The language is alive while we speak it.

 Teachers of Karelian, Mari and Ossetian - about who teaches them today why
February 1 is the International Mother Language Day - and in our country, less and less people speak their language every year. We asked three teachers of rare national languages ​​to tell how they transmit the culture of their people to new generations and whether their native language can completely disappear.

“The Karelian language lives while it is spoken”
Natalya Giloeva, teacher of the Karelian language

I was born in the Republic of Karelia in the village of Tux in the Olonets region. This is not far from St. Petersburg, speaking on a Russian scale. In my childhood, if I remember correctly, at least 80% of the Karelians who spoke their own language lived there.
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In many places one could hear both Russian and Karelian speech. For my grandmother, for example, it was easier to speak Karelian. And since she sat with me while I was little, I learned spoken language in a natural environment. I mastered the grammar later, at Petrozavodsk State University.

Now I work as a teacher of the Karelian language at the University of Eastern Finland on the Joensuu campus. This year, there were 23 people in groups studying the Karelian language: 10 (elementary course of the Karelian language), 8 (second course of the Karelian language), 5 (conversational practice in the Karelian language). Basically, it is taught by Finns who want to get acquainted with a closely related language, or students who have Karelian roots.

There are families in which today, at home, they basically only speak Karelian

For example, if the spouse is from Russian Karelia, and the husband is from Finnish. Then their child in the family speaks one language, and at school - in another. Local young children generally like the Karelian language. For example, last year the Karelian Language Society organized circles in kindergartens of some cities where children came to get acquainted with the Karelian language. They liked to recognize Karelian words in a playful way and see their similarity to Finnish words: for example, “summer” in Finnish “kesä”, and in Karelian - “kezä”.
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Over the past three to four years, many books in Karelian have been published. This is mainly translated literature. For example, from the famous works translated “Peppy Longstocking” and “The Little Prince”. Unfortunately, there is no television in the Karelian language, but there is radio and online news.

Read also:

Who and why passes the Karelian language to the OGE
It seems to me that the language is alive while we speak it. It is not difficult to learn it, but you need to understand that it must be taught differently to Russians and, for example, Finns. A major contribution to the development of the language is made by the media of Yle Uutiset, where new vocabulary appears every week.

Another difficulty is that the Karelian language is spoken in two countries at once, Russian Karelians borrow words from the Russian language, Finns from Finnish. Nevertheless, these are languages ​​of different systems. Therefore, you always have to look for a compromise.

“We must preserve and pass on the culture of the Mari language to future grandchildren and children”
Sophia Nikitina, teacher of the Mari language
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I was born in the village of Kupsola in the Sernursky district of the Republic of Mari El of Russia, where earlier the entire population spoke the Mari language. Now people of the older generation are trying to continue to communicate with their grandchildren and children in Mari, but modern youth still have a strong Russification. If we even think in Mari, then teens do not. However, it cannot be said that the Mari language is dying. Every native speaker of this language is trying to interest the younger generation today.

There are many books in Mari. School books for elementary and middle grades are published by the Mari Culture Center, and we ourselves make some textbooks together with the Institute of Education and the Ministry of Education.

I work at the Morkinsky school, where I teach children the meadow state Mari language. It is very different from the mountain Mari language. If you have never studied both subspecies, you are unlikely to understand each other, because many words sound different.
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When the children in the fifth grade begin to learn the Mari language, at the first stage we introduce them to other languages ​​- the Russian and Finno-Ugric groups - and only then we switch to the continuous study of Mari. We try to light a spark in each student, with the help of which he will want to know the world and the beauty of other nations.

I am sure that we must preserve and pass on the culture of the Mari language to future grandchildren and children

Therefore, I always approach the lessons creatively, I try to involve students in the study. I want them to be primarily interested in studying the Mari. We often participate in Russian and international conferences, and children take prizes.

In my opinion, learning the Mari language is not difficult. It can even be called fashionable, because many people of my people want to understand the language of the older generation. I always say: "How many languages ​​you know, how many times you will become a person."

“Recently, the Ossetian language has received great state support”
Irina Kadzova, teacher of the Ossetian language