "аканье". Most would pronounce хорошо as [harash*o*] - whereas a Russian would say [hərash*o*]or even [hərəsh*o*]. But I am told in some areas of Russia they do likewise.


In my Russian book (which is supposed to teach standard Russian) I learnt to say [harash*o*].


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## übermönch

From what i've heared there indeed are dialects in the russian corelands, in vladimir, Tula, novgorod etc. but that doesn't fit for the rest of russia. Also, people on the bank of the black sea seem to talk with an ukrainian accent. The 3 most known dialects are the muscovite, the peterburgian and the 'villager/hillybilly' way of speaking.


> In my Russian book (which is supposed to teach standard Russian) I learnt to say [harash*o*].


That is what they told me aswell (while studying it in Germany). Well it is *wrong. *The sound is an ə, a very short o which is something between o and a but sounds closer to an a. If you instead use a long and voiced ah and also prnounce the ч as the tsch in german you'll be certainly mistaken for a white russian.


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## Etcetera

I haven't been to WR for two days, because a thunderstorm has left me without Internet connection. But now I'm here, and I'd like to join this nice discussion. 

*<...>*



> From what i've heared there indeed are dialects in the russian corelands, in vladimir, Tula, novgorod etc. but that doesn't fit for the rest of russia. Also, people on the bank of the black sea seem to talk with an ukrainian accent. The 3 most known dialects are the muscovite, the peterburgian and the 'villager/hillybilly' way of speaking.


It's so.



> That is what they told me aswell (while studying it in Germany). Well it is *wrong. *The sound is an ə, a very short o which is something between o and a but sounds closer to an a.


In South Russia, it's absolutely normal to pronounce хорошо as [harash*o*]. But in St. Petersburg it's more like [hərəsh*o*].


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## Anatoli

I agree with those who said that differences are not radical between regions. Some areas are so heavily mixed, there's no distinct accent, they speak just standard spoken Russian. Of course, we can identify Southerners (if they don't put effort in their speech) or people from Ukraine, Belarus, Muscovites or some Northern regions (especially Vologda and Kostroma). Siberians have some tone variations. An educated person could almost completely get rid of the local dialect in their speech, which happens quite often. I, for example grew up in the south and lived Ukraine but not many people can tell 

This (missing differences) made educated Russians the pickiest in terms of correct grammar and pronunciation in the world, IMHO.  Other countries are much more tolerant to different accents, dialects. In Russia (if you're Russian) and speak incorrectly, you may be ridiculed, not so bad to foreigners, they are allowed to make mistakes.


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## Jana337

What do you atribute the striking uniformity to? Is there a kind of pressure above, a unifying force that "supervises" the language (like Académie française)?

By the way, are we talking about accent, or also about vocabulary? I noticed some deviant words mentioned in this thread but I could not gather whether they were common or just exceptions.

Jana


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## Anatoli

If we talk about regional differences haven't noticed anyone posting about "Ukrainian г", which is so common in the south, Ukraine and Belarus. You can find people pronouncing "Ukrainian г" in all parts of Russia. It's not correct but too common to ignore for learners becasue it can affect your understanding.

The "Ukrainian г" is pronounced exactly as Czech or Slovak "h", in unvoiced position it's pronounced as Russian "х", the correct pronunciation would be "к". For example:
флаг, утюг [флах, утюх]; in proper Russian: [флак, утюк]

Exception to the rule where "г" is pronounced as "х" in standard Russian:

бог [бох] (in nominative only), лёгкий [лёхкий], мягкий [мяхкий]


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## Etcetera

*<...>*

Jana, the deviant words we've mentioned are rather exceptions - there's not so many of them...


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## Anatoli

Jana337 said:
			
		

> What do you atribute the striking uniformity to? Is there a kind of pressure above, a unifying force that "supervises" the language (like Académie française)?


