The Veps language is one of many near-relatives of the Finnish language which is faced with the prospect of language death. Estimates put the number of speakers at around 3,000. The language is no longer being passed from one generation to the next, nor does it have an established position in the school curriculum, electronic media or urban society. Nonetheless the contemporary world also determines Vepsian life. What’s happening with the language?

Professor Riho Grünthal has an answer:

– Language usage is gradually shifting and this cultural change can be seen in the different generations’ ability and willingness to use minority languages, like Veps. The decline of speech communities and language change are laws of nature, which are complied with when the minority language speakers start adopting the dominant language in place of the traditional one.

Veps language change takes place over decades. Urbanisation, the deterioration of the road network, closing schools and a sustained period of low fertility all feed into the process. Language change has taken place more rapidly in the towns, but the ageing village populations are no guarantee of linguistic continuity. Veps is an Eastern Finnic language and it offers a rare insight into the development of the area in which these languages are spoken.

– The structure of Veps differs in a number of ways from other languages which share the same historical roots, such as Finnish and Estonian. For example, its case system has undergone many changes. But the area where it is spoken–between Lake Ladoga, Lake Onega and Beloe ozero–has also resulted in all kinds of language contact between Russian and other local forms of spoken Slavic languages.

The sociolinguistic status of Karelian and Veps was examined further in the Eldia project, an international survey of minority languages conducted between 2010 and 2013. Riho Grünthal is currently completing a grammar of Veps.

Further reading:

• Riho Grünthal. 2009. Kieliyhteisön rapautuminen ja kielellisen identiteetin muutos: 2000-luvun ersämordvalaiset ja vepsäläiset. (’Language deterioration and change in language identity: ersämordv and Veps speakers in the 21st-century’) Anna Idström & Sachiko Sosa (eds.), Kielissä kulttuurien ääni. (‘Cultures through languages’) Tietolipas 228. Helsinki: SKS. pp. 265–289.

• Riho Grünthal 2011: Population decline and the Erosion of the Veps Language Community. – Riho Grünthal & Magdolna Kovács, The ethnic and linguistic context of identity: Finno-Ugric minorities. Uralica Helsingiensia 5. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura. pp. 267–293.

• Ulriikka Puura, Heini Karjalainen, Nina Zajceva & Riho Grünthal. 2013. The Veps Language in Russia: ELDIA Case-Specific Report. Studies in European Language Diversity 25. Mainz: Research consortium ELDIA 2013. Accessed 3 February, 2015.

• Heini Karjalainen, Ulriikka Puura, Riho Grünthal & Svetlana Kovaleva. 2013. Karelian language in Russia: ELDIA Case Specific Report. Studies in European Language Diversity 25. Mainz: Research consortium ELDIA 2013. Accessed 3 February, 2015