Karelian Dialect of Kolvitsa, Kola Peninsula

Kolvitsa is the only surviving Karelian village on the Kola Peninsula, and the northernmost Karelian village in the world. Its inhabitants speak a mixed migrant vernacular, which developed in isolation from the Karelian Proper dialect continuum. This study uses linguistic-ethnographic insights from the region to investigate the lexical and grammatical structure of receding Kolvitsa Karelian. The last generation of speakers manifests a profusion of alternative forms, not only across but also within idiolects, and the study explores different factors giving rise to this variation.