Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Aikakauskirja

Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran vuosikertomus ja tilinpäätös 2023

2024-08-22T07:33:56+03:00

Tilinpäätös

SUSAn 100. numeron lukijoille

2024-10-15T10:03:45+03:00

”Sulimmat kiitoxeni runollisesta kirjeestäsi” – Eliel Lagercrantzin suhdeverkosto kirjeaineiston valossa

2024-02-05T17:32:36+02:00

This article deals with the life and network of relationships of the linguist Eliel Lagercrantz (1894–1973) through his personal correspondence under private collection Coll.834.1–27 held at the Finnish National Library in Helsinki. Based on the material, Lagercrantz seems to have been uncompromising. He was uncompromising in relation to himself, demanded a lot from himself, worked at an almost manic pace, and thoroughly familiarized himself with the subjects he studied. He seems to have had an internal struggle between the role of a precise and exact linguist and the role of an interpreter of the deeper psychological meanings of language. Lagercrantz was also uncompromising in his relationships. Few were able to match him in uncompromisingness. Those who aspired to this, as is customary in the academic world, also received uncompromising treatment from Eliel. The same uncompromisingness was also repeated in his close relationships. He was considered a difficult colleague, who failed also to adapt to common rules or accustomed customs. The term eccentric could be used for him.

Erkki Itkosen marilaisilta sotavangeilta keräämät murretekstit

2024-08-26T18:33:36+03:00

Erkki Itkonen keräsi murretekstejä neljältä marilaiselta sotavangilta 1942 ja 1943, jotka julkaistaan nyt suomennoksineen.

M. A. Castrénin kielioppien kansainvälinen tausta

2024-02-21T13:18:56+02:00

In this paper I discuss the international influences on the grammars that M. A. Castrén produced. Matthias Alexander Castrén is undoubtedly one of the most prominent researchers in the history of Uralic studies. His work includes nine grammars (eight published and one unpublished) of some twenty languages. He can also be credited for launching the scientific study of the Uralic languages. However, Castrén did not produce his grammars in a vacuum, but rather he was well educated in the modern linguistic theories of his time. More specifically, Castrén implemented the ideas of comparative grammar used also by such renowned linguists as Rasmus Rask, Jacob Grimm, and Franz Bopp. This paper examines the influence that linguistic ideas of the nineteenth century had on the descriptive choices Castrén made in his grammars. I examine the structure of Castrén’s grammars and compare them to other grammars of the time which Castrén knew. The analysis is confined to a rather general level discussing such phenomena as how parts of speech are described, and how inflection is presented. The analysis shows that in many cases, Castrén did not have one single model, but rather his work followed the general ideas of comparative grammar. This paper confirms that Uralistics has been an international field of study from its beginnings.

Studies in early Indo-European loans in Uralic – problems and new solutions

2024-02-20T17:04:26+02:00

In this paper, some problematic early Indo-European loan etymologies for Uralic words are discussed and criticized and alternative solutions are offered for most of them. In recent research there has been much criticism of early Indo-European, especially Proto-Indo-European, loanwords into Proto-Uralic or early Uralic languages, and in this paper some etymologies criticized in recent research are commented on in greater detail in order to show that alternative solutions are often possible. Some problematic etymologies that have not received comment in recent years are also scrutinized. The paper also includes a discussion of the methodology for research into prehistoric loanwords.

New insights on the Hungarian objective conjugation

2023-11-05T07:14:19+02:00

This paper argues that some surprising new diachronic insights can be gained on the so-called objective conjugation of Hungarian – or at least some hypotheses can be put forward which seem rather plausible. Most notably, the 1st person plural suffix -juk (back-vowel allomorph) can be traced back to *-já-muk, making use of the fact that Uralic *m was partly shifted to *w in Hungarian and that contractions occurred. In addition, related issues concerning the forms of the objective conjugation are explored. The paper uses the method of internal reconstruction in combination with what is known about Hungarian sound history.

