Võro Institute

[3][4] Võro has roughly 75,000 speakers (Võros) mostly in southeastern Estonia, in the eight parishes of the historical Võru County (Karula, Harglõ, Urvastõ, Rõugõ, Kanepi, Põlva, Räpinä, Vahtsõliina) and the rest of Estonia.

The directors of the institute have been Enn Kasak, Kaido Kama and Külli Eichenbaum.

[5] Researchers at the institute include the toponymist Evar Saar and the lexicographer Sulev Iva.

The institute is engaged in a wide range of activities to meet the challenges facing lesser-spoken languages, including establishing school programs, conducting linguistic and regional research, preserving place-names and their corresponding stories (mostly by Evar Saar), publishing Võro-language scholarship and school textbooks, and organizing annual language conferences.

The aim of these activities is to encourage the Võro people to speak their own language and to preserve their characteristic life-style.