On Russian grammar, the Pomor dialects & languages of the White Sea, publ. on the 02/08/2026

Russian is the only Slavic language that I am able to speak to any extent, apart from a few phrases in Polish I guess. I think Russian is personally my favourite of the Slavic languages, and this stems from that I am drawn to the mystical, scientific and ancient belief systems and mythology held within the Russian language, and of course, its connections to the other indigenous groups of peoples in Russia, to different extents, with Russian, particularly certain dialects of it, having been influenced to different degrees by Uralic languages for example. In this way, Russian folklore and ancient spirituality is to me, like a unique web of connection, Slavic, but representing the northern lands, and linked to Uralic cultures etc. I also very much like the sound of the language and its prosody, its prosody being noticeably different from that of any other Slavic language. 

People have also said to me that one can learn fluently any of the Uralic or other indigenous languages within Russia, rather than learning Russian itself. But on the other hand, whilst this is true, the Russian language in terms of literature, poetry and symbolism, also offers a uniquely ancient perspective into some of these areas. It is feels quite natural for me to speak, and I completed an online Russian course, albeit quickly in parts, on the website Coursera, although I was unable to progress further because I had to rush the end of the course due to the Russian courses being thereafter removed from Coursera, for new applicants at least.  

Russian folklore is also deeply fascinating, and when I have in the past been learning Russian, I have tried to learn nature-based vocabulary quite fast, so I can say things like я знаю, где лес - "I know where there is a forest", я is "I", знаю is the first person singular present tense form of знать - "to know", где means "where", and лес means "forest". One of my favourite words in Russian is небеса - "skies" or "heavens", and I said/thought the other day in Russian when thinking about the sky: птица летает в небесах - "a bird flies in the heavens/skies", from the words птица - "bird", летает - "flies", the third person singular present tense form of летать - "to fly", в means "in" (in this context, anyway), and небесах is the prepositional case form of небеса - "skies" or "heavens", often used in a poetic sense. Another example I could say is у меня есть дом на берегу озера - "I have a house on the shore of the lake", where у means "at" or "by", меня - the genitive and accusative form of я - "I", есть - this word roughly means "there is" or "there are" or "is" or "are", in Russian the verb "to be" is often dropped, but in contexts like saying "I have", есть is used to mean something like "at me is"; дом means "house", берегу is the locative form of берег - "shore", after the preposition на - "on", in this context, and озера means "of the lake", and is the genitive form of озеро - "lake". 

And for example: это наше дерево. Золотая птица живёт в дереве - "this is our tree. (A/the) golden bird lives in the tree". This can be broken down as such: это - "this" or "that" in some contexts, the implied meaning here is "this is", again with Russian not using the verb "to be" in this context, наше - neuter form of наш - "our", дерево - "tree" (a neuter noun). Золотая - the feminine form of золотой - "golden", птица - "bird", живёт - "she/he/it lives", third person singular present tense form of жить - "to live", в - "in" in this context, and дереве - the prepositional form of дерево - "tree". 

And another example: мы знаем, где большие горы - "we know where the big mountains are", which broken down, consists of: мы  - "we", знаем - first person plural present tense form of знать - "to know", где - "where", большие - plural nominative form of большой - "big" or "great", горы - "mountains", nominative plural of гора - "mountain". 

I am trying to give examples here which in some way invoke the natural beautify of Russia and the inherent spirituality and connections to nature within the Russian language. It is interesting for example that дерево - "tree", is cognate to other words for "tree" in Slavic languages, e.g. Slovene drevo - "tree" and to Polish drzewo - "tree"; but the underlying root word is also related to English tree, Norwegian tre - "tree", and ultimately to Celtic words for "oak tree" e.g. Scottish Gaelic darach - "oak tree", and Welsh derwen - "an oak tree". 

The relationships between Slavic languages are vastly different to those between say English and other Germanic languages. Many of the Slavic languages possess a high level of mutual intelligibility, with the west Slavic languages, in particular Polish, being said by some Slavic speakers as being most different. The standard languages of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Montenegro tend to be based upon related standard dialect forms and do not fully represent the dialectal diversity of these countries, whilst Slovenian for example is rather different, with some Slovenian dialects being so different from each other that mutual intelligibility is less. 

Russian has dialects too, although resources on the Russian language in English rarely seem to touch upon Russian dialects. Whilst Russian possesses less dialectal diversity than many languages, historic dialects did develop in parts of Russia, and the differences are obvious when looking at these traditional dialect areas, although these are less obvious in present day times. One dialect group of Russian which I find particularly interesting is that of the Pomors, a Slavic, Russian-speaking people who settled the coastlines of the White Sea and, to some extent, certain other coastal areas of northern Russia. These areas are inhabited by indigenous peoples, speaking various Sámi languages, Tundra Nenets, to the east, and White Sea Karelian or Vienankarjala, but furthermore, the Pomors likely absorbed into their Russian dialect something of the speech of the Bjarmians, a very mysterious, likely Uralic-speaking people connected to the White Sea area. Whilst the Pomors were Christian in many ways, their religious beliefs were equally animistic, and in many respects reflected those of the Uralic-speaking peoples around them; and arguably their beliefs also reflect deep ideas within Russian Slavic spirituality itself. 

The White Sea Karelian language is also interesting, being arguably the closest language to Finnish, except for Meänkieli and Kven. For a small comparison of three words between Finnish and White Sea Karelian, in Finnish "and" is ja, in White Sea Karelian it is: ta, in Finnish "summer" is kesä, but in White Sea Karelian it is: keša, "September" in Finnish is syyskuu, but in White Sea Karelian it is: šyyškuu. 

I hope that this blog post was an interesting read. It is dedicated to the Pomors, Bjarmians and White Sea Karealians, and other indigenous groups around the White Sea, and to all Slavic peoples.