Talk:Karelian language

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[edit] Old talk

Karelian is a variety closely related to Finnish.

Does this mean Karelian is a variety of Finnish or a language closely related to Finnish? Efghij

It means (at the moment) that the writer(s) of this paragraph don't participate in the dispute whether Karelian is a language or a "dialect". The issue is elaborated in the (currently) last paragraph.

Is Finland-Swedish a language or a dialect?
Is Meän kieli?

Finland-Swedish is clearly a dialect. Except for the pronunciation, the differences are very small.

-- Ruhrjung 05:00 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Attempts to standardize Karelian with a Cyrillic alphabet were unsuccessful, and today the Karelian republic (of the Russian federation) consider Karelian a dialect of Finnish, why Finnish is one of its official languages.

Is that suppose to read Why Finnish is one............... or perhaps it should be where Finnish ?

Smith03

Thank you for pointing this out!
-- Ruhrjung 14:46 9 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Karelian is its own language, and so is Finnish. The trick here is that the languages "bleed" into one-another on a dialect continuum. Thus, there are Karelian dialects of Finnish which are clearly dialects, and things that can generally be understood by all Finns. If presented with a sample of Southern Karelian, however, they would most likely have trouble understanding, but it would still be somewhat intelligable.

I guess this situation would be comparible to Spanish as spoken in Spain "bleeding" into Portuguese. It would be very important to mention this in the article. If you would like more info on Karelian, I'd be happy to provide it. It's one of my favourite languages (though primarily, I'm interested in Tver' Karelian) ;).

Some dialects in this continuum that are farther apart are just too phonetically (and phonologically) different for me to want to say that Karelian is a dialect of Finnish. For instance, in some dialects of Karelian, vowel harmony has an affect on consonant quality and palatization, whereas in other dialects (and Finnish) this doesn't happen. Either way, I think that calling Karelian a dialect of Finnish would be too Finno-centrist, to coin a word. Though, certainly "variety" is a good way to get around this.

I guess I would argue that it isn't the geopolitics of it all that conditions whether or not you consider Karelian a dialect or a language. There is some language in Russian Karelia that is spoken that seems more Finnish to me than the Karelian that is spoken in Tver'/Kalinin.

I just hope that providing my comments gives you more ideas as to how to describe Karelian.  :)

-- Alcarilinque 16:30 14 Nov 2004 UTC

[edit] Salvaged text

The following piece was commented out in the article. Please see what to do with it. Mikkalai 02:38, 24 Jan 2005 (UTC)

<!- Don't think this is necessary here. Particularly by Finnish linguists, Karelian may be classified as a dialect of Finnish, although the variety spoken in East Karelia is usually seen as a proper language. [1]

Others, for instance many foreign linguists and some people in Estonia and Russia, consider the Karelian variety a language of its own (although almost extinct), similarly to how the dialects of Ingria by Finns often are considered dialects of Finnish proper, but in Estonia often are considered languages of their own; and also similarly to Meänkieli.

The dialects spoken in the South Karelian Region of Finland, where many refugees were re-settled, are considered to be part of the South Eastern dialects of the Finnish language. The dialect spoken in the Karelian Isthmus before World War II and the Ingrian language are also seen as part of this dialect group, in Finland denoted as Karelian dialect'. [2] ->

We should underline the fact that only few Finnish linguists think that Karelian language is a dialect of Finnish and that it is old way of thinking. The new is that Karelian is own language just as seen in the map on Finnish Kielitoimisto page: [3]. Same is with Ingria and Meänkieli.

'Karelian dialect' is wrong term. The right is 'South Eastern dialects of Finnish language'.

So, my version:

'Earlier, by some Finnish linguists, Karelian may be classified as a dialect of Finnish. Today, however, the variety spoken in East Karelia is usually seen as a proper language. [4]

The dialects spoken in the South Karelian Region of Finland, where many World War II refugees were re-settled, are considered to be part of the South Eastern dialects of the Finnish language. The dialect spoken in the Karelian Isthmus before World War II and the Ingrian language are also seen as part of this dialect group, in Finland sometimes wrongly denoted as Karelian dialect. [5]'

Kahkonen 09:34, 2005 Jan 25 (UTC)

I have no expertise in this topic. Please update the article, if you feel necessary. (Anyway, it seems that it already says something along these lines, although not so clearly.) Mikkalai 18:34, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

http://www.karelia.ru/Karelia/smi_e.html Lists newspapers in Karelia published in Karelian, and in Finnish. So they consider there to be a distinction. Secretlondon 12:13, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Orthographic issues

Why must the IPA be used for the examples on Karelian affricates. What I mean is that I perfectly understand the use as a pronunciation guide, but in the words in Karelian the letter 'c' is used to represent [ts]. I am not aware of 'c' being used in any of the Karelian orthographies I've come across, rather 'ts' would be used, as in Finnish. --Alcarilinque 14:34, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

That section says that because of the existence of affricates in Karelian, unlike standard Finnish, the Finnish orthography is extended to cover them. This explains the existence of č and other letters. However, it also seems (e.g. this webpage) that c is used in place of Finnish ts. It seems that in Finnish this is not a true phoneme, where in Karelian it is. — Gareth Hughes 15:11, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Though I realize the point is comparison here, it might be important in this case to use a different word, like socializma, where we know that that affricate is written in that particular way. One thing to note however, is that that may be from older orthography, since Karelian orthography hasn't ever remained standard over the course of the last century. If you look at this other source for instance, ts is used, even in a loan word: Konstitutsie. Other cases show that c is used in loan words, but in a Karelian word? Most places you'd find an equivalent of ts in Finnish show a č in Karelian, i.e. eččie pro fi. etsiä, ičče pro itse, and kaččuo pro. katsoa. I guess you could argue dialectical variation, and I'm only basing my comments off of more Southern dialects, but... What source does the word kucu come from? I know it in Karelian as coming from the word kuččuo, in which a different affricate completely is used, and this equates to the Finnish kutsua. --Alcarilinque 12:42, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

The letter c is often used to transliterate the Cyrillic Ц, as č is often used for Ч, so it may be that this is an older orthography. Under Finnish influence, I'm sure replacing the older c with ts is happening. Therefore, it might be best to edit the article to say that both orthographies are used. — Gareth Hughes 13:06, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

I've added a change then, but you don't mind if 'kucu' is adjusted to 'kutsu'? I've never seen that before, but then as I said I'm thinking more about modern orthographies as featured in the newspaper Karielan Šanat, which is in Tver' Karelian. --Ryan 11:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)