Russian Accents

[JayH]

Russian Accents

How distinguishable are Russian accents? Country to country? Area to area? etc
Hard to use UK as an example of quite diverse accents as many are so different to almost not being the same language!
Here in my city-- historically the way people spoke could almost tell you what part of the city they came from-- what education level etc. These days with TV having a huge effect it is not as immediately clear as people generally speak much better and the accents are more neutral.
Regardless of all that it is still possible be able to identify different accents from different parts of the country--it is not foolproof .So here in Australia we all speak English( well an Australian version!!) with nothing like the variance of accents of the UK-- but often noticeably different.
Anyone comment on Russian accents and locales??

[Muzh_1]

Unless you are from the area, you'll never notice the difference. 

[Ste]

I think there is one big variation, South Russians have a softer G, hribi as against gribi for mushrooms.

My missus coming from Urals says Muscovites spot her as from Urals cos Urals folks use -to a lot more, ie chto-to, kto-to, not really an accent tho...

[missAmeno]

If you talking about our accents when we are speaking english then ...

Accent will be very much personal to every single person, many factors will effect it including how we learned language, how often use it, do we live in english speaking country or not. There will be huge difference between someone learning english while living in FSU and never visiting/living in english speaking contry with someone from FSU who have been living for number of years in english speaking country. Now add to it difference of someone living and learning english in USA with someone in UK, or Canada, or any other english speaking country. Then of course add origins of person: Russia, Ukraine, Caucasus, Baltics, etc. Add how many years person been speaking english and possible mix from other languages that person knows and may be even use on daily bases. You will get so many varieties of accents that in most cases (but not always) almost impossible to distinguish  exact country of origins, nevertheless it still easy to pick up that person is from Eastern Europe or FSU country.

The accent from video below is perfect example of one that often used in american and british movies, always makes me laugh.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/xks7xtwhRY8" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/xks7xtwhRY8</a>


If you want to try to distinguish difference between accents of people from different FSU countries, here for you few examples. Good luck  , you will need it 

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/BGA_qdc99qc" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/BGA_qdc99qc</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/W1Wt8ka366U" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/W1Wt8ka366U</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/06bJEzduwcY" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/06bJEzduwcY</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z1PFO9GHYDg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/Z1PFO9GHYDg</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/sX5dcjCHATo" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/sX5dcjCHATo</a>

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/j3E7m3a7jos" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/j3E7m3a7jos</a>



And this one is good comparison of Russian and Ukrainian accents   

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/xEBqwkxBqhE" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">http://www.youtube.com/v/xEBqwkxBqhE</a>


If you talking about our accents when we are speaking russian or any other FSU countries language then ... yeah, its easy distinguishable in most cases as of country and often even what part/city from that country (of course only if you have previous experience and know how accent there sounds).

[Manny]

My wife doesn't speak English with a typical Russian inflection. Although she still has a strong accent, she gets mistaken from everything from French to Swedish. Occasionally people think her Polish.

For fun, when strangers ask where she is from, she usually says "Manchester". People are so PC indoctrinated here, they seldom ask again with what they really meant. 

[andrewfi]

There are regional differences in accent. I have heard Muscovites mock people from the regions for their provincial accents and I can hear a difference between the way that Russian speakers from, for example, Saint Petersburg and Tallinn talk.
For me it is at least partly a thing that I can more easily understand the way that local Russian speakers talk without recognising just what the differences are.

Incidentally it has been suggested by those who know about such things that Estonian Russian is developing into a dialect; it'd be odd if the same was not true in other areas now that the political and social process of Russification is no longer occurring.

[NS1]

I don't have an accent, you do

[Bill]

My wife has a superpower she can spot Russians not only by their accent but also just by their looks without them uttering a single word. When we were living together in Russia we traveled in Europe and to some resorts in the Middle East.  Whether it was a babushka on the bus in Germany, a young Russian man on the beach in Greece or Russian women shopping in Paris she could tell if they were Russian. The Russians in the resorts in the Middle East were easy even I could usually spot them, but the fact that she can spot Russians among the citizens of a foreign city I still find amazing.

[Manny]

the fact that she can spot Russians among the citizens of a foreign city I still find amazing.

My wife can do the same. 

[Chris]

I think most of them have these super powers 

[Larry]

The Russians in the resorts in the Middle East were easy even I could usually spot them

Was it the leopardskin bikinis or the absence of cellulite among the women?

[Vinnvinny]

The Russians in the resorts in the Middle East were easy even I could usually spot them

Was it the leopardskin bikinis or the absence of cellulite among the women?

