Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2013 October 2

= October 2 =

Vowel reduction in Russian and Ukrainian
From what I can gather, akanie is traditionally present in central and southern Russian dialects and absent from northern ones. But it's also absent from Ukrainian. So why is Ukrainian more similar to far-away northern Russian dialects than to nearby southern Russian dialects in this regard? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 16:35, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Akane is an innovation that started with Russian speakers in the south, and never managed to spread to the north, or across the language border into Ukraine. This is an extremely typical situation in linguistics, where a change starts in the middle of a language's range, usually in a densely populated "prestige area" like a national capital, yet the change peters out by the time it gets to the outer borderlands, which retain the older formation.  See linguistic change. μηδείς (talk) 17:14, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually, that article doesn't seem to cover the issue, and I can't find a better one for now. μηδείς (talk) 17:20, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * I noticed the sad state of that important article long time ago, but I don't have enough expertise to improve it. Esteemed RD/L regulars would do a good deed to improve that article at least to a C-class. It would answer many FAQs of this forum. No such user (talk) 09:56, 3 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's believed that the margins are more archaic in some respects than the core region. As I know this way it's explained by Russian linguists (such as Oleg Trubachyov et al.). --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:16, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * The reduction is present in the wide region from Brest to Ryazan, so many linguists of the past singled out "Middle Russian" dialect continuum. From the Soviet times untill today linguistics is mixed with politics and this view is blamed as "imperialistic chauvinistic", unfortunately.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:16, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * Center versus periphery addresses the phenomenon, but not very clearly, and only from the perspective of the Japanese lexicon. Uvular r has a map showing spread from the center, such as frm Berlin.  The article doesn't name the spread phenomenon, however. μηδείς (talk) 18:19, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
 * There is also Wave model, but that article is written from a theoretical point of view. No such user (talk) 09:59, 3 October 2013 (UTC)