Karelian language digital library has been launched
Karelian language texts are now available in digital format. The service is intended for language researchers and the Karelian-speaking people in Finland and Russia. The digital library hosts fifteen rare research works on the Karelian language. The next addition to the library will be birch bark letters from the 13th and 14th centuries, as well as Our Father prayer from mid-16th Century.
According to the establisher of the library, the Karelian Language Association, the digital library has an important role to play for language researchers and revivers both in Finland and Russia. Karelian is spoken by a few thousand people in Finland. Researcher Sanna-Riikka Knuuttila from the Karelian Institute at the University of Joensuu believes that enthusiasts of the Karelian language will find the library, as long as they learn how to use it.
– Old books help us to understand the way the world used to be. The library offers researchers a possibility of having their hands on interesting linguistic resources, in addition to which anyone interested in the texts is welcome to take a look at them, Knuuttila notes and adds that some of the texts are very interesting and humoristic.
The project has been going on for a year and it has been realised together with Russians since some of the books have been discovered in Petrozavodsk.
– A project like this would not be viable without cooperation, Knuuttila admits.
The Karelian digital library can be accessed here (in Finnish): www.karjalankielenseura.fi/digikirjasto.html
