If you spend any substantial time researching or reading up on etymology and historical phonology, you might notice that one topic in their common neighborhood often tends to be left with surprizingly little attention. At least I have. This is…
A small Eastern Finnic word family with no known origin is Southeastern Finnish nauka, Veps ńoug ~ nåug ‘fish slime’. Possibly Karelian ńaugu ~ ńauguheinä ‘bur-reed’ also belongs here. This seems acceptable to me: the usage example in KKS comments…
Before going into more detailed analysis, I should however also emphasize one deeper theoretical aspect of subgrouping. Some people might look at my previous list of four methods of synchronic subgrouping, and their various weaknesses, and go “OK, so does…
A general theory of distributional analysis of lexical data that incorporates also a degree of historical analysis remains a thing I would like to exist. I’ve seen plenty of work of some kind done on this already, yes, but most…
A tabulation project I’ve assembled a while ago: a topical index of the Finno-Ugrian Society’s by now approaching-300-long monograph series Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia / Mémoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne. Aside from being handy for looking up what has been done…
A word group among the Uralic etymological comparative material with remarkably messy sound correspondences is that for ‘swan’. The following candidates for inclusion are usually identified (all with the same meaning): Samic *ńukčë (> Southern njoktje, Northern njukča, Kildin нюххч,…
Freelance reconstruction 