East Finnish
East Finnish culture and dialects are chiefly vested in the Savonians (the Savonian dialects) and the Karelians (the southeast Finnish dialects). There is less influence from Scandinavian and Finland-Swedish culture and language. The language is distinguished by vowel-diphthong shifts with respect to the standard language, and the use of palatalization. Epenthetic vowels are added after /l/, /h/ and sometimes /n/ in stressed syllable coda preceding a consonant (e.g. kylmä - kylymä), but this feature is not distinguishing, being also found commonly in most Western Finnish dialects.
Migrants of the last half millennium to central and northern Scandinavia and to Ingria were mainly of East Finnish origin, which is why dialects and languages such as Meänkieli and Ingrian are closer to the East Finnish dialects.
Subdivisions
- Savo Finnish (the Savonian dialects) . There are major differences between different Savo dialects. For example, North Savo has different personal pronouns from South Savo.
- Karelian Finnish (the southeast Finnish dialects)
- Some dialects of the Karelian language spoken within the former borders (1920 peace) are sometimes classified as "border Karelian dialects" (Raja-Karjalan murteet).