The Karelian language landscape in the dialectometric paradigm

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Karelian dialectal speech has been studied by linguists of Finnic languages in Russia and elsewhere for a century and a half, but such issues in Karelian dialectology as the fuzzy distribution of dialectal units over the territory, selection of the fundamental principle for dialectal division, determination of the language status of specific varieties, etc., have so far remained unresolved. This article summarizes the results of a study of Karelian dialectal speech based on archival materials from the 1930s–1970s in the “Dialectological Atlas of Karelian” (1997) performed using the dialectometric method of cluster analysis: the main contrastive phenomena of phonological, morphonological, morphological and lexical linguistic levels are listed, the distribution ranges are described and a typology of their members is provided, the current three-level dialect classification and the periodization of the history of the Karelian language are presented. Three supra-dialects are outlined on the dialect map: Karelian Proper, Livvi, and Ludic. They are distinguished on the basis of isoglosses of the morphological and morphonological systems inherited from the early period in the development of the language. The Karelian Proper supra-dialect rests upon Balto-Finnic Protolanguage and pan-Karelian novel traits; Livvi shows Balto-Finnic archaisms, features coming from the Old Veps substrate, which has affected different language levels, Old Karelian innovations, and its own dialectal features; Ludic incorporates Old Karelian innovations and a pronounced Old Veps substrate. The Karelian Proper supra-dialect was subdivided into three dialects: northern, southern (variants spoken in Central Russia), and a transitional dialect occupying an intermediate position between supra-dialects. Ludic is differentiated into two dialects: the original Ludic and the Pryazha dialect (Ludic variants spoken in the Pryazha District of Karelia), which was heavily influenced in later periods by neighboring Livvi sub-dialects. Variants of the Livvi supra-dialect proved to be relatively uniform. The making of the dialects was shaped by late Old Karelian dialectal differences and intensive contacts in the border areas of the supra-dialects, whereas the twenty sub-dialectal groups became differentiated through relatively recent phonetic and lexical innovations and contact influence of the neighboring languages.