Finnish Language Research Articles

Finnish Parliament on the Semantic Web

This paper introduces the system ParliamentSampo – Parliament of Finland on the Semantic Web, a Linked Open Data (LOD) service, data infrastructure, and semantic portal for studying Finnish political culture, language, and networks of the Members of Parliament (MP). The article presents the vision behind the system, the LOD service, and explores the possibilities to utilize it in research and application development. A knowledge graph of linked data has been created based on ca. 962 000 speeches in all plenary sessions of the Parliament of Finland in 1907—2021; the data is also available in XML format, utilizing the new international Parla-CLARIN format. For the first time, the entire time series of the Finnish parliamentary speeches has been converted into data and a data service in a unified format. In addition, the speeches have been interlinked with another knowledge graph created from the database of the MPs and enriched from other data sources into a broader ontology-based data service. The paper shows how the LOD service SPARQL endpoint can be used to research parliamentary culture, the use of political language, and networks of politicians through data analysis. The service endpoint can also be used to develop applications for different user groups without programming skills, such as the ParliamentSampo semantic portal introduced in the paper, too. This application aims to make political decision making more transparent to the general public, media, politicians, and other end users.

Oskar Looritsa liivi folkloori kogu

The Estonian Folklore Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum hold a valuable collection of Livonian ethnography and folklore – Oskar Loorits’ collection of Livonian folklore. Oskar Loorits started his journey to Livonians and the Livonian language in 1920, when he participated in a Livonian expedition in Courland as an assistant to Lauri Kettunen, professor of Finnic languages at the University of Tartu. His great interest in Livonians and the Livonian language, Livonian ethnography and folklore developed during this expedition. The Livonian folklore collection is valuable material concerned with the Livonian language and culture. The materials were mostly collected in the 1920s from 12 Livonian villages. The article provides an overview of the collection that physically consists of folders and file boxes in quarter format. The materials include both Livonian folklore texts and their translations. An important component part is the Livonian ethnographic dictionary. In 2013, the digitalization of materials started. The entire physical collection and its partially digitized materials are available to anyone interested.

Oskar Looritsa portree Tartu Ülikoolile esitatud aruannete valguses

Oskar Loorits (1900–1961) is an Estonian folklore researcher, who is primarily known as the researcher of the folk tradition and religion of the Livonians, and as the founder and the first director of the Estonian Folklore Archives, founded in 1927. His connections with the University of Tartu have been discussed to a lesser extent. The article is based on the materials of the University of Tartu, mainly personnel records, stored in the National Archives of Estonia. Loorits was admitted to the University of Tartu in 1919, i.e., the same year the university adopted Estonian as the language of instruction instead of Russian and German. This involved the opening of new chairs, including the Chair of the Baltic Finnic Languages and the Chair of Folkloristics. Loorits specialised in Baltic Finnic languages and graduated with a master’s degree in 1923. Thereafter he started doctoral studies, while also changing his specialisation. In 1926, he presented his research on Livonian folk religion, for which he was awarded a doctoral degree in folkloristics. In 1927, he submitted the papers required for habilitation to the university and received the right to work as a lecturer at the university. From 1927 to 1942, he worked as an associate professor of folkloristics at the University of Tartu. In 1944, he left Estonia for Sweden. The article looks at the activities of Loorits at the University of Tartu in the period 1919–1942. As he received a scholarship from the university for both studies (1921–1923) and research (1923–1927), he had to present a report of his completed work to the university’s Faculty of Philosophy and to the university’s government at the end of each term. As he worked at the university at an hourly rate, he continued reporting until the Soviet power was established in Estonia in the summer of 1940. Besides factual information, his reports contain a remarkable amount of information on his personal development. These reports reflect Loorits’ keen eye for research problems and opportunities and reveal his great work ability and strict self-discipline. He was able to manage large research fields as he saw possibilities for organising them. He was a strict lecturer, although supportive of young researchers when they were successful. Loorits’ reports and the accompanying documents also provide an insight into the everyday life at the university of the 1920s–1930s. One can see that at the beginning of the period, the comparative method was predominant (this research method was represented by the professor of folkloristics Walter Anderson), and then the research methods based on the tradition group and presentation (Loorits) and the poetics of folklore (August Annist) were added. This was a period of significant advancement of research and science. While Loorits was able to see potential research perspectives and apply new research methods, his work was also theoretically innovative and shaped the future folklore research.

