Practical lexicography of the Karelian language in the Institute of Language, Literature and History of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Authors:   Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History of Karelian Research Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences, Nagurnaya Svetlana V. 
Published: December 2024

The article considers the stages of the formation of the lexicographic tradition during the revitalization of Karelian writing. Practical lexicography has gone from the publication of educational dictionaries to the creation of bilingual academic dictionaries and further to the creation of innovative projects based on corpus research. The development of practical lexicography began in the early 1990s, at the dawn of the revival of Karelian writing. Educational dictionaries appeared at that time. The development of terminology was promoted by the publication of bulletins of terminological vocabulary, which were prepared by the Terminology and Orthography Commission. By the beginning of the revitalization of writing in the Karelian language, gaps were felt in such layers of vocabulary as scientific, technical, urban, socio-political. The period of the 1990s-2000s became a period of neologic boom, the active creation of new vocabulary. The vocabulary was tested on the pages of the Oma Mua newspaper, where there was a separate column “What do you think?”. Readers urged word-creators to adhere to the principle of purism. Of great importance in the creation of normative dictionaries was the preparation and publication of dictionaries of dialect vocabulary, the materials of which were subsequently used to create large bilingual dictionaries of the academic type. The materials of dialect dictionaries became the basis for the formation of the spelling norm. The issues of correlation of dialects of the Karelian language are being solved in the Linguistics Sector of the Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History of the Karelian Research Centre of the Russian Academy of Sciences using cluster analysis methods. In the 2000s, fundamental lexicographic works were published - large bilingual dictionaries of the normalized Karelian language. Coining new words, compilers made a full use of the internal resources of the Karelian language. Words formed in this way are perceived by the population more favorably than unfamiliar borrowings, which require adaptation. In 2022, the Grammar and Spelling Dictionary of the Karelian Language appeared, which is the result of many years of work by linguists, teachers, and journalists. The dictionary regulates the tested rules and norms of the Livvi new written version. Under the conditions of developing computer communication, linguists, along with the preparation of paper dictionaries, moved on to the creation of electronic lexicography products. The VepKar information and reference system, which currently includes over 65,000 entries in 46 dialects, is a dynamic full-text national corpus of the Vepsian and Karelian languages. Dictionaries are the most popular publications during the period of revitalization, they have a positive effect on increasing the prestige of the written Karelian language. The author declares no conflicts of interests.