A drifting norm, or microdiachronic adventures of the word ixnij ‘their’ in Russian, Ukranian and Belorussian.

The inflected possessive form of the type of Russian ixnij, its rise and variation across the East Slavic dialects and languages are analyzed. Whereas this form has been long fluctuated on the verge of Standard Russian and nevertheless has not been accepted as normative, it has been successfully adopted into Standard Ukrainian (superseding the older jix form) and widely used in Belarusian, although reluctantly accepted in grammars and dictionaries.