Southern Russian dialects

• 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, Kursk, Lipetsk, Oryol, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tambov, Tula, Voronezh; and some southern parts of 3 regions: Moscow, Pskov, and Tver • 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, and Far East. == 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 Pskov (southern) and Ryazan 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. ==See also==