This volume considers the linguistic borders between a language and a dialect as well as the administrative, cultural, and mental borders that affect the linguistic ones. The articles approach mental borders between dialects, dialect continua, and areas of mixed dialect, language ideologies, language mixing, and contact-induced language change. Karelian receives particular attention, being examined from multiple perspectives with attention to variation, maintenance, and the dialect perceptions of its speakers. Together, the articles paint a picture of multidimensional, multilingual, variable, and ever-changing linguistic reality where diverse borders, boundaries, and barriers meet, intertwine, and cross each other. The combination of the articles also aims to cross disciplinary and methodological borders and present new perspectives on earlier studies.

The editors of the volume are experts of dialectology and contact linguistics at the University of Eastern Finland. Marjatta Palander, PhD, is professor in Finnish language. She has published monographs on sound change in progress, variation in transitional dialects, a life-span study of an idiolect and perceptual dialectology. Helka Riionheimo, PhD, professor in Finnish language, is a specialist of language contacts, especially among the Finnic languages, and has published extensively on these fields. Vesa Koivisto, PhD, holds the professorship of Karelian language and culture. He has studied derivation and verbal morphology in Finnish and other Finnic languages and published monographies on these areas.