The Russian Academy of Sciences officially recognized two variants of pronunciation for the words "million" and "milliard."

      According to RIA Novosti, the Institute of the Russian Language of the Russian Academy of Sciences has included two permissible pronunciation variants of the words “million” and “milliard” in the state orthographic dictionary. According to the dictionary, the words may be pronounced both in the traditional way — “million” and “milliard” — and in the colloquial form — “milon” and “milyard.”

      This rule also applies to derivative forms: “millionth” — “milonny”, “milliardth” — “milyardny.”

      The foreword to the dictionary notes that its main goal is to record the orthographic norm, while the normalization of contemporary word usage falls within the remit of explanatory dictionaries. Nevertheless, labels have been added for certain words indicating the acceptability of colloquial pronunciation.

      Experts emphasize that the changes concern primarily stylistically neutral words and allow for taking into account the real features of language use in everyday speech and in official texts.