They are usually with overweight men in Speedo's. It's a give-a-way.

[missAmeno]

The Russians in the resorts in the Middle East were easy even I could usually spot them

Was it the leopardskin bikinis or the absence of cellulite among the women?

No, its almost always written on our foreheads. We can change style of clothing and get the cellulite but it doesnt help to change our typical Slavic features.

[JayH]

If you talking about our accents when we are speaking english then ...

And this one is good comparison of Russian and Ukrainian accents   

If you talking about our accents when we are speaking russian or any other FSU countries language then ... yeah, its easy distinguishable in most cases as of country and often even what part/city from that country (of course only if you have previous experience and know how accent there sounds).

  I was asking about Russian speaking Russian accents and regionalised differences specifically.I am interested in how immediately obvious it is.In Ukraine I have often heard it said that individual considers themself  Russian-- and in fact can point to the time that they/family moved to Ukraine.
  As far as Russian speakers accent when speaking English-- I read with interest all the comments here--I have a very strong recollection about 15 years ago of meeting a very  beautiful Russian speaking girl who spoke with an accent that was very similar to French /English accent( she was young and married to older Aus guy and I have never forgotten her!!). I have heard similar accent a few times now-- and it always reminds me of that girl!
 missA--- I am still imagining what a Welsh accent will do to the Russian accent!!    

[Millaa]

I was asking about Russian speaking Russian accents and regionalised differences specifically.I am interested in how immediately obvious it is.In Ukraine I have often heard it said that individual considers themself  Russian-- and in fact can point to the time that they/family moved to Ukraine.

What do u mean - accent or dialect?
Uzbek workers here talk Russian with accent.
Seems to me Russian Far East is the region where no typical dialect, I'm talking on average Russian, but can easy determine a person from Saratov, Moscow, Ural or Vyatka region  cuz their very specific pronunciation.
BTW, one guy I know after few years teaching in Monash started talking Russian with kangoroo accent 

[JayH]

I was asking about Russian speaking Russian accents and regionalised differences specifically.I am interested in how immediately obvious it is.In Ukraine I have often heard it said that individual considers themself  Russian-- and in fact can point to the time that they/family moved to Ukraine.

What do u mean - accent or dialect?
Uzbek workers here talk Russian with accent.
Seems to me Russian Far East is the region where no typical dialect, I'm talking on average Russian, but can easy determine a person from Saratov, Moscow, Ural or Vyatka region  cuz their very specific pronunciation.
BTW, one guy I know after few years teaching in Monash started talking Russian with kangoroo accent 

I had in mind what I would call an accent--I would define a dialect differently.
Monash( is university in Melbourne) guy changed as Russian accent as a result? It can happen to Australian when in USA  south-- you slow down the speed and and soon enough start mimicking the emphasis in words -- all in the interests of making yourself understood without having to repeat everything-- and soon enough you are close to having southern accent ( to non english speakers it is quite distinctive and obvious to everyone else  and recognisable to area in USA described as the "south" . I probably had in mind more subtle differences of accents more like eg Canadian ( Vancouver/Toronto) to American ( Boston/Detroit).
 In FSU example-- comparison from Moscow/Kiev -- to say Kiev/Sevastopol/Odessa/Zaporozhye.

[Boris]

After being married to a Russian for over two years I now speak English with Russian accent. Southern Russian, I think..

[missAmeno]

  I was asking about Russian speaking Russian accents and regionalised differences specifically.I am interested in how immediately obvious it is.In Ukraine I have often heard it said that individual considers themself  Russian-- and in fact can point to the time that they/family moved to Ukraine.
  As far as Russian speakers accent when speaking English-- I read with interest all the comments here--I have a very strong recollection about 15 years ago of meeting a very  beautiful Russian speaking girl who spoke with an accent that was very similar to French /English accent( she was young and married to older Aus guy and I have never forgotten her!!). I have heard similar accent a few times now-- and it always reminds me of that girl!
 missA--- I am still imagining what a Welsh accent will do to the Russian accent!!    

Many accents are very easy distinguishable, specially the ones from Caucasus: georgian, armenian, chechen, kabardinian, ossetian, dagestanian.

In Ukraine is quiet easy to distinguish if person from North, South-West or South-East. Also there many dialects and that often defines pronunciation and accent when speaking russian language.
In Russia there also dialects but example for me (as I am not russian) its much harder to recognize them.

