News About us Karelian language Literature Sport Audio Links Contact

Tänäpäi on nelläspäivy, 18 sulakuu 2024

General information about Karelian language Dialects, territory, statistics

Karelian-Russian dictionary Livvi dialect

Vocabulary with pictures

Lessons in pictures Author Tatiana Baranova

Karelian grammar Basic rules

GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT KARELIAN LANGUAGE

Karelian language is a language of Karel people. It is the part of baltic-finnish group of finno-ugric branch of Ural language family. There are 33 thousand people speaking Karelian. 25,6 thousand of them live in Russia from which 15 thousand live in Republic Karelia. The language is used as well among karelian people living in Leningrad region, Tver and Moscow regions of Russia, as well as in Finland, in Nothern and Southern Karelia.

Karelian language has 3 basic dialects: Nothern Karelian, Livvi and Lude. The language uses latin alphabet with several additional letters to express karelian phonetics.

Different books and newspapers are published on Karelian and there are many karelian songs too. On the base of the verbal karelian verses finnish linguist Elias Lönnrot created karelian national epos "Kalevala".