KARELIAN in RUSSIA ELDIA Case-Specific Report

Studies in European Language Diversity 26 KARELIAN IN RUSSIA ELDIA Case-Specific Report Heini KARJALAINEN, Ulriikka PUURA, Riho GRÜNTHAL, Svetlana KOVALEVA Mainz Wien Helsinki Tartu Mariehamn Oulu Maribor Studies in European Language Diversity is a peer-reviewed online publication series of the research project ELDIA, serving as an outlet for preliminary research findings, individual case studies, background and spin-off research. Editor-in-Chief Johanna Laakso (Wien) Editorial Board Kari Djerf (Helsinki), Riho Grünthal (Helsinki), Anna Kolláth (Maribor), Helle Metslang (Tartu), Karl Pajusalu (Tartu), Anneli Sarhimaa (Mainz), Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark (Mariehamn), Helena Sulkala (Oulu), Reetta Toivanen (Helsinki) Publisher Research consortium ELDIA c/o Prof. Dr. Anneli Sarhimaa Northern European and Baltic Languages and Cultures (SNEB) Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz Jakob-Welder-Weg 18 (Philosophicum) D-55099 Mainz, Germany Contact: [email protected] © 2013 European Language Diversity for All (ELDIA) Cover design: Minna Pelkonen & Hajnalka Berényi-Kiss ELDIA is an international research project funded by the European Commission. The views expressed in the Studies in European Language Diversity are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission. All contents of the Studies in European Language Diversity are subject to the Austrian copyright law. The contents may be used exclusively for private, non- commercial purposes. Regarding any further uses of the Studies in European Language Diversity, please contact the publisher. ISSN 2192-2403 Table of Contents FOREWORD I LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS II LIST OF FIGURES III LIST OF TABLES V 1 INTRODUCTION: WHAT IS ELDIA ABOUT? 1 2 SOCIOHISTORICAL AND LINGUISTIC CONTEXTS 3 2.1 SOCIOHISTORY 10 2.1.1 The Context of the Investigated Language Community 10 2.1.2 Territorial and Political Context 13 2.1.3 Cultural Context 17 2.2 DEMOGRAPHIC CONTEXT 20 2.2.1 Statistics and Basic Demographic Information 20 2.2.2 Assessment of the Criteria That Form the Basis of Existing Information 28 2.2.3 Basic Shortcomings of the Existing Demographic Data 32 2.3 LANGUAGE AND MINORITY POLICIES IN PRACTICE 33 2.3.1 General Context of Language-Political Practices 33 2.3.2 Standardisation of the Karelian Language 36 2.3.3 Language Use in Different Domains 38 2.3.4 Identity-Connected Language-Political Behaviour 46 2.3.5 Gender Aspects of Every-Day Language Policies 46 2.4 LANGUAGES IN CONTACT AND LANGUAGE MAINTENANCE 47 2.4.1 Monolingualism, Bilingualism and Multilingualism 51 2.4.2 Results of Language Contact 56 2.4.3 Perception of Learnability and Willingness to use the Language 57 2.5 CONCLUSIONS 58 3 DATA SAMPLING AND METHODS 60 3.1 INTRODUCTION TO FIELDWORK 60 3.2 SAMPLE SURVEY 62 3.2.1 The Structure of the Minority Language Speakers’ Questionnaire 62 3.2.2 Karelian Language Speakers’ Survey 64 3.2.3 The Structure of the Control Group Questionnaire 66 3.2.4 Russian Control Group Survey 67 3.3 INDIVIDUAL INTERVIEWS WITH KARELIAN SPEAKERS 67 3.3.1 Interview Descriptions 68 3.4 FOCUS GROUP INTERVIEWS 71 3.4.1 Focus Group Interviews with Karelian Speakers 71 3.4.2 Interview Descriptions 72 3.4.3 Focus Group Interviews with Control Group Representatives 76 3.5 SOCIODEMOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION 77 3.6 PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING ELDIA DATA ANALYSES 80 3.6.1 Minority Languages as Part of Multilingualism in Modern Societies 80 3.6.2 The Operational Goal of ELDIA 81 3.6.3 Defining and Measuring Language Vitality 81 3.6.4 Practical Procedures in the Data Analyses 85 3.6.5 Analyses Conducted on Survey Questionnaire Data 85 3.6.6 Analyses Conducted on Interview Data 86 4 NEW DATA ON LEGISLATION, MEDIA, EDUCATION, LANGUAGE USE AND INTERACTION 89 4.1 LEGAL AND INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS 89 4.2 MEDIA ANALYSIS 90 4.3 SOCIOLINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF SURVEY AND INTERVIEW FINDINGS 95 4.3.1 Language Use and Interaction 95 4.3.2 Legislation 154 4.3.3 Media 168 4.3.4 Education 174 5 CASE-SPECIFIC LANGUAGE VITALITY BAROMETER 179 5.1 CAPACITY 181 5.2 OPPORTUNITY 183 5.3 DESIRE 186 5.4 LANGUAGE PRODUCTS 187 5.5 THE VITALITY OF THE KARELIAN LANGUAGE 189 6 CONCLUSIONS 190 REFERENCES 191 WEBPAGES USED 206 LEGISLATION 207 ANNEX 1: POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS 209 ANNEX 2: QUESTIONNAIRES 213 Karelian in Russia – ELDIA Case-Specific Report i Foreword This report, which forms part of the ELDIA research project (described in more detail in Section 1), deals with the situation of the Olonec Karelian language spoken in the Russian Federation. Olonec Karelian is a definitely endangered language primarily spoken by elderly people in a society that favours monolingualism in the dominant language, Russian. Like all