Karelian language revitalization

Alongside teaching and researching Karelian, revitalizing the Karelian language a special duty of the University of Eastern Finland.

The revitalization and development of Karelian aim to support written and spoken Karelian. Other important goals of the work are creating language materials in Karelian and raising awareness. Revitalization work can be done in collaboration with, for example, individuals and organizations, and members of the Karelian-speaking community are included whenever possible. The university closely collaborates with the Institute for the Languages of Finland, and the university is strongly represented in the Karelian Language Board operating under the institute. From 2026 to 2029 the revitalization work is additionally supported by the online dictionary project for the Karelian language, carried out by the University of Eastern Finland with funding from the Finnish Cultural Foundation.

The teaching and revitalization of the Karelian language support each other. At the University of Finland, Karelian is revitalized by university lecturer Ilja Moshnikov, university teachers Natalia Giloeva, Olga Karlova and Niko Tynnyrinen, and part-time teacher and project researcher Elena Rapa. In addition to teaching, research and material work, their work involves, for example, community relations and social impact, and creating new vocabulary in Karelian.

The revitalization work of Karelian has a blog, where we share monthly newsletters as well as materials in Karelian and information about events and current topics related to the Karelian language. On the blog, you can find texts and audio and video files in Karelian as well as different types of tips and resources for learning Karelian. The blog also includes more information on the language specialists and the kinds of topics you can contact them about.

Link to the blog: link.