The M. A. Castrén Society (Finland) has decided to provide financial support for the project on development of Finno-Ugric online phrasebook. About this Media Center FINUGOR said lead project coordinator of the M. A. Castrén Society Tarmo Hakkarainen.

The online Finno-Ugric conversation book was presented by the group of programmers from Mari El and Komi Republic in the international conference devoted to innovation projects in the national education, held in Syktyvkar on February 9. The original innovation project was created on the basis of the Russian media-centre FINUGOR on the initiative and with the financial support of Ministry of National Politics of Komi Republic.

The conversation book is available on the web-site of the Finno-Ugric digital library in phrasebook.fulib.ru. The conversation book contains over 1000 words and collocations, most frequently used in everyday life, in 7 Finno-Ugric languages. The list of languages contains Hungarian, Karelian, Komi, Mari, Moksha, Udmurt, Erzya as well as Russian, traditionally used by the Finno-Ugric peoples for interregional communication. The works on the compilation of the conversation book and its translation were conducted by the experienced linguists from different countries. In the nearest future there are supposed to be added the Finnish, Khanty, Mansi, Komi-Permyak and English versions.

Tarmo Hakkarainen told that at a board meeting of the Society on May 18 was reviewed about 20 applications for assistance projects related to support for languages and cultures of the Finno-Ugric peoples of Russia. Average amount of project funding will be about 1500 euros.