Ingria and Ingrian Finns in focus

Abstract

Ingria is the name of the territory along the coast of the Gulf of Finland between St. Petersburg and the Narva River, which is the border between Russia and Estonia. Between 1617 and 1721 the Ingrian area belonged to Sweden and during that period a number of Finnish‐speaking people settled there from Savo and from Äyräpää on the Karelian Isthmus. These Ingrian Finns, speakers of the Savakko and Äyrämöinen dialects, were the main inhabitants of the territory until the Stalin period and World War II, when persecution, starvation and war dispersed them to different parts of the world.

This article presents a general survey of the history of the Ingrian Finns, the development of linguistic conditions and Ingrian Studies. This is followed by a presentation of Ingrian Finnish dialect research. On the basis of morphological analysis of interviews with Ingrian Finns in Canada, Sweden, Finland and Russia, an attempt is made to ascertain how Ingrian Finnish dialects have been preserved or changed in different parts of the world and under the influence of dominant languages.