Ensitavun vokaalin kadosta mordvassa

2023-12-01T07:59:03+02:00

This paper studies the conditions for the loss of the first-syllable vowel (V1) in Mordvin and the chronology. I look at which first-syllable vowels have disappeared, in which environments, and from which dialects. I also investigate the phonetic developments of the word-initial consonant clusters and non-first-syllable vowels closely related to V1 loss. I evaluate etymologies and cognates proposed for words that have experienced V1 loss, and propose a number of new etymologies.
I have collected from Heikki Paasonen’s Mordwinisches Wörterbuch (MdWb) all the entries common to both Mordvin languages that begin with a probably non-borrowed, non-iconic consonant cluster. The MdWb materials have large dialectological gaps to be filled in by further research with the help of other sources.
I have divided the loss of V1 into three developments with different conditions. The oldest, the “SK loss” already advanced in Proto-Mordvin (PM), occurred before the affricate č and before the fricative consonant clusters st, sn, śk, śt́, št, šk, št́, šn, šń, ft́, or χt́ (41 cases, 24 of which are probably PM and 10 possibly PM). The later “R loss” before sonorants took largely place after the split of PM (17 cases, six of which are probably PM). Both occurred through a shift of stress to the earlier second-syllable vowel (V2), which at the time of the loss was a full vowel. In the oldest cases, the loss is represented across the whole of Mordvin, while in the younger ones it alternates with some cases of retention; the identification of retention is complicated by some dialectal processes where new V1 vowels were inserted, which I try to map here. I also study the relationship of the variation kš- ~ š- (and ks- ~ s-) to V1 loss.
A separate development is the reduction in the number of syllables through the fusion *-urə̑- > *-r̥- without shifting stress (six cases, two of which are possibly PM). In the dialects of Erzya and Moksha, this PM *-r̥- is represented variably as -ro- ~ -ru- ~ -or- ~ -ur- ~ -ə̑r-.
Any vowel could undergo loss before an open V2; SK loss deleted also *ŕ̥ through consonantizing it to š. SK and R loss occurred before V2 *a, SK loss also before V2 (*ä >) *ε (in three cases of R loss, early V2 *ä > *a after *ŕ must be reconstructed). This *ε has in most of Erzya and Moksha developed into a word-final -i and undergone reduction inside the word, but the variation -ə- : -i has been evened out everywhere: in some Erzya dialects in favor of (*ə >) e, elsewhere in favor of i. In the westernmost dialects of both Erzya and Moksha, V2 *ε was first reduced everywhere and then joined the development *-ə > -ä / -e word-finally.
In addition to the chronology of phonetic changes, my work clarifies the picture of PM stress. Contrary to the prevailing opinion, any vowel, including the open *a and *ä, could disappear from the first syllable. Hence, it is no longer justified to consider V1 loss as evidence for the primacy of Moksha stress conditions. Instead, the main stress of the PM word seems to have fallen on the last open vowel, even when V1 was not a close vowel.

Esikristilliset venäläisnimet karjalaisessa henkilönnimistössä

2024-01-11T15:33:18+02:00

Artikkelissa tarkastellaan karjalaisten keskuudessa käytössä olleita esikristillisiä muinaisvenäläisiä nimiä. Tällä hetkellä tämän tyyppisten historiallisten karjalankielisten nimien kokoelma on vain osittain koottu ja jäänyt vähälle tutkimukselle. Tämä johtuu ensisijaisesti siitä, että karjalankielisiä esikristillisiä nimiä on harvoin kirjattu historiallisiin asiakirjoihin, jotka ovat myös suhteellisen myöhäisiä. Muinaisvenäläiset nimet levisivät karjalaisten keskuuteen venäläisväestön kontaktien välityksellä. Kirjallisten massaluonteisten lähteiden, esimerkiksi verokirjojen, ilmestyessä nämä nimet alkoivat vähitellen kadota käytöstä sekä Venäjällä että karjalankielisillä alueilla. Uuden ajan alun lähteet kuitenkin osoittavat, että karjalaisten henkilönnimistössä käytettiin melkoinen määrä venäläisiä esikristillisiä nimiä. Karjalankielisten nimimuotojen rekonstruoinnin lähteinä toimivat muun muassa paikannimistö, eläinnimistö sekä historialliset ja nykyaikaiset karjalankieliset sukunimet.

‘Sein’ und ‘haben’ im Lulesaami – Morphosyntaktische Obskuritäten in einer Wiederausgabe ausgewählter Texte Just Qvigstads

2023-12-08T08:55:23+02:00

The scope of this study is an evaluation of disguised (and unstated) language-planning effects in the recent republication of a substantial body of Lule Saami narratives that Just Qvigstad originally collected between 1885 and 1926. Although editorial interference in Subttsasa Nordlándas is obvious on almost every level of lexicogrammar, it is particularly visible concerning copula cliticization and predicative possession. As this study will show, even though both phenomena can be encountered in the original narratives (Qvigstad 1929), their republication presents a significantly altered distribution. Due to these and other alterations, the republication can no longer be considered representative of Lule Saami as spoken in Norway in 1885–1926, but must be considered an instance of twenty-first century Lule Saami. The dangers of misunderstanding the republication as an instance of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Lule Saami will be demonstrated by examining the appearance and distribution of adnet and etymologically related forms thereof in South, Ume-, Pite-, and Lule Saami in predicative possession.

Miksi keminsaame kuoli?

2023-12-14T10:27:58+02:00

Kemi Saami is an extinct language that was spoken in the administrative region of Kemi Lapmark in present-day Northern Lapland, Finland. This article analyzes the sociolinguistic processes that resulted in the extinction of Kemi Saami. The analysis is based on contemporary descriptions from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The information preserved in the descriptions is analyzed using the sociolinguistic analysis template developed under the European Language Diversity for All (ELDIA) project, as well as UNESCO’s nine factors describing the situation of an endangered language. The theoretical background is based on Joshua Fishman’s work on language shift. The results show that the extinction of Kemi Saami was a consequence of the language’s weak social status, the church’s language policy, and several social and cultural dislocations that the language community experienced. The most significant of these dislocations was the arrival of Finnish settlers and the agrarian socioeconomic model. The resulting population growth and environmental changes forced the inhabitants to give up the old way of life based on hunting and fishing. This led further to the deterioration of the socioeconomic situation of the language community in relation to the settlers and to the rapid weakening of cultural self-esteem. As a result, the members of the language community began to be ashamed of their own language and culture and wanted to give them up for Finnish language and culture.