Karelian Legislative Assembly Backs Plan to Create Online Translation Function for Karelian Language

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Feb. 3 – The Karelian language, spoken by only a tiny fraction of the population of Karelia and the only titular language of a non-Russian republic in the Russian Federation that is not the state language of that federal subject, may be about to get a big boost, something that could spark a new growth in Karelian nationalism there.
    Members of the republic’s legislative assembly have come out in support of a proposal by scholars at the Karelian Scientific Center to establish an online translator for Karelian (mariuver.com/2025/02/03/kareljskomu-jazyku-byt-v-cifre/ and karelia-zs.ru/presssluzhba/novosti/deputaty_podderzhali_ideyu_sozdaniya_onlajnperevodchika_karelskogo_yazyka/).
    If this proposal is realized, it will require the compilation of a far more complete Karelian dictionary and that in turn will help save the language, even if some who now speak it will use the translation service to make use of Russian in their public lives, the obvious intent of at least some of those who are backing the idea.
    And such an effort as well as the new dictionary itself will likely slow the demise of Karelian and allow it to become a more important focus of the Karelian national movement. (On Karelian nationalism, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2024/01/after-moscow-labelled-them-foreign.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2020/02/karelian-activists-to-mark-centenary-of.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/04/moscows-russification-policies-not.html.)