(Part ca. 3 of n in my irregularly scheduled series of Introducing Named Soundlaws in Uralic Studies. [0]) The issue, as I see it Most of the vowel correspondences we now think to be regular between Samoyedic and the rest…
The history of Proto-Finnic *h provides several illustrative examples of the diachronic development of “laryngeal” consonants. The primary overarching pattern is a north(east)–south(west) cline of gradual loss. This demonstrates that *h-loss processes have arisen independently in multiple lineages, and in…
According to usual understanding, the Proto-Uralic stem vowel contrast *-A | *-ə is still continued in the Mordvinic languages in nominals of the shape CVCV: word-finally *-A survives as a vowel (mostly *-ə, in some cases *-a), while *-ə is…
Continued from my thesis release post, as is perhaps appropriate now that I finally have wrapped up my graduation as well. To make it a bit more convenient for readers, I provide here an English outline of the specific topics…
As a part of my ongoing quest to get a better handle on the Indo-Iranian languages (mostly, yes, but not only due to their important early contact influence on the Uralic languages), some time ago I caught wind of Saloumeh…
Mari is one of the key languages for the reconstruction of Proto-Uralic *ë, in having a mostly unique reflex *ü > Hill Mari /ü/ ~ Meadow Mari /ü/. The only other known regular source of this vowel correspondence is would-be…
I have noted before that Proto-Uralic *ü, whose reconstruction has at times been opposed by various scholars, has never received a truly detailed defense. Arguments contra have never been very detailed either — but one recurring claim has been that…
This summer I’ve finished digitizing the main bulk of comparative data from László Honti’s Geschichte des obugrischen Vokalismus der ersten Silbe (1982): his 724 Proto-Ob-Ugric reconstructions and their descendants in the individual Mansi and Khanty varieties. Before making this available in…
From a Uralicist perspective, one thing that I find goes underappreciated in Indo-European studies is the extensive phonotactic complexity of most IE languages. Certain types of studies on PIE consonant clusters can be found these days in abundance, yes… but…
Freelance reconstruction 
A Century Late on Proto-Finnic sibilants
There are broadly two commonly seen ways of thinking about progress in science. The first is the “naive” Science Marches On narrative where we have ever-increasing aggregation of solid Results; the archetype is mathematics, where results indeed stay around as…
Posted in Commentary, Reconstruction