Doctoral defence: Patrick O'Rourke "Lounaisitämerensuomi: lounaisten itämerensuomalaisten kielten murteellinen kehitys"

On 30 October 2025 at 14:15, Patrick O'Rourke will defend his doctoral thesis "Lounaisitämerensuomi: lounaisten itämerensuomalaisten kielten murteellinen kehitys" (Southwest Finnic: the dialectal development of southwestern Finnic languages. Edelaläänemeresoome: edelapoolsete läänemeresoome keelte murdeline areng).

Supervisors:
Professor Karl Pajusalu (University of Tartu)
PhD Santeri Junttila (University of Helsinki)

Opponent:
Professor Rogier Blokland (University of Uppsala)

Summary

The subject of the dissertation is the dialectal development of the Southwest Finnic languages. The studied languages and dialects are Courland and Salaca Livonian, and Insular and West North Estonian. In this research, it is investigated whether it is possible to find a common origin for these dialects, which would have diverged from a Gulf of Riga Finnic proto-dialect into Courland and Salaca Livonian on the one hand, and the Insular and Western dialects of North Estonian on the other.

The body of the dissertation consists of five articles and the introductory part of the study. As the research materials, it is used grammars, phonetic-historical studies, dictionaries and dialect archives of the Finnic languages. The data is divided into phonological and lexical parts. Phonological changes are defined specific to Livonian, since Livonian is a language that is clearly distinguishable from the rest of Finnic. Then the development of Livonian is compared with the history of North Estonian. Also, Livonian vocabulary is compared with North Estonian dialectal vocabulary to study whether there are any common phonological changes and lexical correspondences between the dialects in this study that could indicate that Livonian and Insular and West Estonian descend from the same proto-dialect.

In this study, there are analyzed 14 phonological, seven morphological and seven (morpho)syntactic features and 49 lexemes. The results show in part the expected result according to the hypothesis. Features according to the hypothesis, the distribution of which would indicate a Southwest Finnic proto-dialect, occur at every language level studied. In particular, the innovative use of derivatives proves to be the strongest evidence of a common proto-dialect of Livonian and Insular and West North Estonian. Yet more features point to a Finnic dialect continuum from Saaremaa to South Estonia, possibly going back to Middle Proto-Finnic.

Defence can be followed at Zoom
https://ut-ee.zoom.us/j/94889004259?pwd=PqbQUqT4qmm0vpaTg9CP7ZbB0ObQhI.1

Meeting ID: 948 8900 4259
Passcode: 515240