Creating a corpus for Kven, a minority language in Norway

Abstract

Language documentation, including the development and use of corpora, is frequently linked to revitalisation. This is also the case for the Kven language, a Finnic minoritised language, traditionally spoken in the two northernmost counties of Norway. Kven is a recognised minority language in Norway, protected by the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. This status led to increased efforts to document Kven, including the development of the Ruija Corpus, consisting of recordings of interviews in Kven. The corpus was an important tool for the standardisation of Kven. In this article we describe how the corpus was developed and account for search functions, including a discussion of the limitations of the corpus. We also discuss the role of corpora and other online tools for language revitalisation, with a particular focus on the standardisation of Kven and conclude by reflecting on how expertise also resides with the speakers of an endangered language and that they have a right to be involved in efforts of language documentation and revitalisation.