Hard to explain, does anybody know? Given the size of Russia and bad road conditions in the past and present, difficult to explain why Russian is so uniform. Maybe because Russia has been united for a long time and there were no problem moving around. Mind you, Siberians are all migrants from East Russia where everybody heavily mixed.


			
				Jana337 said:
			
		

> By the way, are we talking about accent, or also about vocabulary? I noticed some deviant words mentioned in this thread but I could not gather whether they were common or just exceptions.


 A bit of both but more about vocab and grammar. Accents can be different but this so insignificant that doesn't hamper comprehension much.
The number of deviant words is not large and they many are not really completely unknown words, just funny usage. Slang words can be funny but easy to understand. I laughed when I found out that in SPb they use "тонна" for "thousand", so "5 тонн баксов" is 5K (lit. 5 ton of bucks)


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## Etcetera

Anatoli said:
			
		

> Hard to explain, does anybody know. Given the size of Russia and bad road conditions in the past and present, difficult to explain why Russian is so uniform.


BTW, what about the so-called ликбез? It can be the reason (or at least one of the reasons) of the uniformity, can't it?


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## Anatoli

Etcetera said:
			
		

> BTW, what about the so-called ликбез? It can be the reason (or at least one of the reasons) of the uniformity, can't it?



I am sure Russia wasn't the only country that tried to eliminate illiteracy. The reasons are historical.
Russian language was uniform long before Communist governments.

Russia has always boasted high literacy and the largest number of readers.

China has done a lot of work on it but they have a huge language diversity.


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## papillon

Jana337 said:
			
		

> What do you atribute the striking uniformity to? Is there a kind of pressure above, a unifying force that "supervises" the language (like ]Académie française?


I guess this is the big question! Probably Russia/Soviet Union has had some form of a "Russian language" institute, but It can't be very influencial, since I guess most people never heard of it. I've always thought that the uniformity is due mainly to the very long period of centralized government and the contiguous nature of the territory. But it's probabaly more complicated than that.


			
				Jana337 said:
			
		

> By the way, are we talking about accent, or also about vocabulary?


I find accents (or lack thereof!) are more telling. The vocabulary differences appear to be exceptions and we get so excited about them perhaps exactly because they are so rare.

*<...>*


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## jadeite_85

I've listened to the interviews of two Russian athlets (Alexei Yagudin and Liubov Sokolova). Is it just my imagination or their accents are different when speaking Russian? Do they come from different regions? IMO Yagudin speaks in an awkward way. It cannot be the difference male/female because to my ears also the other men as the tv announcer speak differently from Yagudin and similiar to Sokolova. Is it the difference Moscow/Saint Petersburg?

*<...>*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b40CQ95sAVc


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## Ben Jamin

wanderer said:


> Siberian folks sometimes have different pronounciation for 'o', 'e' and 'ч' as I've noticed...
> Belarusians are tend to have different 'a','я','г', for theirs language are softer then russian.
> 
> Anybody heard/used this word before?


 
I got a little bit confused. Do you consider Byelorussian speakers native Russian speakers? Or do you mean Russian speakers living in Byelarussia?
Non native speakers will always have different pronunciation than natives.


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## marco_2

Anatoli said:


> If we talk about regional differences haven't noticed anyone posting about "Ukrainian г", which is so common in the south, Ukraine and Belarus. You can find people pronouncing "Ukrainian г" in all parts of Russia. It's not correct but too common to ignore for learners becasue it can affect your understanding.
> 
> The "Ukrainian г" is pronounced exactly as Czech or Slovak "h", in unvoiced position it's pronounced as Russian "х"


 
I think that apart from "Ukrainian г" another characteristic feature of Southerners' speech is pronunciation of "в" as "u" in some positions (e.g. установка as устаноўка like in Belarussian or partly Ukrainian) - by the way, it is also typical for some Slovak dialects (dievča like dieuča etc.). And I remember that being in Ivanovo and Kostroma I heard оканье everywhere.


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