the ELDIA Case-Specific Reports, this report was written accordance with a design centrally planned by the ELDIA team of Tartu. The fieldwork was planned and led by Riho Grünthal in cooperation with Nina Zajceva in Petrozavodsk, with the assistance of Heini Karjalainen. Heini Karjalainen and Ulriikka Puura conducted the data analyses and wrote the summaries with assistance from Santra Jantunen. These served as the basis for Sections 4 and 5. The complete text was written jointly by Heini Karjalainen and Ulriikka Puura, with the exceptions of Section 2 by Riho Grünthal and Svetlana Kovaleva, Section 3.6 by Anneli Sarhimaa and Eva Kühhirt, Section 4.1 by Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark, and Section 4.2 by Reetta Toivanen. After this report has been published, abridged versions will be prepared and released online in the Olonec Karelian and the Russian language for a larger non-specialist audience. Since the very beginning numerous people have contributed to our work. Networking in different environments under varying conditions has guaranteed constant progress. We are very grateful to all the organisations, institutions, and devoted people that have helped us in a number of different ways. The reaching of the goals of the entire project including planning, fieldwork, data analysis, and editing of reports would not have been possible without the help of the following people: Lûdmila Alekseeva, Natal’â Antonova, Viktor Birin, Elena Bogdanova, Tat’âna Bojko, Albion M. Butters, Elena Filippova, Natal’â Giloeva, Santra Jantunen, Evgenij Klement’ev, Svetlana Kovaleva, Denis Kuzmin, Il’â Mošnikov, Irma Mullonen, Ol’ga Ogneva, Annika Pasanen, Svetlana Pasûkova, Martti Penttonen, Elena Perehval’skaâ, Svetlana Plûhina, Aleksandra Rodionova, Gennadij Saraev, Zinaida Strogal’ŝikova, Outi Tánczos, Tat’âna Vasil’eva, Konstantin Zamâtin, and Ol’ga Zajceva. We would also like to thank Mr Albion Butters for English language checking; after his careful work, the technical editing, including some minor corrections and clarifications in the text, was done by Michaela Pasterk, under the supervision of Johanna Laakso. The Finnish Cultural Foundation funded the language checking, which we are grateful for. Finally, we also wish to thank those hundreds of anonymous respondents who made it possible to investigate the current situation of the Karelian language community by filling out the questionnaire and participating in the interviews. Karelian in Russia – ELDIA Case-Specific Report ii List of Abbreviations AG1 The age group of 18-29 (male(s) and/or female(s)) AG2 The age group of 30-49: male(s) AG3 The age group of 30-49: female(s) AG4 The age group of 50-64 (male(s) and/or female(s)) AG5 The age group of +65 (male(s) and/or female(s)) CG Control group (in this study Russian speakers) F Female FG Focus group II Individual interview KRL Karelian M Male MajLg Majority language (in this study Russian) MinLg Minority language (in this study Olonec Karelian) Q Question in our questionnaire (e.g. Q7) S Speaker Karelian in Russia – ELDIA Case-Specific Report iii List of Figures Figure 1: The Republic of Karelia and the Finnish Karelian areas ............................................. 3 Figure 2: Schematic map of the dialects of the Karelian language(s) ....................................... 4 Figure 3: National flag of the Karelian people ........................................................................ 18 Figure 4: National flag of the Republic of Karelia ................................................................... 18 Figure 5: Coat of Arms of the Republic of Karelia ................................................................... 18 Figure 6: Age and gender of Karelians in the 2010 census ..................................................... 29 Figure 7: Map of the historical distribution of the Karelian dialects (orange, green, yellow), Lude (red), and Finnish dialects in Finland’s Karelia (blue) ..................................................... 49 Figure 8. Sociodemographic distributions of the Karelians in ELDIA-data .............................. 78 Figure 9. Educational level of the Karelian respondents in the ELDIA data ............................ 78 Figure 10. Educational level of the control group respondents .............................................. 79 Figure 11. Mother tongues of the Karelian MinLg respondents ............................................. 96 Figure 12: Reported mother tongues by age of respondents ................................................. 97 Figure 13: Cross-generational language use, % .................................................................... 103 Figure 14: Cross-generational use of Karelian according to age of respondents .................. 103 Figure 15: Intra-generational language use, % ....................................................................

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