Translating into an endangered language: filling in lexical gaps as Language Making

AbstractIn this article, we analyse translation in the context of revitalisation from the point of view of Language Making. Both translation and revitalisation are based on the idea of languages as distinct entities, and together they are doubly inclined to draw clear-cut borders between languages. The data come from a series of translation courses targeted at speakers and learners of Karelian, a critically endangered Finnic language spoken in Finland and Russia. By analysing the reflective assignments of the translation course participants and focusing on how they report on encountering and overcoming lexical gaps, we examine a very concrete case of Language Making: the creation of new lexical items for Karelian for the purposes of a translation task. Since coining neologisms in our data is mostly based on borrowing or calquing, the data illustrate how the participants perceive language boundaries and the connections between Karelian and other languages. Contrary to what the intersection between translation and revitalisation suggests, a rather flexible view on linguistic borders is displayed. Participants fill in lexical gaps by drawing on all linguistic resources available to them: mainly Finnish and Russian, but also “international” resources and occasionally other languages or other Karelian dialects. To a lesser extent, the data also display the participants’ competing and conflicting ideologies of what is Karelian, what belongs to it and on which or whose model to base the neologisms.

Designing knowledge construction in pre-service teachers’ collaborative planning talk

In this paper, we report on a qualitative study of student teachers’ collaboration in planning and implementing a course that integrated physics and the Finnish language. Audio-recorded planning sessions and interviews were examined using qualitative content analysis, first, to discover what kind of space for knowledge construction student teachers designed for learners and, second, to identify the characteristics of their collaboration in developing a new cross-disciplinary pedagogical practice. The analysis revealed challenges in integrating meaning-making resources for knowledge construction; especially the role of language remained mostly invisible. This indicates a need to develop teachable strategies of translanguaging. Student teachers' varied forms of academic knowledge were interpreted as a resource for their collaboration across disciplines. Consequences for teacher education were acknowledged: supervision is needed to make the collaborative process visible and more profoundly conceptualized. More studies on the phases of the collaboration are needed.

Neural correlates of morphological processing and its development from pre-school to the first grade in children with and without familial risk for dyslexia

Previous studies have shown that the development of morphological awareness and reading skills are interlinked. However, most have focused on phonological awareness as a risk factor for dyslexia, although there is considerable diversity in the underlying causes of this reading difficulty. Specifically, the relationship between phonology, derivational morphology, and dyslexia in the Finnish language remains unclear. In the present study, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG) to measure the brain responses to correctly and incorrectly derived Finnish nouns in 34 first grade Finnish children (21 typically developing and 13 with familial risk for dyslexia). In addition, we compared longitudinally the morphological information processing of 27 children (16 typically developing and 11 at-risk for dyslexia) first at pre-school age and then at first grade age. The task consisted of 108 pairs of sentences, including a verb and its root with the derivational suffix/-jA/. Correctly and incorrectly derived forms were presented both as real words and pseudowords. The incorrectly derived nouns contained a morpho-phonological violation in the last vowel of the noun before the derivational suffix. The brain activation of the typically developing children in response to morphological information processing showed sensitivity to the morphologically correct vs. incorrect contrast only in the cases of the real words. Children at-risk for dyslexia showed sensitivity to the morphological information processing both for real words and pseudowords. However, no significant differences between the groups emerged either for the correct vs. incorrect morphological contrast or for the correctly and incorrectly derived forms separately. Interestingly, in our previous study, cluster-based permutation tests showed significant developmental behavioral and brain differences between the children at pre-school age and at first-grade age in the morphological information processing of real words and pseudowords. Our results indicate the important role of derivational morphology in the early phases of learning to read. • We examined morphological information processing in first grade children with and without risk for dyslexia with MEG. • The brain activity of the children without risk showed sensitivity to morphological information only for real nouns. • The children at-risk showed similar activity with typically developing children for real derived nouns and pseudo nouns. • No between group differences were found for the processing of the correct vs. incorrect nouns and pseudo nouns. • Significant developmental differences were found between ages, but no differences were found between groups.

