Karelian is a Finnic language. It forms a dialect continuum between Livvi (also known as Olonets Karelian) and Ludic on one hand, and the eastern dialects of Finnish on the other. Karelian does not have a single standardized form.
Wiktionary prioritises the standard orthography used by P. M. Zaykov and O. Karlova. This is a Latin-based system, highly akin to the Finnish orthography. Main characteristics are:
Alternative forms and spellings should not contain etymological information unless specifically having to do with the written form. Other etymology should be added to the main entry.
Material called "Karelian" in various sources, especially from Russia, is often from the closely related Livvi (also known as Olonets Karelian), not from Karelian proper. Before creating Karelian entries, please ensure that your material in fact is from Karelian proper. See Wiktionary:About Livvi#Identifying Livvi for some diagnostic features between Livvi and Karelian proper.
Karelian has the following parts of speech:
are declined.
are conjugated.
are invariable.
can either be declined or be invariable, depending on the kind.
When provided, inflection ought to be signified by either the header Declension or Conjugation, depending on the type of lemma.
Karelian nouns and adjectives ought to be preceded by {{krl-noun|}} and {{krl-adj|}} respectively, rather than the common {{head|krl|}} template. The template will automatically ask for the genitive and partitive forms.
The Karelian phonology is quite similar to that of Finnish. Some main characteristics:
On Wiktionary, Karelian terms are lemmatised under two standardised forms: The North Karelian literary standard - more commonly known as Vienankarjala - and the South Karelian literary standard based off the Tver dialect - more commonly known as Tverinkariela.
Some developments of these two dialects from Proto-Finnic include:
Terms exclusive to one of the two Karelian varieties (North or South) should be preceded by the label {{lb|krl|North Karelian}} or {{lb|krl|South Karelian}} respectively.
Every Karelian entry should be preceded by the template {{krl-regional}}, which displays the form in both literary standards.