Karelian Proper is divided into two main dialects, which areNorthern Karelian and South Karelian.[5] The terms North and South Karelian are often avoided to avoid conflict with theRegions of Finland;North Karelia andSouth Karelia. Karelian Proper and most of its dialects are mostly mutually intelligible with theFinnish language, however Karelian Proper is not entirely mutually intelligible with Livvi-Karelian.[6]
Scheme of dialects of the Karelian language includes Karelian Proper supradialect, Livvi-Karelian supradialect, Ludian supradialect.
/b, d, ɡ, z, ʒ/ are consonants found in loanwords in Karelian Proper alongside; /dʲ lʲ nʲ rʲ sʲ tʲ/ (/zʲ/ aspalatalized consonants in loanwords only in Karelian Proper. In South Karelian (Tver Karelian), /dʲ lʲ nʲ rʲ sʲ tʲ zʲ/ also exist aspalatalized consonants.
Grammatical cases of Karelian Proper is extremely similar to the Finnish language and to other relatedBaltic-Finnic languages. These are the grammatical cases forfood:[11]
Until the 1930s, no Karelian language nor dialect had an official alphabet, and theCyrillic alphabet was sometimes used until then. From 1930 to 1931 a new alphabet was developed and all Karelian languages adopted theLatin alphabet.
In 2007, the currentKarelian alphabet was adopted by theRepublic of Karelia, making it a uniform script for all Karelian languages. This unified alphabet was approved in 2007 as a replacement to deal with the separateOlonets Karelian and Karelian Proper alphabets.[12] The main difference between the two alphabets is the inclusion of the letterC.
^abThe consonants/f/ and/ts/ are found in loanwords (except Ludic Karelian, which has/ts/ in native words). The consonants/b,d,ɡ,z,ʒ/ are found only in loanwords in Karelian Proper (North), but occur in native words in other varieties of Karelian.
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