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We started experimenting with the legal, organisational, semantic and technical challenges of creating a genuinely trustworthy, AI-supported data-sharing space that can find and connect tangible and intangible elements of the Finno-Ugric cultural universes. We were also seeking a better governance model for oversight for the custodians of these endangered, shrinking universes in their language and with little technical knowledge, partly as alternatives to the established Wikipedia to the open knowledge incubation method for small linguistic minorities. See further details on the project description page.
This experimental platform reimagines how small and endangered language communities—like Võro, Seto, Livonian, and Latgalian—can engage with the Wikimedia ecosystem. Rather than relying on traditional Wikipedia editing models, we use structured data (Wikibase, Lexemes, SPARQL) to narrate cultural heritage through multilingual exhibitions, oral histories, traditional dress, and music. Our approach supports community-led storytelling and data stewardship, building a sustainable foundation for knowledge sharing rooted in local voices and values.
Explore how museums, researchers, and communities are collaboratively curating and publishing open datasets, Commons media, and Wiktionary entries that reflect the rich traditions and languages of Finno-Ugric peoples. This work is part of a broader effort to create inclusive and interoperable pathways for cultural and linguistic representation online.
Collections
Musical works
The following collections contain musical works that are almost always sung in the given language, in some cases, they belong to the musical tradition of these communities without lyrics.
Khanty Mansi Musical Works Collection; Samoyedic Musical Works Collection; Livonian Musical Works Collection; Veps Musical Works Collection ;Saami Musical Works Collection; Komi Musical Works Collection; Hungarian Musical Works Collection; Finnish Musical Works Collection; Mari Musical Works Collection; Udmurt Musical Works Collection; Estonian Musical Works Collection; Erzya Moksha Musical Works Collection
Sound recordings
The following collections as playlist contain sound recordings of the musical works, you can listen to them on Spotify. We will keep adding other listening options on YouTube, Bandcamp or other licensed players. Khanti Mansi Playlist; Samoyedic Playlist; Livonian Playlist; Veps Playlist; Saami Playlist; Hungarian Playlist; Finnish Playlist; Mari Playlist; Udmurt Playlist; Estonian Playlist; Komi Playlist; Erzya Moksha Playlist.
- We are inviting new curators knowledgeable about the traditional or contemporary music of these peoples and languages.
Photographs
- Livonian Photography Collection (21st century): This is a growing collection of contemporary photographs documenting Livonian culture, now available under a Creative Commons license on Wikimedia Commons. Each image is tagged using the emerging ISCC standard for digital media identification, ensuring long-term traceability and interoperability.(Livonian Photography Collection (21st century; database link).
- Seto Historical Photography Collection: Curated by Daniel Antal and Dr. Ieva Pigozne, this virtual collection explores the rich cultural history of Setomaa and the Seto people through historical photographs. The images are enhanced with multilingual metadata and integrated into our Finno-Ugric Dataspace. Explore the collection in the database →] We warmly invite new curators with knowledge of Setomaa to contribute. We are also happy to start similar collection with Võro, Mari, Udmurt, Livonian or other Finno-Ugric communities.
- Where possible, we present both the digitized original and carefully enhanced versions of the photographs. Our post-processing includes respectful restoration—removing visible damage, correcting lighting issues, or cropping to highlight meaningful details such as traditional garments. These improvements support research (e.g., textile analysis) while remaining faithful to the original artifact. In cases where sharpening or exposure adjustments are made, these are considered standard archival practices rather than derivative works, ensuring clarity and usability without altering the photograph’s historical integrity.
Garments
- Kurzeme Region Dress History Collection: A growing archive of traditional garments from the Kurzeme region of Latvia, showcasing regional styles and textile craftsmanship across time.
- Seto Garment Collection - A curated selection of historical and contemporary textiles and clothing from Setomaa. This collection highlights distinctive Seto designs, often linked to specific customs, ceremonies, and everyday life.
Films
Finno-Ugric Film Database (Soome-Ugri Filmiandmebaas): We have recently begun enriching and semantically reprocessing this foundational database, which documents films made by Finno-Ugric creators or in Finno-Ugric languages. Managed by the Finno-Ugric Film Foundation (FUFF), the database offers detailed metadata on production, language, creators, and availability. Examples: Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari: A Russian drama directed by Aleksei Fedorchenko, filmed in the Mari language and inspired by traditional folklore (2012); The Land of Love: A Nenets-language documentary by Liivo Niglas (2014); The Afflicted Animal: A Northern Sámi short film by Egil Pedersen (2016); To Speak is to Resist: A Komi-language short film by Taawetti Erkinpoika Myrskyvalkea (2024); Tõnis Day in Setumaal: An Estonian language television documentary by Maie Maasikas (1993).
Linguistics (Lexeme)
The concept of a dream is independent from languages, in the sense "imaginary events seen in the mind while sleeping" it can be expressed with the English dream, the Hungarian álom or the Estonian unenägu or the Dutch droom nouns. These lexemes behave differently. In Dutch, they it has a masculine grammatical gender. The Hungarian and Estonian lexemes change their forms when you say in your dream. The identification of a dream as a subject of a song lyrics requires the understanding how dream becomes dreams in English, dromen in Dutch, and álmok in Hungarian. If you want to describe the lyrics in statements, you must know that *álmodban* is a form of álom, which refers translates to *in your dream*, i.e., expressing both an adjective and clarifying the owner of the subject, too.
Connecting the senses of lexemes with their translations, we can carry out language independent queries for songs that are about dreams. See our Dream Playlist DHNB2025!