Karelian language (
karjala,
karjal or
kariela) is a
Finnic language spoken mainly in the
Russian Republic of Karelia. Linguistically Karelian is closely related to the
Finnish dialects spoken in eastern
Finland and some Finnish linguists even classified Karelian as a dialect of Finnish. Karelian is not to be confused with the Southeastern dialects of Finnish, sometimes referred to as
karjalaismurteet ('Karelian dialects') in Finland.