Livvi-Karelian (Alternate names: ''Liygi'', ''Livvi'', ''Livvikovian'', ''Olonets'', ''Southern Olonetsian'', ''Karelian''; ) is a

supradialect Supradialect (from Latin , "above", and Ancient Greek , "discourse") is a linguistic term designating a dialectological category between the levels of language and dialect. It is used in two distinctive contexts, describing structural or function ...

of Karelian, which is a

Finnic language The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia. Traditionally, ...

of the

Uralic The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers abo ...

family, spoken by Olonets Karelians (self-appellation , ), traditionally inhabiting the area between Ladoga and Onega lakes, northward of

Svir River The Svir (; ; Karelian and Finnish: ) is a river in Podporozhsky, Lodeynopolsky, and Volkhovsky districts in the north-east of Leningrad Oblast, Russia. It flows westwards from Lake Onega to Lake Ladoga, thus connecting the two largest l ...

. The name "Olonets Karelians" is derived from the territory inhabited, Olonets Krai, named after the town of

Olonets Olonets (; , ; ) is a types of inhabited localities in Russia, town and the administrative center of Olonetsky District of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, located on the Olonka River to the east of Lake Ladoga. Geography Olonets is located ...

, named after the

Olonka River The Olonka (, ) is a river in the Republic of Karelia, Russia. It gave the name to the town of Olonets by the river and eventually to the surrounding territory (Olonets Governorate, Olonets Krai, now Olonetsky District). It flows out of the lake ...

History

Before

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Livvi-Karelian was spoken both in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and in

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

, in the easternmost part of

Finnish Karelia Karelia (: ) is a historical province of Finland, consisting of the modern-day Finnish regions of South Karelia and North Karelia plus the historical regions of Ladoga Karelia and the Karelian Isthmus, which are now in Russia. Historical Kare ...

. After Finland was forced to cede large parts of Karelia to the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

after the war, the Finnish Livvi-Karelian population was resettled in Finland. Today there are still native speakers of Livvi-Karelian living scattered throughout Finland, but all areas in which Livvi-Karelian remains a community language are found in Russia. Speakers of Livvi-Karelian may be found mainly in Olonetsky, Pryazhinsky, Pitkyarantsky, and partly Suoyarvsky districts of the

Republic of Karelia The Republic of Karelia, or simply Karelia or Karjala (; ) is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia situated in the Northwest Russia, northwest of the country. The republic is a part of the Northwestern Federal District, and covers an area of ...

. Livvi-Karelian long remained relatively uninfluenced by the

Russian language Russian is an East Slavic languages, East Slavic language belonging to the Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family. It is one of the four extant East Slavic languages, and is ...

despite the large influx of

Russians Russians ( ) are an East Slavs, East Slavic ethnic group native to Eastern Europe. Their mother tongue is Russian language, Russian, the most spoken Slavic languages, Slavic language. The majority of Russians adhere to Eastern Orthodox Church ...

following the founding of Saint Petersburg in 1703.

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

* Consonants may also occur as

geminated In phonetics and phonology, gemination (; from Latin 'doubling', itself from '' gemini'' 'twins'), or consonant lengthening, is an articulation of a consonant for a longer period of time than that of a singleton consonant. It is distinct from ...

or long . * Sounds are commonly heard from Russian loanwords. * can have allophones of or . * is heard as when preceding or . * Palatalization may occur among different dialects when consonants are preceding vowels .

Alphabet

Livvi-Karelian uses the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

and has the following letters in its

alphabet An alphabet is a standard set of letter (alphabet), letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from a ...

, which is called the

Karelian alphabet The Karelian language is spoken in Russia, mostly in the Karelian Republic and in a small region just north of Tver, though most residents there were expelled in 1939. Karelian has seen numerous proposed and adopted alphabets over the centuries, b ...

: Aa, Bb, Cc, Čč, Dd, Ee, Ff, Gg, Hh, Ii, Jj, Kk, Ll, Mm, Nn, Oo, Pp, Rr, Ss, Šš, Zz, Žž, Tt, Uu, Vv, Yy, Ää, Öö. Until 2007, the ü letter was a part of the Livvi-Karelian alphabet, which has been recommended by the Karelian language board to be instead be changed to the y letter.

Grammar

Livvi-Karelian and its

grammatical case A grammatical case is a category of nouns and noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and Numeral (linguistics), numerals) that corresponds to one or more potential grammatical functions for a Nominal group (functional grammar), n ...

s are quite similar to the

Finnish language Finnish (endonym: or ) is a Finnic languages, Finnic language of the Uralic languages, Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official langu ...

and other related

Finnic languages The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia. Traditionally, ...

. The word 'food' in Livvi-Karelian cases:

Common phrases

Source: Hello! - How are you? - Good night! - Good afternoon! - Do you speak Karelian? - I'm sorry. - You're welcome. - I love you. - Goodbye. - My name is ... - Excuse me. - Help! - Cheers! - Right. - Left. - Yes. - No.. - One. - Two. - Three. - Four. - Five. -

References

External links

*
''Oma Mua'' – a weekly newspaper in Olonets Karelian

{{DEFAULTSORT:Olonets Karelian Language Karelian language Indigenous languages of European Russia Indigenous languages of Europe