Suomen kielen, suomalais-ugrilaisten ja pohjoismaisten kielten ja kirjallisuuksien laitos

Research projects

Eldia: http://www.eldia-project.org/

EUROBABEL: http://babel.gwi.uni-muenchen.de/

Poga: http://www2.hu-berlin.de/poga/

A new Finnish-Hungarian dictionary is a project that aims at creating a modern medium-sized dictionary with approximately 40 000 entries. The general editors of the dictionary are Ulla-Maija Forsberg and Magdolna Kovács, who work for the project alongside their other duties. Two Hungarian-Finnish working teams, Ildikó Vecsernyés and Kaija Markus, and Ottilia Kovács and Sanna Manner, are engaged in the project, supported by the Finnish Cultural Foundation for two years and the Alfred Kordelin Foundation for one year. At the moment, approximately 30 000 entries have been compiled. The topicality of a new Finnish-Hungarian dictionary is highlighted by the obsoleteness of the medium-sized dictionary currently used, published 50 years ago and lacking many features required by modern developments. A new dictionary will also meet the growing needs of second language teaching, and the admission of Hungary to the European Union also underlines its importance.

Tundra Nenets grammar is a joint project by Farrell Ackerman, Irina Nikolaeva, and Tapani Salminen in cooperation with Tundra Nenets colleagues, supported by the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme. The project will result in two monographs, which together cover all the aspects of Tundra Nenets grammar. A basic grammar of Tundra Nenets summarizes what is known of its phonology and morphology, covers the basic features of syntax, and includes a basic dictionary as well as a selection of texts. Topics in Tundra Nenets morphosyntax focuses on the more complicated features of syntax and the related morphological and semantic issues, the study of which has only commenced recently.

Past Research Projects

Linguistic map of prehistoric North Europe: Complex Finno-Ugric networks 2000 BC – 1300 AD. Prof Riho Grünthal

Atlas Linguarum Fennicarum, or the linguistic atlas of the Finnic languages, is a long-time and cross-boundary survey and publication project with Seppo Suhonen as a central contributor, notably as the editor-in-chief as well as the author of several maps with commentaries of the first volume of the atlas published in 2004.

The morphology of Konda Mansi is a project headed by Ulla-Maija Kulonen and financed for one year by the Academy of Finland, also joined by two research assistants, Merja Salo and Jaakko Häkkinen. Konda Mansi, also known as Eastern Mansi, is one of the least known Mansi languages, and the project has aimed at investigating its morphology and phonology as it appears in the materials collected by Artturi Kannisto in early 20th century. The basic data consist of Kannisto's texts published in minute phonetic transcription in the volumes of Wogulische Volksdichtung. Grammatical elements identified in the texts are supplemented by paradigms found in Kannisto's unpublished notes. A computer corpus of Konda Mansi texts in phonological transcription and with Finnish translations has been created as a by-product of the project. A description of Konda Mansi phonology appeared early in 2005, and a large grammar is being published in the form of a chrestomathy, also including a selection of texts and an accompanying glossary.

Building with things native and borrowed : history and methodology of the contacts and divergence of the Finnic languages was a major research project headed by Johanna Laakso and joined at various times by Riho Grünthal, Anneli Sarhimaa, Jarmo Elomaa, Annika Pasanen, and Tor Tveite, resulting by now in two doctoral theses (Sarhimaa and Grünthal) as well as two master's theses (Pasanen and Tveite); one doctoral thesis (Elomaa) and a joint monograph are still awaiting finishing touches. The project also organized two symposia (in Tartu, in connection with the International Finno-Ugrists' Congress in August 2000, and in Helsinki in November 2002), of which the papers presented at the Tartu symposium were published in a collection of articles. One of the aims was to publish the results of the project in international English-language and general linguistic fora, based on the conviction that this was of importance for the international study of historical and sociolinguistics, where the Finno-Ugrian languages and their research tradition had received less attention than they merited. The main results of the project display a more detailed and multidimensional picture of the history and mechanisms of Finnic language contacts. Although the influence of the majority languages (such as Russian for Karelian, Latvian for Livonian) on all levels of the language system is indisputably strong and obvious, the transmission of influences from one language to another is not a simple, straightforward process but includes dialect and language contacts in both directions, Sprachbund-like phenomena as well as modification and reanalysis of the borrowed elements and constructions, in constant interaction with the inherited elements. These developments are intertwined with the internal drifts, also more complicated than stated in handbooks: the typological shift in Estonian and Livonian in particular is less straightforward as often stated. In a more detailed scrutiny we can also note that the bilingualism of the present-day speakers of the minor Finnic languages need not lead directly to complete language shift (loss of the minority language) by way of a gradual increase of foreign elements and code shifts (foreign expressions mixed into the speech as such) determined by certain hierarchical principles. Instead, without downplaying the endangeredness of these languages, the language of present-day bilingual speakers may consist, in addition to the "pure" language that was the object of traditional linguistic research, of several language varieties (codes) impregnated by the majority language to different degrees, and the choice of these codes may have its own function in language use.