Childlessness: Concept Analysis.

The purpose of this concept analysis is to explore childlessness and provide understanding to professionals involved in the field of infertility. Walker and Avant’s method was used to identify descriptions, antecedents, consequences, and empirical referents of the concept. A model with related and contrary cases was developed. The analysis was based on the definition of the term in major dictionaries in the Greek, Lithuanian, Finnish, Maltese, and Turkish languages, while further literature searches utilized the Web of Science, PubMed, PsychInfo, Medline, Google Scholar, and National Thesis Databases. The literature search was limited to papers/books published in the authors’ national languages and English. As a result, childlessness is defined as the absence of children in the life of an individual, and this can be voluntary or involuntary. However, the deeper analysis of the concept may be preceded and amplified through cultural, psychological, biological, philosophical, theological, sociological, anthropological, and linguistic aspects throughout history. These elements presented challenges for childless individuals, ultimately influencing their choices to resort to alternative ways of becoming parents, such as in vitro fertilization (IVF), surrogacy, adoption, or other forms of childbearing. Historically, childlessness has been viewed with negative connotations due to its potential impact on the survival of the human species. This negativity can be directed even to individuals who may decide to opt to voluntarily remain childfree. The long-term impact of the experience, both on an individual and collective level, continues to cause pain to those who are involuntarily childless. In conclusion, health professionals and other stakeholders who have a deep understanding of childlessness, including the antecedents and attributes, can minimize the potential negative consequences of those factors contributing to childlessness, whether voluntary or involuntary. In fact, they can capitalize on a powerful impact of change adaptation by providing support to those in their practice to recover the lost homeostasis.

Diachronic bottlenecks of the Uralic (ablative-)partitive

AbstractThis article discusses the emergence of the partitive case in the three western-most branches of the Uralic language family, which are Saamic and Finnic in North Europe, and Mordvinic in Central Russia. The Finnic languages represent the outer edge of development in the partitive from an earlier ablative case, which used to manifest ‘source’, a specific property of spatial relations. In Finnic the partitive case is a multifunctional and conceptually distinct case, an inflectional category which has developed highly specific functions in object marking, negative phrase and as a case of non-canonical subject. Traces of this development are found in Saamic and Mordvinic as well, whereas other Uralic languages don’t share this kind of secondary development and functional extension. The development of this particular affix consists of several stages, special bottlenecks, enhancing functional properties and triggering the reanalysis of an inherited affix *-ta/-tä. This article focuses on the diachrony of this particular affix with special emphasis on western Uralic.

Errors or identity markers? A survey study on the use of and attitudes towards finlandisms and fennicisms in Finland Swedish

AbstractThis study examines the use of and attitudes towards finlandisms and fennicisms in Finland Swedish. Finlandisms are words or structures typical of the Swedish variety spoken in Finland, while fennicisms are a category of finlandisms for which the source language is Finnish. Fennicisms are often discussed in context of Finnish influence and consequent Finland Swedish language loss, suggesting that the use of these features in Swedish is stigmatised. The study analyses survey responses from 126 Finland Swedish individuals in order to investigate the use of and perceptions regarding fennicisms. The responses indicate that although finlandisms and, in particular, fennicisms are often seen as erroneous, they can also be used to indicate a uniquely Finland Swedish linguistic identity. Additionally, responses regarding fennicisms provide examples of previously overlooked Finnish loanwords, while also indicating that loanwords with origins in other languages are often misidentified as stemming from Finnish. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Some observations on distance measurement words in Finnish and Swedish

