awards
36
finnish cultural foundation
annual report 2012–2013
P
eople have been communicating
by means of language for around
100,000 years. They began writing
some 5,000 years ago. Knowledge hewn
in stone was preserved from one generation to the next.
“Language is the most important iden-
tifier of the human race. The whole devel-
opment of society and culture relies on
language,” says
Fred Karlsson
, Professor
Emeritus of General Linguistics at the Uni-
versity of Helsinki.
General linguistics focuses on the es-
sence of human language. Language is im-
portant in any discipline seeking to un-
derstand mankind and human behaviour.
Linguistic typology studies, compares and
classifies languages according to their
structural features and syntax. Cognitive
linguistics examines the interaction be-
tween language, concepts and thought.
Linguistic research into this interaction
is carried out in Finland in large multidis-
ciplinary centres of excellence. Linguistic
technology – previously known as com-
putational linguistics – examines meth-
ods for the computer analysis of human
speech and script and semantic model-
ling, i.e. for understanding meaning. Ex-
ample applications are automatic spell-
ing and grammar checks, and automatic
speech recognition.
General linguistics has been an academic
subject in Finland since 1966. FredKarlsson
has distinguished himself as a researcher
of linguistics and phonetics, as the leader
of research projects, as a developer of lin-
guistic technology, as a teacher, and as a
supervisor of doctoral dissertations.
“There are about 6,000 languages in the
world, but basic data has been collected on
only 3,000. We know far too little about the
search project on sign language. For sev-
en years, he was chairman of the Commit-
tee for Finnish Romani of the Institute for
the Languages of Finland. A project aim-
ing to revitalise Finnish Romani was car-
ried out in 2005–2007 with funding from
the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the
Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland.
“Finnish Romani will die out if parents
no longer speak it to their children. Do they
have a sufficient command of Finnish Rom-
ani, and do they want their language to be
preserved?” he asks
Many linguists are concerned at the
dominance of English in business and
higher education in Finland. Will our
grandchildren find themselves learning
Finnish in language nests? According
to Professor Karlsson, English will not
bulldozer small national languages so long
as people constantly tend to them. Small
nations have to be alert.
“In Finland, scientific results are most-
ly published in English. The concepts and
lexicon in a small national language need
constant updating and attention.”
Eureka – constraint grammar!
“Computers have altered research a lot.
In the early 1980s, when I was wondering
how they could be used to develop linguis-
tics, I was lucky to meet
Kimmo Kosken-
niemi
, another researcher. He was later to
third-world languages, even though they
are spoken by about a fifth of the world’s
population. Documenting these languag-
es and rescuing endangered ones are ur-
gent tasks for linguistics.”
For a close link exists between identity and language.
Small languages need protecting
Fred Karlsson grew up in a Swedish-speak-
ing home in Turku and majored in Finnish
at Åbo Akademi University. He then went
on to study phonetics at the University of
Turku, obtaining a Licentiate degree in
1970. While spending a year at the Uni-
versity of Chicago on an ASLA scholarship,
he completed an MA in general linguistics,
following this in 1974 with a doctorate in
phonetics at the University of Turku for a
dissertation on phonetics. From 1978 to
1980 he was Assistant Professor of Gen-
eral Linguistics at the University of Turku.
“My colleague
Auli Hakulinen
and I
wrote an unconventional grammar,” he
says. “It took us three years, was called
Nykysuomen lauseoppia (Modern Finn-
ish Syntax) and was published in 1979. At
about this time I applied for the professor-
ship in general linguistics at the Universi-
ty of Helsinki. When I got the post in 1980,
I moved to Helsinki.”
In the late 1970s, Fred Karlsson devel-
oped an interest in and conducted a re-
Focusing on the essence
of human language
“It’s important to research all languages. Linguistics is so far
familiar with only half the languages spoken in the world,”
says Professor Emeritus Fred Karlsson.
“Constraint Grammar is a rough paradigm
for analysing syntax and interpretation.
The constraint grammar models are so general
that they fit any language”
