Russia

Juhuri

also: Judeo-Tat, Judeo-Tati, Mountain Jewish, Juhuro, Juwuri

A Southwestern Iranian language of the Mountain Jews of the eastern Caucasus, historically classed as a Judeo-Tat variety. Spoken in Krasnaya Sloboda (Quba) in Azerbaijan and Derbent in Dagestan, with substantial Hebrew, Aramaic, and Azerbaijani influence. Written historically in Hebrew script, then Cyrillic from the Soviet period onward.

Ossetian

also: Iron, Digor

An eastern Iranian language of the North Caucasus, the only living descendant of the ancient Scythian-Sarmatian languages. Two main varieties: Iron (the standard) and the more divergent Digor.

Ruska Roma

also: Russian Romani, North Russian Romani, Xaladitka Roma

A Northern Romani variety spoken by the Ruska Roma across Russia and Ukraine, shaped by long and intensive contact with Russian. It was the basis of a short-lived literary standard developed in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s and remains one of the more vital Northern Romani dialects.

Moscow Russian

also: Standard Russian, Moskovskoye

The Moscow-area standard of Russian. The reference variety in education, broadcasting, and most second-language teaching.

Saint Petersburg Russian

also: Petersburg pronunciation

The traditional educated speech of Saint Petersburg. Distinct from Moscow Russian in clearer enunciation of unstressed vowels and a number of lexical preferences.

Northern Russian

The northern Russian dialect group around Vologda and Arkhangelsk. Preserves okanye (clear /o/ in unstressed positions) lost in standard varieties.

Southern Russian

The southern Russian dialect group spanning Voronezh, Rostov, and the broader steppe. Marked by fricative /ɣ/ and a distinct verb-ending system.

Pomor Russian

also: Pomorsky govor

The Russian of the Pomor coastal communities along the White Sea. A North Russian variety with a distinct lexicon shaped by maritime life, fishing, and contact with Karelian and Saami.

Volga Russian

also: Vladimir-Volga dialects, Middle Russian

The Central Russian dialects of the middle Volga, around Nizhny Novgorod and Vladimir. A transitional zone between the Northern and Southern dialect groups.

Ural Russian

also: Uralsky govor

The Russian of the Ural region around Yekaterinburg and Perm. Mixes Northern and Central Russian features with contact influence from local Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages.

Siberian Russian

also: Sibirskie govory

The Russian varieties of Western and Central Siberia, descended from northern-Russian settlers. Distinguished by retained okanye, a conservative lexicon, and contact features from indigenous Siberian languages.

Far Eastern Russian

also: Dalnevostochny govor

The Russian of the Russian Far East around Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. The youngest major regional variety, formed through 19th- and 20th-century settlement; close to standard Russian with regional vocabulary tied to Pacific life.

Buryat

also: Buryat-Mongolian, Buryad

A northern Mongolic language spoken across the Buryat Republic in Russia, northern Mongolia, and parts of north-eastern China. Traditional Buddhist literary language of the Trans-Baikal region.

Kalmyk

also: Kalmyk Oirat, Khalimag

The only Mongolic language of Europe, spoken in the Republic of Kalmykia by the descendants of 17th-century Oirat migrants from Dzungaria. Endangered but officially recognised.

Tatar

also: Tatarça, Volga Tatar

A Kipchak Turkic language of the Volga-Ural region of Russia, centred on Tatarstan and Kazan. The largest minority language of European Russia.

Bashkir

also: Başqortsa

A Kipchak Turkic language of Bashkortostan in the southern Urals. Closely related to Tatar but with distinct phonology and lexicon shaped by the Bashkir steppe heritage.

Sakha

also: Yakut, Sakha tyla

The Siberian Turkic language of the Sakha Republic in north-eastern Russia. The northernmost Turkic language and one of the most linguistically divergent, with extensive Mongolic and Tungusic influence.

Tuvan

also: Tyva dyl

A Siberian Turkic language of the Tuva Republic in southern Siberia. Famous outside Russia for the throat-singing tradition of khoomei, deeply tied to the language's pitch and consonant system.