Forest Nenets dictionary is a joint project by Maria Barmich, Inna Vello, and Tapani Salminen. The project was initially based on a Forest Nenets wordlist produced and translated to Russian by Vello. Her work was supervised by Barmich, who also translated the data to Tundra Nenets. The data is currently being translated to English, augmented from other sources, covered with morphological information, and edited for publication by Salminen. The manuscript of a Forest Nenets dictionary will be available by the end of 2005. The extensive lexical databank created in the project will further benefit the compiling of a basic dictionary of Tundra Nenets, to be included in the products of the Tundra Nenets grammar project, but it is also intended as a step towards an encyclopedic and etymological dictionary of the Nenets languages, organized thematically and therefore allowing in-depth studies of relationships between language and culture, language and history, and language and environment.

Estonian-Finnish language contacts is a project headed by Riho Grünthal, with special emphasis on Finnish influence on Estonian. A specific study of Finnish-Estonian contacts at the turn of the millenium will be part part of a larger project on modern language contacts in cooperation with the Finnish, English and other linguistic departments at the University of Helsinki. For the purposes of the project, empirical data from the online versions of Estonian daily newspapers has been collected, and the open line comments on news concerning Finland and Finns are the basis for a more extensive account that is forthcoming. The project will organize a seminar on the topic at the department in May, 2006, and a doctoral student writing her thesis on Finnish influence on Estonian in Finland is going to study at the department in the academic year 2005–2006.

Morphosyntactic and typological change in the Finnic languages, in particular the change in Finnic case and adposition system, is a project of Riho Grünthal initiated by his doctoral thesis. The interaction between morphology and syntax and the functional framework of morphosyntactic change are richly illustrated in closely related and morphologically rich languages, such as the Finnic languages. The project involves theoretical research yielding studies on the rise of mixed adposition system in the Finnic languages, the changes in the adposition systems of the Finno-Ugrian languages in general, as well as the role of inflectional homonymy in the Finnic languages and the interaction between language-internal and contact-induced change.

The relationship between the Finnic and other Finno-Ugrian languages , is a project of Riho Grünthal that partly intertwines with the previous project. The aim of the projects is to study the numerous issues of language typology and comparative linguistics through which the Finnic languages are connected with other languages of the Baltic Sea area as well as other Finno-Ugrian languages, with particular focus on the interaction between the Finnic and the Mordvin languages. A related study involves the Baltic loan words in Mordvin. In the spring of 2005, a high-quality master's thesis was submitted by Santeri Junttila on the history of research of early Baltic loanwords in Finnic till 1936 and its impact on later studies of the same subject, and he has applied for a position of a postgraduate student at the Department of Finno-Ugrian Studies. Pending further funding, a sub-project on the prehistoric linguistic map of North Europe with focus on the identification of prehistoric language and language contact areas will be launced in cooperation with the Substrate toponyms in North Russia project.

Minor Finnic languages is an international project, with Karl Pajusalu as a central contributor, which aims at bringing the linguistic data of Finnic languages other than Estonian and Finnish closer to the high level typical of these major languages. Analysis of the South Estonian sound system was a project headed by Karl Pajusalu, active from 2000 till 2003, that combined modern phonological methods and theories with more traditional approaches to dialectology.

Hungarian language contact outside Hungary is a project headed by Anna Fenyvesi from the University of Szeged focusing on the language contacts of the Hungarians living in the neighbouring countries of Hungary as well as elsewhere in the world in so-called diaspora communities. Magdolna Kovács has participated in the project and as a result of her work produced the chapter on Hungarian in Australia for the book published as volume 20 in Studies in Language and Society in 2005, with contributions from other notable scholars such as Sarah G. Thomason and Casper de Groot. As a related topic, Magdolna Kovács has for a long time been active in studying Australian Finnish and its status.

Dynamics of the grammar and vocabulary of Estonian in 1990–2000sis a project headed by Helle Metslang and financed by the Estonian Science Foundation, following the observation that the changes that took place in the functioning conditions of Estonian language in the 1990s have brought along changes in Estonian as a whole and also in its sublanguages. The objective of the project is to provide an overview of the dynamics of the grammar of Estonian common and written languages, vocabulary and expressions in the 1990s to 2000s, the changes and their intensity, the spreading, emergence mechanisms, trends, intra- and extralinguistic factors and influence on the language as a whole and on its subsystems. Evaluating and forecasting the influence of the changes will in its turn provide information for language maintenance and planning. Results of the project will be published in the form of articles. There is an intention to organize an international academic event annually and to publish a collection summarizing the project. The results of the project will be applicable in language maintenance, language learning and support the implementation of development strategy of Estonian language. Helle Metslang is also a member in the projects Word classes in Estonian and Lexical and grammatical structure of modern Estonian as well as the coordinator of the Strategy for the Estonian language project, all financed by the Estonian ministry of science and education.

