Introduction: word choice and literary speech

Language lives in spoken and written form. The common, rule-governed form of the language shared by everyone is called adabiy nutq (literary speech), while the variety spoken by people of a particular region is a sheva (dialect); writing mainly uses literary speech. Literary speech relies on set norms of pronunciation, spelling, word choice and punctuation. Speaking a dialect at home or with friends is natural, but in lessons, meetings, documents and public speaking the literary norm is followed. Depending on the area of use, styles of speech are distinguished: conversational, artistic, publicistic, scientific and official. Each style uses its own typical words and sentence structure.