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 – one of the two major pronunciation norms of the Russian language alongside the Saint Petersburg norm. 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 [v].
The North	ponjatno	što	ničevo
Old St. Petersburg	panjatna	čto	ničego
The South	panjatna	što	ničevo
Source: [1]

References