Northern Russian dialects against the common Slavic background

The common Slavic value of northern Russian dialects is revealed by the fact that principal characteristics that set these dialects in opposition to other dialect groups of the Russian language (retention of unstressed o; Ъ reflex; close vowel o; explosive consonant g; pronouncing ch as ts; postpositive pronoun member, etc.) constitute the indicators, which integrate these dialects with other Slavic languages. It has given many scientists the reason to consider them as a separate eastern Slavic idiom, along with the southern Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian ones. At the present time, the question of the internal differentiation of northern Russian dialects and their relations with other Russian and Slavic dialects has not yet been brought forward by linguistic geography, although it is of paramount importance for the history of the Russian language and the typology of Slavia’s dialect areas. In this regard, the study of vocabulary is of particular importance. It should be not just about turning to the “meaningful” and culturally relevant elements of language (vocabulary, toponomastics or phraseology), but also to the layers of culture that stand behind them, i. e. to the forms, types and genres of traditional spiritual and material culture, which are equally “dialectal”, in the words of Nikita Tolstoy, with language, and therefore they equally require geographical studying and comparative research. The elements of traditional culture (ritual forms, beliefs, mythological imagery, patterns of behavior or folklore texts), in quite the same way as language elements, indicate deep-seated ethnic and genetic processes that led to the known types of language and cultural traditions.