Linguistic review

Similarly as in the case of Polish and standard Russian, the varieties presented here belong to fusional languages whose verbs, for instance, are affected inter aliai.a. by tense or person, nouns by number, case etc.
The dialect that Polish Old Believers brought from the Pskov area had many characteristics of Belarusian dialects. Also on Polish lands, speakers of this dialect remained in touch with the Belarusian population, which influenced their language (Grek-Pabisowa i Maryniakowa 1972: 114Grek-Pabisowa i Maryniakowa 1972 / komentarz/comment/r /
Grek-Pabisowa Iryda & Irena Maryniakowa 1972. „Teksty gwarowe rosyjskie”, w: Antonina Obrębska-Jabłońska (red.) Teksty gwarowe z Białostocczyzny z komentarzem językowym. Warszawa: PWN, s. 113-131.
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In the Old Believers' dialect, there are 5 vowel phonemes in a stressed position: /a, o, e, i(y), u/; whereas in non-stressed positions:

• following hard consonants, directly before the stress there appear: [a, y, u], while after soft consonants: [i, a, e(ẹ)] (the dot below the grapheme indicates higher place of articulation). This variety's characteristic are akanie (vowel reduction; realisation of the Old Russian [o] as [a]), for example: garoχ “pea”, and jakanie (realisation of the Old Russian [je] as [ja]), as in: v ľasu “in (the) forest”. The latter does not always occur due to the influence of standard Russian,
• after hard consonants, in the second place before the stress there appear: [ɘ(a), y, u], for example: kɘmary “mosquitoes”, budavaľi “they were building”, whereas following soft consonants [i(ẹ)], as in: rʼidavoi̯ “private soldier”, vʼẹčarkom “in the evening”,
• after hard consonants and after the stress there appear: [ɘ(a), y, u], for example: dva synɘ “two sons”, whereas following soft consonants [i(ẹ), ạ], as in: rʼemnim “(with) a belt”, pytałsʼạ “he tried”.

Moreover, there appear the phenomenon of the second pleophony is in evidence, as in: mɘłanʼja “lightning”, and also prothetic (etymologically unjustified) vowels [a], [i], as in: aχlʼef “pigsty”, ir'ža “rust”, ił'gat' “to lie”.
In comparison to the standard Russian language, the Old Believers' dialect contains more consonants, such as non-palatalised (hard) [č], as in: čyvo “(of) which”, “what”, palatalised [cʼ], as in: sʼcʼeškɘ “path”, and [u̯], as in: bʼeuyi “white”, pašou̯ “he went” (Grek-Pabisowa i Maryniakowa 1972: 114-115Grek-Pabisowa i Maryniakowa 1972 / komentarz/comment/r /
Grek-Pabisowa Iryda & Irena Maryniakowa 1972. „Teksty gwarowe rosyjskie”, w: Antonina Obrębska-Jabłońska (red.) Teksty gwarowe z Białostocczyzny z komentarzem językowym. Warszawa: PWN, s. 113-131.
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A majority of masculine and neuter nouns have plural nominative suffix -y/-i, for example: głazy “eyes”, vʼosły “village”, dɘχtarʼi. More frequently than in standard Russian, feminine nouns of the old consonant declension are assimilated to the -a declension, as in: dočɘ “daughter”, matkɘ “mother”. Verbs mʼetʼ “have”, musʼitʼ “must”, jisʼtʼ “be” are present and frequently used, probably due to the influence of Polish.
Active past participles are used as predicate (this characteristic appears also in other linguistic varieties of Podlachia), as in: kot najefszy kak boczka “the cat is full as a barrel (having had eaten so much)”.
There also exists the relic pluperfect tense, for example: adno ucha safsiem tam gniľ jeśť był benbenak zgni “there is pus in one ear, the ear-drum (had) putrefied” (Grek-Pabisowa i Maryniakowa 1972: 115-116Grek-Pabisowa i Maryniakowa 1972 / komentarz/comment/r /
Grek-Pabisowa Iryda & Irena Maryniakowa 1972. „Teksty gwarowe rosyjskie”, w: Antonina Obrębska-Jabłońska (red.) Teksty gwarowe z Białostocczyzny z komentarzem językowym. Warszawa: PWN, s. 113-131.
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