Linguistic analysis of Karelian language material in P. S. Pallas’s dictionary

Introduction. Old written monuments are the most important source for studying the history of the development of written language, especially in the case of Karelian. This article provides a linguistic analysis of Karelian materials presented in the thesaurus-type dictionary “Comparative Dictionaries of All Languages and Peoples”, published on behalf of Catherine II from 1787 to 1789, under the editorship of P. S. Pallas.
Materials and Methods. The source of this study comprised Karelian language materials from the dictionary. The research centers on translations of 285 concepts categorized as “in Korelian” (No. 56) and “in Olonets” (No. 57). Methodologically, the research leverages philological techniques, including contextual analysis, as well as comparative-historical methods encompassing both external and internal reconstruction approaches.
Results and Discussion. The analysis reveals that the graphic system of the monument effectively mirrors the structural and phonetic characteristics of Southern Karelian (proper Karelian dialect) and Livvik consonantism. However, the representation of vowel sounds exhibits certain limitations, primarily stemming from the inherent complexities in conveying distinct Karelian phonemes through the medium of Cyrillic script. Infrequent nominal and verbal grammatical forms broadly align with the contemporary inflectional systems observed in proper Karelian and Livvik dialects.
Conclusion. The linguistic analysis of multi-dialectal Karelian materials consistently portrays the phonetic, grammatical, and lexical systems of Karelian dialects as they existed in the late XVIII century. This analysis confidently associates the materials from the “Korelian” section of the dictionary with proper Karelian, while materials from the “Olonets” section are attributed to the Livvik dialect of the Karelian language.