Thinking you got it but you probably didn’t
Things people typically misunderstand about Karelian language tend to be, that it’s a form of Finnish - which it’s not. This is further confused by the fact that there is such a thing as Karelian dialect of Finnish, which is Finnish and NOT Karelian, and the fact that when a Finnish speaker reads written Karelian it looks like it could make sense. The two languages are closely related, so no wonder they’re similar, but they also have notable differences in vocabulary, pronunciation rules, and grammar.
Still, to a Finnish speaker, Karelian does look familiar! When you see it written down, you can slowly parse what might be being said. Might. Sometimes you’ll get it wrong, because false friends are common. Sometimes the words don’t even resemble their Finnish equivalent, and then you’re in trouble. And when someone speaks Karelian to you, your privilege of using time and text to figure out what’s being said is taken away.
Anyway, my ground school teacher from Viena once used a song as an example of this. We listened to it, and we had to try to tell her what was going on in it, but in the end all we could say was that there seemed to be a brown virgin and a white virgin and they were asked questions. Btw, even that part we got wrong!
Ruskie neičyt, valgie neičyt
sano sinä, sano sinä
konzubo meile gost’at tullah, gost’at tullah?
To a Finnish speaker this sounds like:
Brown virgin, white virgin,
Tell us, tell us
When do the wooers come for us, wooers come?
But it actually means:
Red-haired girl, blonde girl,
Tell us, tell us
When are the visitors arriving, visitors arriving?
Mustupiä piätenčän, piätenčän,
minun vel'l'i suovattan, suovattan,
minun miiloi pyhänpiän, pyhänpiän.
To a Finnish speaker the girls’ answer sounds like:
Blackhead on ????? ?????
My brother on ????? ?????
My ????? on Holy day/Sunday
What they really say is:
The black-haired on Friday, Friday
My brother on Saturday, Saturday
My darling on Sunday, Sunday
So yeah, if you speak Finnish and think you can understand Karelian, to a point you probably can. You can also understand some words of Ingrian and Estonian! However, without actually taking time to learn these languages you’re not really understanding them, let alone speaking them, and the fact that there are some shared words does not make any of these languages Finnish. Languages have no master key like that.
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