The paper presents an overview of words denoting units of measurement in the Finnish and Swedish languages. Comparative studies between these two languages seem relevant because they have been used in the neighboring regions and countries with a long history of political, cultural, and people-to-people interaction. First, the study describes metalexemes of space and distance in Swedish and Finnish. Next, using thesauri, topical dictionaries and corpora, the study applies the combination of quantitative and qualitative approaches to identify and evaluate pragmatics and communication context for utterances of measure words. Then, the paper identifies several categories of measurement words in the languages, taking etymology into consideration, such as traditional measures, SI-units, foreign units and analyzes their use in the contexts of corpora representing modern discourse. The paper highlights the differences and similarities in how Swedish and Finnish use different categories of the vocabulary items. The detailed analysis of contexts provides observations about collocations and topics of news where these measure words occur. Moreover, the study addresses the impact of Swedish and Russian on Finnish, due to the historical and political circumstances. According to the data studied, the study infers that Finnish and Swedish use all types of measurement words. However, the frequency, contexts of the occurrences and speech situations differ. Some categories tend to be used in a limited amount of topics, while others have no restrictions in usage. The study is expected to contribute to practical dimensions of working with the languages, namely teaching and translation.

KARELIAN MYTHOLOGICAL BELIEFS ABOUT ANIMALS AND BIRDS (ON THE EXAMPLE OF FOLK MEDICINE)

In the beliefs of the Karelians, animals and birds act as significant elements of religious and mythological rites and rituals. Many peoples have tales, myths, beliefs and ceremonies that testify of the close relationship of man and the animal world. Traditional medicine, in which animals and birds are endowed with special functions, is no exception. The purpose of the scientific article is to identify the mythological ideas of Karelians about animals and birds in Karelian folk medicine. The studied material was also reflected in the Karelian national classification of diseases, in which, among others, groups of diseases from birds, animals and insects are absolutely clearly distinguished. The theoretical framework of the study is based on the scientific works of domestic and Finnish ethnographers and linguists. The sources for the linguistic analysis are dialect dictionaries of some Baltic-Finnish languages and etymological dictionaries of the Finnish language. All collected lexical and ethnographic material is analyzed in conjunction with closely related Karelian languages, as well as with ethnolinguistic data from the Russian language. As a result of the study, it can be clearly traced that the Karelians identified groups of animals and birds in the fauna and avifauna that could “send” various diseases to humans. However, they could become a means of curing these ailments. In the nomination of diseases, the similarity of the symptoms of the disease to the appearance of animals and birds is significant, which indicates a close relationship of man with the animal world.

THE MISSING LINK IN THE STUDY OF THE PHONETIC SYSTEM OF THE INGRIAN FINNISH SUBDIALECTS

Research by L. Y. Galakhova about the peculiarities of consonant behavior in the Finnish subdialects of Ingria, which was done in the 1960 in the Leningrad oblast, saw the light half a century after the work had been done. It would seem that science has gone far ahead, but we can assess the historical significance of Lydia Yakovlevna’s work as one of the stages of Russian dialectology. A student of Professor Z. M. Dubrovina, Lydia Yakovlevna repeatedly interned at the University of Helsinki and had an excellent command of the Finnish language and modern research methods. She taught at the Department of Finno-Ugric Philology at St. Petersburg State University from 1965 until the end of her life. According to Z. M. Dubrovina, “the material recorded by L. Y. Galakhova in 1960-1970 from the Finns of the Leningrad oblast and her observations are of undoubted value for the history of the Finnish language” [Dubrovina, 11].

Words of Turkish Origin in the Works of J. R. R. Tolkien

J. R. R. Tolkien is undoubtedly one of the most widely read epic fiction writers, translated into almost forty world languages. His works describe the entire history of an imaginary world, from the very beginning of its creation until the creation of man and are imbued with a constant struggle between good and evil. On the opposite sides, there are different races of humanoid creatures, among which are: elves, dwarves, orcs, goblins, trolls, etc. They all have elaborate genealogies and cultural characteristics. The extremely rich philological education of the author himself contributed to that. The connections between Tolkien’s work and Nordic myths have been shown in detail in science so far. This is most obvious when choosing mythological symbols and names. The author even created an elven language inspired by the Finnish language, for which he used runic alphabet. However, the names of the places where orcs, goblins and other servants of evil live, as well as their personal names, were not created after the example of elves. According to their phonetic characteristics, these names are significantly different from elven and human ones. In this paper, attention will be focused on such names, considering that they possess phonetic and semantic characteristics of the Turkish language, especially its older variants, and that they carry certain meanings that still exist in the modern Turkish language.

