The Moscow dialect or Moscow accent (Russian: московское произношение, romanized: moskovskoye proiznosheniye, IPA: [mɐˈskofskəjə prəɪznɐˈʂenʲɪ(j)ɪ]), sometimes Central Russian, is the spoken Russian language variety used in Moscow – one of the two major pronunciation norms of the Russian language alongside the Saint Petersburg norm. Influenced by both northern and southern Russian dialects, the Moscow dialect is the basis of the Russian literary language.
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Moscow Russian in the context of Official languages of the United Nations
There are six official languages used in United Nations (UN) meetings and in which the UN writes and publishes all its official documents. In 1946, five languages were chosen as official languages of the UN: English, French, Russian, Spanish, and Chinese. In 1973, Arabic was voted to be an additional official language. As of 2025, the official languages of the United Nations are:
- English (British English with Oxford spelling), in Latin alphabet;
- French (Metropolitan French – français métropolitain / langues d'oïl) in Latin alphabet;
- Spanish (Peninsular Spanish – español peninsular / castellano) in Spanish alphabet;
- Russian (Moscow Russian – московское произношение moskovskoye proiznosheniye) in the Russian Cyrillic alphabet;
- Chinese (Standard Mandarin – 中文 zhōngwén / 普通话 pǔtōnghuà) in Simplified Chinese characters;
- Arabic (Modern Standard Arabic – العربية al-ʿarabiyyah / الفصحى al-fuṣḥá) in Naskh / Arabic abjad.
According to the UN Charter each of these six languages is equally authoritative although English and French have traditionally received preferential status and are the only two official and working languages of the UN Secretariat. It is an unspoken rule that the UN Secretary General and other high ranking United Nations officials must be fluent (at least C1 – Advanced fluency level according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages / CEFRL) in at least English and French. The UN has struggled to provide parity of all 6 languages as the English language has become the dominant world language in the digital age.