Meeting of the Organizing Committee for the preparation and holding of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages in the Republic of Karelia in 2022-2032

A meeting of the Organizing Committee for the preparation and holding of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages in the Republic of Karelia in 2022-2032 was held.

Opening the meeting, Deputy Head of the Republic for Internal Policy, Chairman of the Organizing Committee Igor Korsakov noted that Karelia became one of the first subjects of the Russian Federation, where the composition of the regional organizing committee was approved, a plan of the main events of the thematic decade was formed and implemented. That allowed to combine efforts to preserve and develop the cultural and linguistic identity of the indigenous peoples of the republic.

The events of the thematic decade are aimed primarily at the development of ethno-cultural education, the digitalization of languages, and the holding of major events in the field of language policy. Among them the Interregional action “Dictation in Karelian and Vepsian languages”, the first Youth session on the ethnocultural development of the indigenous peoples of Karelia “EthnoPRO”, intensive language courses for teachers of the Karelian language, premieres of performances on the stage of the National Theater of Karelia.

Work continued to preserve the linguistic and cultural heritage of the republic and its functioning in the modern digital environment. A portal about the intangible cultural heritage of Karelia “Taju” has been created, a pilot version of the multimedia dictionary of the Karelian language has been launched, 49 copies of book monuments in the Karelian language have been entered into the Register of Book Monuments of the Russian Federation, a module of the speech subcorpus of the “Open Corpus of the Vepsian and Karelian Languages” has been developed, allowing listening to audio recordings in Karelian and Vepsian languages, content has been prepared for launching new sections of multilingual media portal OMA MEDIA – OMA RADIO and OMA TV.

A significant contribution to the events of the International Decade of Indigenous Languages is made by public organizations of Karelians, Veps and Finns of Karelia, implementing their socially significant project initiatives. So, within the framework of the project “Learning together”, with the support of the Grant Fund of the Head of the Republic of Karelia, a series of video tutorials of the Karelian and Vepsian languages “Easy to say?!” was created. One of the central events of the project “Native language is always with you” of the Vepsian Culture Society was the holding of a training session on the Vepsian language for specialists from the Republic of Karelia, Vologda and Leningrad regions.

Summing up the meeting, the members of the organizing committee noted Karelia’s active participation in the International Decade of Indigenous Languages in the Russian Federation.