The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly (the phenomenon called okanye/оканье). Besides the absence of vowel reduction some dialects have high or diphthongal /e~i̯ɛ/ in the place of Proto-Slavic *ě and /o~u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (like in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/. In morphology it has an interesting feature as a post-posed definite article -to, -ta, -te similarly existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian.

In the Southern Russian dialects unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (like in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced /a/ in such positions (e.g. несли is pronounced [nʲasˈlʲi], not [nʲɪsˈlʲi]) – this is called yakanye/яканье. Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/, a semivowel /w~u̯/ and /x~xv~xw/, whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/, /v/, final /l/ and /f/, respectively. In morphology it has a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). Some of these features such as akanye/yakanye, a debuccalized or lenited /ɡ/, a semivowel /w~u̯/ and palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs are also present in modern Belarusian and some dialects of Ukrainian (Eastern Polesian), indicating a linguistic continuum.

The city of Veliky Novgorod has historically displayed a feature called chokanye/tsokanye (чоканье/цоканье), where /tɕ/ and /ts/ were confused. So, цапля ("heron") has been recorded as 'чапля'. Also, the second palatalization of velars did not occur there, so the so-called ě² (from the Proto-Slavic diphthong *ai) did not cause /k, ɡ, x/ to shift to /ts, dz, s/; therefore where Standard Russian has цепь ("chain"), the form кепь [kʲepʲ] is attested in earlier texts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language#Dialects

[NS1]

  I was asking about Russian speaking Russian accents and regionalised differences specifically.I am interested in how immediately obvious it is.In Ukraine I have often heard it said that individual considers themself  Russian-- and in fact can point to the time that they/family moved to Ukraine.
  As far as Russian speakers accent when speaking English-- I read with interest all the comments here--I have a very strong recollection about 15 years ago of meeting a very  beautiful Russian speaking girl who spoke with an accent that was very similar to French /English accent( she was young and married to older Aus guy and I have never forgotten her!!). I have heard similar accent a few times now-- and it always reminds me of that girl!
 missA--- I am still imagining what a Welsh accent will do to the Russian accent!!    

Many accents are very easy distinguishable, specially the ones from Caucasus: georgian, armenian, chechen, kabardinian, ossetian, dagestanian.

In Ukraine is quiet easy to distinguish if person from North, South-West or South-East. Also there many dialects and that often defines pronunciation and accent when speaking russian language.
In Russia there also dialects but example for me (as I am not russian) its much harder to recognize them.

The Northern Russian dialects and those spoken along the Volga River typically pronounce unstressed /o/ clearly (the phenomenon called okanye/оканье). Besides the absence of vowel reduction some dialects have high or diphthongal /e~i̯ɛ/ in the place of Proto-Slavic *ě and /o~u̯ɔ/ in stressed closed syllables (like in Ukrainian) instead of Standard Russian /e/ and /o/. In morphology it has an interesting feature as a post-posed definite article -to, -ta, -te similarly existing in Bulgarian and Macedonian.

In the Southern Russian dialects unstressed /e/ and /a/ following palatalized consonants and preceding a stressed syllable are not reduced to [ɪ] (like in the Moscow dialect), being instead pronounced /a/ in such positions (e.g. несли is pronounced [nʲasˈlʲi], not [nʲɪsˈlʲi]) – this is called yakanye/яканье. Consonants include a fricative /ɣ/, a semivowel /w~u̯/ and /x~xv~xw/, whereas the Standard and Northern dialects have the consonants /ɡ/, /v/, final /l/ and /f/, respectively. In morphology it has a palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs (this is unpalatalized in the Standard and Northern dialects). Some of these features such as akanye/yakanye, a debuccalized or lenited /ɡ/, a semivowel /w~u̯/ and palatalized final /tʲ/ in 3rd person forms of verbs are also present in modern Belarusian and some dialects of Ukrainian (Eastern Polesian), indicating a linguistic continuum.

The city of Veliky Novgorod has historically displayed a feature called chokanye/tsokanye (чоканье/цоканье), where /tɕ/ and /ts/ were confused. So, цапля ("heron") has been recorded as 'чапля'. Also, the second palatalization of velars did not occur there, so the so-called ě² (from the Proto-Slavic diphthong *ai) did not cause /k, ɡ, x/ to shift to /ts, dz, s/; therefore where Standard Russian has цепь ("chain"), the form кепь [kʲepʲ] is attested in earlier texts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_language#Dialects

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Ahh where does the Welsh/ Russian Dialect fit in that map