B.13 M. A. Castrén and his contemporaries – grammaticography in the 18th and 19th centuries

The Finno-Ugrian Society has launched a huge project in the honour of Matthias Alexander Castrén (1813–1852), the pioneer and icon of Uralic studies: Catrén's whole literary production including his published works as well as the manuscripts will be edited, commented and (re)published.

Castrén was, however, not the only grammaticographer of his time. Several early scholars of the 19. century produced grammatical descriptions of Uralic and Turkic languages. Which were the guiding principles in their work? How did they, e.g., describe sounds that they had never heard before? How did they find the suitable characters for these sounds? Did the morphology of their own vernacular influence their grammatical description? What did they use as a model for their description? Was their approach historical or functional? 

We invite scholars of Uralic as well as other languages who are interested in questions related to grammaticography of the 18.–19. centuries to take part in the symposium.

Organizers: Ulla-Maija Forsberg and Sirkka Saarinen
Contact: sirkka.saarinen@utu.fi