Jakie szanse przetrwania ma północnozachodni dialekt języka karaimskiego?
What Chances of Survival Does the North-Western Karaim Dialect Have?

Summary/Abstract: The aim of the article is to present the efforts made over the last hundred years to maintain the knowledge of the native tongue among Karaims in Poland and Lithuania. After World War I, the awareness of the importance of the vernacular language for the preservation of cultural heritage increased, but the knowledge of the Karaim has been systematically declining. In the last 30 years, attempts to revitalize the mother tongue have intensified. Nevertheless, with the rapidly declining Karaim populations in Poland and Lithuania, the level of language proficiency is dropping even faster. The North-Western dialect is the only one still spoken today. In recent years, field recordings are being made to preserve the sound of the Karaim, which is listed on the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. Currently, out of about 300 people living in Poland and Lithuania, only ten percent can speak their ancestors’ tongue.

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