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This page is intended as an overview of Votic dialects.

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The Vaipooli dialects (also called Lower Luga Votic) consist of the Luutsa (Luuditsa, Лужицы), Liivčülä (Пески), Jõgõperä (Краколье) and Rajo (Межняки) dialects. These dialects are the basis for the standardized form used on Wiktionary (see WT:AVOT).

These dialects are characterized by Ingrian influence (mutual influence with the Ala-Laukaa or Lower Luga dialect of Ingrian) and a system of vowel reduction, which affects unstressed vowels (except after light stressed syllables). Long vowels become short, and short ⟨a⟩ and ⟨ä⟩ reduce, with the result depending on the dialect:

• In Luutsa and Liivčülä, they reduce to something like a schwa, which is represented as either ⟨õ⟩ or ⟨e⟩ in the orthography (the former for ⟨a⟩ and the latter for ⟨ä⟩; note that both ⟨õ⟩ and ⟨e⟩ also represent their own vowels).
• In Jõgõperä, they usually become entirely silent at the end of a word (although not for all speakers), and may thus not be indicated in the spelling; when this occurs, any final geminate consonants will remain geminated.

Short ⟨e⟩ may also reduce in these dialects, but less regularly.

Vaipooli dialects have secondary gemination of single consonants between short stressed vowels and long vowels or diphthongs. These geminates are long, and feed into vowel reduction, which may cause the underlying long vowel to become short post-gemination.

The cases differ somewhat between the dialects. The allative merged with the adessive in the Luutsa and Liivčülä dialects (including in adverbs containing those endings), but they remained distinct in Jõgõperä. These differences can be summarized as follows:

In addition, the plural genitive forms in Jõgõperä are more often endingless (i.e. end in the plural stem), while Luutsa and Liivčülä dialects generally have an additional -jõ/-je. By contrast, the latter may have partitive forms ending in the bare stem, while in Jõgõperä, an ending -t is used (-tõ/-te is also used in Luutsa and Liivčülä). Finally, Jõgõperä prefers 'long' forms of illatives containing the suffix -sõ/-se, while Luutsa and Liivčülä prefer 'short' forms without this suffix.

In most Votic dialects, words with gradation between kk : k, pp : p, tt : t, ss : s, šš : š, tts : ts and čč : č exhibit the strong grade before the inessive ending -z(a), as opposed to the weak grade that it usually does. However, in the Vaipooli dialects, this system has partly broken down, and is retained only in some words (with no apparent pattern).

The Ingrian influence also permeates in the vocabulary. Vaipooli dialects have borrowed or 'reshaped' (e.g. initial h-, k before front vowels) many of their words after Ingrian, while the Central and Eastern Votic varieties tend to retain the native equivalents.

The Central Votic dialects include dialects spoken in Kattila (Котлы) and surrounding villages. They have been extinct since the late 20th century.

Central Votic is divided into two groups: the southeastern hill group (Mäči) and the northwestern valley group (Orko). Sometimes a third group for the northwesternmost dialects (Põntizõõ, Velikkä, etc.) has been proposed.

Ariste's A Grammar of the Votic Language mainly focuses on Central Votic.

In some Central Votic varieties (e.g. Lempola and Pummala, partly also Kattila), the long vowels ⟨ee⟩, ⟨õõ⟩, ⟨oo⟩, ⟨öö⟩ diphthongize, with the initial component shifting further back. In some of these (like Lempola and Pummala), even ⟨aa⟩ and ⟨ää⟩ may diphthongize with the initial component shifting back.

Furthermore, in some Central Votic dialects (mainly that of Mati and Kõrvõttula), gemination of single consonants between a stressed short vowel and a long vowel (or diphthong) occur. Unlike in Vaipooli (but like in Eastern Votic), these secondary geminates are half-long, not long.

Eastern Votic dialects were spoken around Kabrio (Копорье), last in Ičäpäivä (Иципино). They have been extinct since the 1960s. They are noted for ⟨dž⟩, a weak grade of ⟨č⟩ (⟨tš⟩) that is not found in Western Votic, and the retention of Proto-Finnic final *-k as -g (in e.g. the first infinitive forms of verbs).

Gemination of single consonants between a stressed short vowel and a long vowel (or diphthong) is common in Eastern Votic. Unlike in Vaipooli (but like in the Mati dialect of Central Votic), these secondary geminates are half-long, not long.

The Krevinian language, extinct since the mid-19th century, is usually considered a Votic dialect. On the English Wiktionary, it is treated as its own language.

Main page: Wiktionary:Kukkuzi entry guidelines.

Whether the Finnic variety spoken in the village of Kukkuzi (Куровицы) is a Votic dialect or not is a matter of debate. On the English Wiktionary, it is treated as its own language.