Ludic, Ludian, or Ludic Karelian ( or ), is a Finnic language in the

Uralic language family The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers ab ...

or a Karelian dialect. It is transitional between the Olonets Karelian language and the Veps language. It is spoken by 300

Karelians Karelians (; ; ; ) are a Baltic Finnic ethnic group who are indigenous to the historical region of Karelia, which is today split between Finland and Russia. Karelians living in Russian Karelia are considered a distinct ethnic group closely ...

in the

Republic of Karelia The Republic of Karelia, or simply Karelia or Karjala (; ) is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia situated in the Northwest Russia, northwest of the country. The republic is a part of the Northwestern Federal District, and covers an area of ...

in Russia, near the southwestern shore of

Lake Onega Lake Onega (; also known as Onego; , ; ; Livvi-Karelian language, Livvi: ''Oniegujärvi''; ) is a lake in northwestern Russia, on the territory of the Republic of Karelia, Leningrad Oblast and Vologda Oblast. It belongs to the basin of the Baltic ...

, including a few children.

Classification

In the Finnish research tradition, Ludic has been considered a transitional dialect area between Karelian and Veps, while in the Russian research tradition it is, on

ethnographic Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...

grounds, normally considered a dialect of Karelian. A status as an independent language has been proposed in recent times. Ludic is characterised by a specific mixture of Karelian-like traits (such as the diphthongisation of the

Proto-Finnic Proto-Finnic or Proto-Baltic-Finnic is the common ancestor of the Finnic languages, which include the national languages Finnish language, Finnish and Estonian language, Estonian. Proto-Finnic is not attested in any texts, but has been linguisti ...

non-open long vowels: e.g. *pää > ''piä'' 'head', *soo > ''suo'' 'swamp', contrast Veps ''pä'', ''so'') and Veps-like traits (such as an almost complete loss of

consonant gradation Consonant gradation is a type of consonant mutation (mostly lenition but also assimilation) found in some Uralic languages, more specifically in the Finnic, Samic and Samoyedic branches. It originally arose as an allophonic alternation ...

). Like Veps, Ludic has also partially lost

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

Dialects

Ludic comprises three main dialect groups: * Ludic ** Northern (Lake) Ludic, at the northwestern shores of

** Central (River) Ludic, at settlements along river Shuya and near the city of

Petrozavodsk Petrozavodsk (, ; Karelian language, Karelian, Veps language, Vepsian and ) is the capital city of the Republic of Karelia, Russia, which stretches along the western shore of Lake Onega for some . The population of the city is 280,890 as of 2022. ...

** Kuďäŕv (Forest) Ludic, in the Mikhaylovskoye rural locality The strongest Karelian resemblance is found in Northern Ludic, while the Kuďäŕv dialect shares the most features with Veps.

Phonology

Vowels

* Vowel length may also be distinctive.

Consonants

* Sounds only occur in recent borrowings. * can also be heard as a velar . * is heard as velar when preceding velar consonants. * can be lenited as a fricative in intervocalic positions.

Writing system

Ludic is written using the unified Karelian alphabet, but in some publications the letter Ü is used instead of Y, as in Veps.

Phrases

* = Who are you? * = What is this? * = Which one of you is Onni? * = Why are you laughing? * = What time is it? * = When are they coming home? * = He/She leaves tomorrow.

Notes

Literature

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

ISO 639 code sets - SIL InternationalLyydiläinen Seura (The Ludian Society)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ludic Language Languages of Russia Karelian language Indigenous languages of European Russia