Russian Increasingly Divided by Ever More Distinct Dialects, Despite Not Having Published Dialect Dictionary in a Decade

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 11 – The Russian language, despite Putin’s efforts to suggest that it is a closely united and uniting language, is in fact increasingly divided into dialects sufficiently different from one another that residents in one place can’t understand residents in another and that the use of some terms instantly identifies individuals as locals or outsiders.

             Before 2014, the Russian government supported the publication of dialect dictionaries (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/07/russia-stopped-publishing-dialect.html), but since that time, it has not, despite the fact that ever more media outlets are pointing out just how different these dialects are becoming.

            The latest to do so is Sever-Press.Ru which declares that “in each region of Russia, there are words and expressions which only local residents understand” and which ignorance of which marks the speaker or writer as an outsider (sever-press.ru/narrative/obschestvo/govori-kak-mestnyj-regionalnyj-slovar-s-kotorym-vy-vezde-budete-svoim/).

            Among the many examples it gives from around the Russian Federation are the following: Muscovites call Red Square “the zero mile place” because that is where everything in Russia is measured from there, and St. Petersburgers call the 1000 ruble note “the ton,” possibly for reasons other than irony.

            Further from the capitals, the dialects are more different from  oth the Moscow standard and each other, something that both reflects and promotes regional identities, the portal continues. This is especially the case of Siberia and the Russian Far East, which use a dialect that draws on Chinese and local non-Russian languages.

            For background on the dialects of Russian, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/01/regional-dialects-mean-many-russians.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/11/regionalization-of-russian-language-now.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/06/internet-not-killing-off-dialects.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/04/russians-from-provinces-need-to-speak.html.