Russian language in Kyrgyzstan: Sociolinguistic, structural, and regional dimensions

Aims and objectives/purpose/research questions: The study examines the variety of Russian spoken in Kyrgyzstan. It aims to discover what non-standard features have developed, how they relate to the contact situation, and what factors influence their emergence. Design/methodology/approach: The study employs several methods: participant observation, elicitation and review of secondary sources (concerning the structure of Kyrgyz), and corpus analysis. Data and analysis: We have utilised notes taken during participant observation in Kyrgyzstan in 2023–2024 and data from open-source oral texts (with a total length of approximately 78 minutes). Findings/conclusions: Our research revealed that three main factors impact the evolution of this particular form of Russian: the proportion of Russian speakers in a specific region of Kyrgyzstan, the influence of the Kyrgyz language on Russian, and internal linguistic variations within the Russian language itself. Originality: The article provides new language data against the background of works mainly focusing on the social aspects of bilingualism in Kyrgyzstan. The discussion of the factors influencing a non-standard variety of Russian can be used in other studies in this framework, many of which focus on either social or structural aspects (but not both) and neglect relevant features unrelated to language contact. Significance/Implications: A comparison of our data with published descriptions of other non-standard varieties of Russian shows that contact-induced phenomena attested in different areas have much in common, but at the same time, they are subject to typological variation.