On the assimilation of Russian substantival lexemes in Karelian

Abstract

This study addresses the borrowing of substantival lexical elements from Russian into Karelian, a Baltic Finnic language spoken in northwest Russia. The large Russian component in Karelian is the result of centuries of intensive contact between the two peoples. Various aspects of the ‘Karelianizing’ process are examined here, including consonant cluster simplification and modification, vowel harmony and length, consonant length and gemination, and such morphological questions as the treatment of Russian affixes and the need for a word-final vowel in the new Karelian forms.