Finnic language islands in eastern Latvia: Archaeological background and perspective

This article discusses the archaeological background of the Leivu and Lutsi Finnic language islands. In contrast to the earlier research tradition, a hidden Finnic presence is suggested by the distribution area of Roman Iron Age tarand graves up to and including the Medieval Period when the presence of a Finnic population in northeastern Latvia (“the Chud in Ochela”) is noted in 1179/80. The Leivu language island west of Alūksne may be the last descendants of this population, formed by the merging of a Finnic substrate and Latgalian superstrate and standing between the Estonians and Livonians. The borders of this Finnic area in northern and northeastern Latvia – a diverse network of communities, existing in parallel with Latgalian ones and based on various ethnic components – are difficult to determine, as archaeological traces of its cultural pattern in the 12th–14th centuries have much in common with the Latgalians despite definite peculiarities. The Finnic traces in the Lutsi area are more difficult to identify archaeologically, although physical anthropology suggests a former Finnic presence there too.
 
 
 
 Kokkuvõte. Heiki Valk: Lõunaeesti keelesaared Ida-Lätis: arheoloogiline taust ja perspektiiv. Artikkel käsitleb leivu ja lutsi keelesaarte arheolooglist kujunemist. Erinevalt varasemast, baltikesksest vaatenurgast eeldatakse läänemeresoome rahvastiku varjatud püsimist rooma rauaaja tarandkalmete alal kuni keskajani ja ka keskaja vältel – kirjalikud allikad mainivad aastatel 1179– 1180 “Otšela tšuude” (tinglikult “adsele maarahvast”). Leivu keelesaar võiks endast kujutada selle läänemere substraadi ja latgali superstraadi ühtesulamise tulemusena kujunenud ning eestlaste ja liivlaste vahel paiknenud rahvastiku viimaseid järeltulijaid. Läänemeresoome asuala piire Läti põhja- ja kirdeosas on raske määratleda, kuna ilmselt oli tegemist eriilmeliste, läti asustuse kõrval eksisteerinud kogukondade võrgustikuga ja 12.–14. sajandi rahvastiku kultuuri arheoloogilised jäljed on vaatamata teatud iseärasustele paljuski latgalipärase ilmega. Lutsi asualal on läänemeresoome jälgi arheoloogias raskem leida, kuigi füüsilise antropoloogia andmed sellele viitavad.
 
 

On Finnic and Khanty vowel harmony: domains, slopes and their role in typology

The main purpose of this paper is to draw attention to the inaccuracies in the article by Paul Kiparsky and Karl Pajusalu (2003). Their influential study suggests a typological classification of vowel harmony based on mostly Finnic languages and their dialects which is claimed to be supported by a particular OT analysis. However, in many cases, their example languages and dialects are hardly classifiable into the category suggested by them. Moreover, their OT analysis completely ignores cases of variation (including vacillation) in the example languages. The present study deals with the data available for Estonian (Mulgi and Northeastern dialects), Veps and Khanty, and demonstrates – mostly based on the same sources referred to by Kiparsky and Pajusalu – that the actual patterns of harmony are considerably different from the patterns described in their article. It is emphasized that many patterns do not arise from the behavior of neutral vowels but instead, they can be results of the length and the nature of the harmonic domain. The paper also introduces the notion of harmonicity slope, according to which the domain has no strict borders and in which the tendency for the vowels to harmonize gradually diminishes.

