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The project examines variation in the spoken language and dialects of residents in Turku, Finland. One of the most commonly associated features of Turku is its distinctive dialect, and the traditional dialects spoken in Southwest Finland differ markedly from other Finnish dialects. For a long time, dialectological research focused in Finland primarily on rural dialects, but since the 1970s and 1980s, increasing sociolinguistic attention has been paid to urban varieties of Finnish. However, the local dialect, urban vernacular, or colloquial speech of Turku residents was last studied systematically and extensively in the early 1980s. Since then, Turku, Finland, and the world have undergone significant changes over the past four decades.

The Tupu2020 project collects new sociolinguistic and perceptual dialectological data from a diverse group of Turku residents and individuals from the surrounding region. With participants’ consent, speech is recorded in various communicative contexts, and their perceptions of language are explored through surveys. This enables comparisons between contemporary speech styles (whether referred to as colloquial language, dialect, or otherwise), as well as comparisons with data from the 1970s and 1980s and with the past and present language use of other Finnish speakers. The overarching aim is to construct a representative overview of the current linguistic variation in Turku and to understand the perceptions and attitudes residents hold about language, dialects, and colloquial speech.

A key objective of the project is to establish a new temporal layer of data from Turku for longitudinal research. By integrating newly collected data with earlier datasets, the project employs the real-time method to trace changes in the Finnish language across different time points. Whenever possible, data will be gathered from the same speech communities (e.g., workplaces) as in previous decades, and efforts will be made to re-record as many of the original participants as possible. The panel studies that track the language use of the same individuals over multiple decades remain rare even in international contexts.

The research project commenced in spring and summer 2025 with funding from the Turku University Foundation. Additional funding is actively being sought.