Two pronunciation variants of the words "million" and "billion" have been approved in Russia

The Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences has approved two pronunciation options for the words "million" and "billion". This was reported on August 14 by the RIA Novosti news agency, which reviewed the spelling dictionary of the Russian language as the official language.

According to the dictionary, both pronunciation options are acceptable: for the word "million" — "million", for the word "billion" — "milyard". This rule also applies to other forms of these words: "millionth" — "millionth", "billionth" — "milliard".

The preface of the dictionary states that its task is to fix the spelling norm, and not to normalize modern usage, which is the prerogative of the explanatory dictionary.

It is also clarified that the dictionary includes mostly stylistically neutral words, but for some of them, markings reflecting colloquial pronunciation have been introduced.

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Earlier, on June 8, Maria Kalenchuk, Doctor of Philology, chief researcher at the Vinogradov Institute of the Russian Language, reported that the colloquial pronunciation of the word "beetroot" with an accent on the last syllable in the future may displace the current norm of "beetroot" with an accent on the first syllable. She also stressed that at the moment, only the variant with the accent on the first syllable is fixed as the norm.

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