Subjektin merkintä tverinkarjalan pidiä-, šuaha- ja voija-konstruktioissa

The article deals with subject expression in Tver Karelian modal constructions, which include a finite form of modal verb pidiä ‘must, have to’, šuaha ‘may, can’ or voija ‘can, may’. Pidiä, šuaha and voija belong to the core modal verbs, not only in Karelian but in other Finnic languages as well, and they are the most frequently and freely used modals to express different kinds of (non-epistemic and epistemic) modalities. According to earlier studies, all aforementioned modals have both unipersonal and multipersonal usages in Eastern Finnic languages, but the variation between the usages has remained largely unknown. This empirical study seeks to answer, 1) how often the pidiä, šuaha and voija constructions contain an overtly expressed subject NP, 2) how the prospective subject NP is marked, and 3) how large a proportion of all pidiä, šuaha and voija constructions are subjectless. The data used represent spoken Tver Karelian from mid-20th century, and as the theoretical and methodological background of the study serves functional dialect syntax.

Der Partitiv im Taimyr Dolganischen

Although recent cross-linguistic and typological research on partitive cases (Luraghi & Huumo eds. 2014) has started to expand its perspective beyond Europe, partitive and partitive-like cases in the indigenous languages of Central and Eastern Siberia have been largely overlooked. This study discusses the partitive case in Taimyr Dolgan, an indigenous Turkic language of Northern Siberia from a functional-typological, areal and historical perspective, synthesizing existing descriptions (Ubrjatova 1985, Artem'ev 1999) with the author’s field materials and a convenience sample consisting of 48000 words of written Dolgan. Due to the fact that Finnic languages dominate cross-linguistic research on partitive cases, this study concludes with a short comparative analysis of Dolgan — Finnish similarities and dissimilarities.

Estonian words for ‘field’ in historical dictionaries

Abstract The article gives an overview of Estonian landscape terms meaning ‘field’ in historical dictionaries. The main equivalents for English field in Estonian are põld, nurm and väli. Neither in standard Estonian nor in the dialects, these three words are full synonyms. In the historical dictionaries, the Estonian words occur first in the 17th century as translations of German Acker, Feld and Ackerfeld. Later, for example in the Estonian-German dictionary, published in 1869, their meanings are more precisely defined. The semantic relations of the words in dialect speech and their interpretation in the historical dictionaries will be analysed. The three words are used in all Finnic languages. Comparing the words with dialect and cognate language data, their semantic differences and distribution in dialects will be introduced.

The answerability of false hope: Examining the unexpected outcomes of the Finnexia® public art intervention

This article examines the unexpected ethical issues that emerged from Finnexia ® , a performance art intervention. Finnexia consisted of an advertisement campaign for a fictitious medication that helps people learn the Finnish language. Presented in the Helsinki Central Railway Station, the Finnexia performance aimed to generate a space for public dialogue about the experience of immigrants in Finland and the process of learning the Finnish language. On a secondary level, Finnexia presented a satirical critique towards the excess of medicalization in society. Through a detailed description of the Finnexia performance and its outcomes, the author examines the complexity of ethical issues that emerged from the Finnexia performance. The responsibility of the artist is discussed in the context of public performance in art practice and in artistic research. The author proposes that artists approach ethical considerations during the creative process through self-reflection, dialogue with fellow performers and in consultation with experts in the field.

‘Things should be explained so that the students understand them’: adolescent immigrant students’ perspectives on learning the language of schooling in Finland

ABSTRACT This article explores the language learning experiences of four recently arrived adolescent plurilingual immigrant students who participated in additional structured linguistic support (SLS) in lower secondary education. The SLS was targeted at creating scaffolding for students who were learning both the language of schooling and the subject-specific content of Finnish basic education. This study applied an interpretative phenomenological approach. Data from interviews conducted twice during the study revealed two phenomenological themes at the core of the students’ language learning experiences in formal and informal contexts. The first theme suggests that schools constituted the most important inclusive environment for learning the language of the new home country; therefore, scaffolding for the students should be organized accordingly. The second theme revolves around the role of Finnish and other languages in plurilingual students’ linguistic repertoires. The findings of this study suggest some pedagogically relevant approaches for supporting students in learning the language of schooling, especially in lower secondary education.