Chuvash

also: Çăvaşla

The sole surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic, spoken in Chuvashia in the Volga region. Linguistically the most divergent living Turkic language, with features lost everywhere else in the family.

Pontic Greek

also: Romeyka, Pontiaka

The Greek variety historically spoken along the Pontic coast of the Black Sea, brought to mainland Greece by refugees of the 1923 population exchange. Its Anatolian-resident form (Romeyka) survives among Muslim communities near Trabzon.

Sirenik

also: Sireniki Yupik, Old Sirenik

A highly divergent Eskaleut language of the village of Sireniki on the southern Chukchi peninsula, mutually unintelligible with its nearest Yupik relatives and sometimes treated as a third Eskimo branch. Died with its last speaker in 1997; the community now speaks Central Siberian Yupik and Russian.

Old Prussian

also: Prussian, Prūsiskan

The only substantially attested West Baltic language, spoken in historical Prussia around the Sambia peninsula — today's Kaliningrad Oblast and north-eastern Poland. Extinct since the early 18th century, after the 1709–1711 plague; attested in three 16th-century catechisms and the Elbing vocabulary, with a modern reconstruction movement.

Karelian

also: Karjala

A Finnic Uralic language spoken across the Republic of Karelia in Russia and adjacent parts of eastern Finland. Closely related to Finnish but distinct enough to be classified as a separate language.

Komi

also: Komi-Zyrian

A Permic Uralic language of the Komi Republic in northern European Russia. One of the oldest written Uralic languages, with a literary tradition going back to the 14th-century missionary Stephen of Perm.

Chechen

also: Noxçiyn mott

A Northeast Caucasian (Nakh) language and the official language of the Chechen Republic in Russia. The largest Northeast Caucasian language, with around 1.5 million speakers.

Avar

also: Avar macʻ

A Northeast Caucasian language of Dagestan, the largest of the Daghestanian languages. Used as a regional lingua franca across many of Dagestan's small mountain communities.

Lezgian

also: Lezgi

A Northeast Caucasian language of southern Dagestan and northern Azerbaijan. Around 800,000 speakers; one of the most studied Daghestanian languages.

Adyghe

also: West Circassian

A Northwest Caucasian language of the Adygea Republic in Russia. Together with Kabardian, makes up the Circassian language continuum, with a large diaspora in Turkey and the Levant.

Ubykh

also: Pekhi

A Northwest Caucasian language of the Black Sea coast around present-day Sochi, carried to Anatolia in the 1864 deportation. Famous for one of the largest consonant inventories ever recorded — around eighty consonants against two phonemic vowels. Died with its last speaker, Tevfik Esenç, in 1992; extensively documented by Georges Dumézil.

Evenki

A Tungusic language of indigenous reindeer-herding communities across central and eastern Siberia and northern China. The most geographically dispersed Tungusic language.

Nanai

also: Goldi

A Tungusic language of the lower Amur basin, spoken in Russia's Khabarovsk Krai and adjacent China. Around a thousand speakers, all elderly.

Chukchi

also: Lygʼoravetlʼan

A Chukotko-Kamchatkan language of the Chukotka Peninsula in north-eastern Siberia. Around 5,000 speakers; one of the few languages with male and female speech-form distinctions.

Koryak

also: Nymylan

A Chukotko-Kamchatkan language of the Kamchatka peninsula. Spoken by Koryak reindeer herders and coastal communities; sister language to Chukchi within the Chukotian sub-branch.

Itelmen

also: Western Kamchadal

The sole surviving language of the Kamchatkan branch of Chukotko-Kamchatkan, spoken in villages along the western coast of Kamchatka such as Kovran. Only a few elderly fluent speakers remain; known for extremely complex consonant clusters, and structurally so divergent from Chukchi-Koryak that its place in the family is debated.

Ket

The last living Yeniseian language, spoken along the middle Yenisei in central Siberia. Around 200 elderly speakers; recently linked to the Na-Dené family of North America in the controversial Dene-Yeniseian hypothesis.

Nivkh

also: Gilyak

A language isolate of Sakhalin and the lower Amur basin in Russia. Critically endangered; one of the few Paleo-Siberian languages with no demonstrated relatives.