Databank for Endangered Finno-Ugrian Languages was a Nordic joint project with its own homepage involving several researchers from Finland, Norway, and Sweden, based at the Department of Finno-Ugrian Studies of the University of Helsinki under the supervision of Seppo Suhonen, and financed by the NOS-H fund and the Academy of Finland. While the project was officially terminated by 1999, Jarmo Alatalo, Tapani Salminen and Merja Salo have continued updating the relatively large lexical and text corpora of Selkup, Nenets and Khanty, respectively, and a dictionary of Selkup by Alatalo appeared as a major product of the project only recently.

Encyclopedia of the world's endangered languagesis an international survey and publication project with Christopher Moseley as the editor-in-chief, and Tapani Salminen as the author of the section covering languages of Europe and northern Asia, actively cooperating with the authors of related sections, notably the late Stephen A. Wurm (Australian National University), David Bradley (La Trobe University), and Victor Golla (Humboldt State University). The full text of the manuscript of the section is available online (for inspection only, storing or printing prohibited for copyright reasons). The project differs from other endeavours covering the languages of the world in that, while aiming at a comprehensive global picture, it focuses on the least known and most endangered languages.

Manuscripta Castreniana is a project of the Finno-Ugrian Society in cooperation with the Department of Finno-Ugrian Studies at the University of Helsinki, the Institute of Asian and African Studies at the University of Helsinki, and the Finnish Board of Antiquities. Manuscripta Castreniana is a major research and publishing project which aims at creating critical editions of all of the invaluable manuscripts left by the famous explorer and pioneer ethnolinguist M. Alexander Castrén (1813--1852) on numerous Siberian languages. It will involve several researchers with special skills, but the main responsibility lies on the chief editor Ulla-Maija Kulonen (Department of Finno-Ugrian Studies), also the President of the Finno-Ugrian Society, as well as the three section editors, Juha Janhunen (Institute of Asian and African Studies) for Mongolic, Tungusic, Turkic, and Yeniseian languages, Tapani Salminen (Department of Finno-Ugrian Studies) for Uralic languages, and Ildikó Lehtinen (Finnish Board of Antiquities) for ethnology and related fields. The project was initiated in 2004, and several sections of Castrén's Tundra Nenets manuscripts have been examined so far, but the exact future of the project depends on securing further funding.

Substrate toponyms in North Russia is a framework covering the forthcoming doctoral theses of Arja Ahlqvist and Janne Saarikivi and involving large-scale studies of both Uralic and Slavonic toponyms from north-central Russia to the White Sea as well as contacts between Russian dialects and Uralic languages, Uralic etymologies, ethnic history of North Russia, and paleogeography. The researchers have conducted numerous fieldtrips, and they cooperate intensively with colleagues in Finland, Russia, and other countries.

Literary reception and translations in Hungary, Finland and Slovakia is an inter-university programme that has developed from Éva Gerevich-Kopteff's doctoral thesis and currently involves three postgraduate students (Filip Sikorski, Hajnalka Makra, and Zsuzsánna Bodó); an international workshop on teaching and translating Hungarian and Finnish literature abroad will be held in Helsinki in November. The aim of the project is to study the literary contexts of the two countries outside the Indo-European group of languages and to develop a profile for the teaching of literary studies, as well as for the supervision of basic and further research. The teaching of Hungarian and Finnish literature in the universities in Hungary and Finland has long been based on Finno-Ugrian approach. Teaching has primarily focused on introducing linguistic and cultural context to students. The need to develop the scientific profile and theoretical substance utilized especially in teaching and postgraduate education are the key concepts of the forthcoming workshop and the project in general. The subject matter at hand consists of the various processes connected with producing, mediating, reading and translating literature, particularly the changes in perception of literary type and literature, in the formation of the canon. As our purpose is also to view these changes in their international context, we seek to clarify, where appropriate, the status of Finnish and Hungarian literature in another cultural environment. The research questions focus on eliciting ways in which the questions of context interwine with national and international phenomena of literature, as well as on the historical backround in the turn of the millennium. Central questions include: which kinds of contexts are related to producing, reading, interpreteting and translating literature? What impact has this had on the perception of type and literature, and on the norm of establishment of canon in general? How has the status of translated literature changed? Since the teaching of Hungarian and Finnish literature is mainly conducted at the chairs of Finno-Ugrian studies, communication with related sciences is strongly emphasized.

The Encyclopaedia of Saami Culture is a multidisciplinary project coordinated by the Saami Studies programme with its own homepage. Other projects headed by Irja Seurujärvi-Kari at the Saami Studies programme include her doctoral thesis on the renaissance of the Saami indigenous movement in the 1960–70s, textbook and vocabulary for North Sámi, and a new edition of Konrad Nielsen's monumental and indispensable dictionary of North Sámi.

Language and cultural contacts of Hungarians in Finland is a current project headed by Magdolna Kovács, with a further focus on the reception of Hungarian culture in Finnish media. Seminar papers and articles related to the topic have already been submitted, including a presentation in the 10th International Finno-Ugrist Congress in 2005 by Magdolna Kovács, and a systematic approach to the topic is being shaped at the moment, with the aim of collecting empirical data from Hungarians in Finland and using the material for forthcoming papers and theses.