Finland will create a program to restore the Karelian language

The University of Eastern Finland will develop a program for restoring the Karelian language, the state budget will allocate money for this, the Finnish edition of Yle reports .

The university will receive financing this and this year, the development of the program should be completed in 2024. The amount of subsidies is not specified.

According to the professor of the Karelian language and culture Helka Riionheimo, at least 11 thousand people speak the Karelian language in Finland. The purpose of the program, he called the support and revival of the Karelian language.

"The responsibility on our shoulders is huge, because we are talking about an entire part of the population, whose language and culture are currently under the threat of disappearance. Our goal is that there are still Karelian-speaking Karelians who know their roots and culture," he said.

Rionheimo specified that the program is aimed at teaching the language of people of different ages, since now native speakers of the Karelian language are mostly elderly people. He noted that in the Karelian language in Finland they speak as long as in Finnish.

Until 2020, the state support for the development of the Karelian language was received by the Society of the Karelian language, but it ceased to exist due to financial problems.