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This study examines phonological and phonetic properties of ATR contrasts in the vowel system of Akebu (Kwa). The sum of descriptive evidence, including vowel harmony, vowel distribution in non-harmonising contexts, vowel reduction and typological and etymological considerations, indicates a rare vowel inventory with an ATR contrast in front/back vowels but a height contrast in the three redundantly [ATR] central vowels /ᵻ, ə, a/. This analysis was checked against four common acoustic metrics of ATR: F1 and F2 frequencies, spectral slope and F1 bandwidth size (B1). As expected, the results for the last three metrics were variable across speakers and vowel types, and are therefore inconclusive. The results for F1 were consistent but do not distinguish between ATR and vowel height. Two results nonetheless suggest the [ATR] status of central vowels: they occupy the same belt of F1 frequencies and show the same position of observed-over-predicted B1 values as front and back [ATR] vowels.

Secondary gemination is a remarkable but little-known phonological process of singleton consonant lengthening into geminates in certain prosodic positions in Finnic languages. Its phonetic premises, typology, and chronology are still understudied. The aim of the paper is twofold. First, it summarises the main facts about secondary gemination and its place within general prosodic tendencies observed in Finnic languages. Second, it uses acoustic data from Soikkola Ingrian, which manifests one of the most developed Finnic systems of secondary gemination, to argue about the relative chronology and phonetic mechanisms of this gemination. The conclusion is that the phonetic duration of phonologised secondary geminates cannot be used as an argument for their age, because, as our acoustic data in [1] showed, their duration is regulated by compensatory stress-induced shortening as a function of the foot structure. On the other hand, the atypical prosodic positions of trisyllabic secondary gemination in Soikkola Ingrian can indeed suggest the younger age of this particular type of gemination.

This acoustic study explores compensatory influences of foot structure on segmental duration and quantity in the foot nuclei of 22 trisyllabic and four disyllabic structures in vanishing Soikkola Ingrian (Finnic). A robust ternary quantity contrast of consonants is confirmed for both disyllables and trisyllables. While in the shortest disyllables the contrast is “pure” (i.e., not significantly reinforced by the durations of other segments), in all trisyllables it is enhanced through the durationally inverse (compensatory) effects in other segments. In this, the situation in trisyllables is closer to that attested in other languages with ternary consonantal quantity than the situation in disyllables. The phonological quantity contrast has been lost from the second syllable vowel of trisyllables, and its duration is now inversely related to the first syllable complexity. In the segments preceding this vowel, all compensatory effects are purely phonetic. Shorter segmental durations and stronger compensatory effects in trisyllables than in disyllables indicate tendencies for both polysegmental and polysyllabic shortening. We discuss a potential relation of observed compensatory effects of shortening and lengthening (a “half-long” vowel) to foot isochrony and metrical stress.

The vanishing Soikkola dialect of Ingrian (Finnic; Uralic) manifests an ongoing shortening of second syllable unstressed long vowels (V2) in trisyllables. Our major acoustic study [1] showed that the original phonological contrast of long and short V2 is currently in a state of fine-grained continuum from contrast maintenance to complete merger, depending on the structure. Structural variation is aggravated by considerable interspeaker variability, addresed in this paper. Out of the five studied speakers, three were innovative and two conservative as regards long V2 shortening. Speakers do not communicate in the language any longer, which affects the natural curve of sound changes. Moreover, this particular sound change is likely never to be completed due to imminent language loss. Unfinished long V2 shortening with its high interspeaker variability creates challenges for the development of practical transcription, needed for language description, codification, and teaching, and for the typological placement of the rare ternary quantity contrast of consonants attested in Soikkola Ingrian.

The chapter discusses phonetic, phonological, evolutionary, and typological properties of two particular features in the vanishing Udihe language (Tungusic): vowel aspiration and glottalisation. In their evolution, traced from the end of the 19th century to the 2000s, two main aspects are distinguished: (1) a qualitative evolution from consonants to vowel features and word-prosodic features and (2) a loss of the syllabic boundary between two short vowels, where the original consonants occurred. While aspiration is nearly lost, glottalisation can now be occasionally realised as a pitch dip within a long vowel. The latter realisations do not, however, necessarily imply the transformation of glottalisation into a lexical pitch-accent or tone. They rather represent an articulatory target undershoot, which is at least partially induced by the process of language loss and the influence of “lax” Russian articulation. On the other hand, Udihe glottalisation has already accumulated enough word-prosodic features to permit also a phonological analysis as a glottal prosody, typologically similar to Danish stød and lexical laryngeal prosodies in some Otomanguean languages. In spite of a potential for further word-prosodic development, glottalisation is likely to be lost, in the same way as aspiration. This pathway is suggested by the pressure of the dominating Russian language which lacks such features.

This is a book review.

The local use of wild food plants represents a reservoir for the biocultural diversity of human diet and is therefore being extensively studied; yet the effects of the introduction of novel uses into specific biocultural conditions have been little researched. Rosebay willowherb Epilobium angustifolium L. has been intensively promoted in Europe since the mid-18th century. The expert recommendations did not provide any links to local uses thus raising the question of the legitimacy and diffusion of its food use in modern times. To understand if and to what extent those recommendations have influenced local uses, we compared them with the results of our ethnobotanical field study and the ethnographic literature in Russia, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Of the 599 people interviewed, nine used E. angustifolium as a food and 59 as a recreational tea. Thirty-four of those who claimed to use E. angustifolium lived in two regions of Russia. The majority of the recorded tea uses were of recent origin, following a popular trend. Few food uses of E. angustifolium were recorded in Finland, where a trend towards culinary experimentation coincides with a general trend toward the consumption of healthy wild food; yet these uses are difficult to maintain due to the problems in recognizing the plant during its early stages of growth. The popularization of E. angustifolium as a food had more effect in times of hardship, when it was seen as a means of survival and its promotion was advocated. The translation error repeatedly appeared in botanical and later popular literature, whose authors did not clearly differentiate at that time between local uses and suggestions.

This introduction gives an overview of a workshop on vowel reduction and loss held at SLE 2017 and the resulting papers collected here. It also discusses the present state of research on vowel reduction and loss in a number of perspectives and outlines the main themes dealt with throughout the course of this special issue.

ethnopharmacological information on many plants, yet the sources of that information, as well as the information itself, are often not clear, potentially resulting in the erroneous use of plants among lay people or even in official medicine. Our field studies in seven countries on the Eastern edge of Europe have revealed an unusual increase in the medicinal use of Epilobium angustifolium L., especially in Estonia, where the majority of uses were specifically related to “men's problems”. The aim of the current work is: to understand the recent and sudden increase in the interest in the use of E. angustifolium in Estonia; to evaluate the extent of documented traditional use of E. angustifolium among sources of knowledge considered traditional; to track different sources describing (or attributed as describing) the benefits of E. angustifolium; and to detect direct and indirect influences of the written sources on the currently documented local uses of E. angustifolium on the Eastern edge of Europe. Materials and methods: In this study we used a variety of methods: semi-structured interviews with 599 people in 7 countries, historical data analysis and historical ethnopharmacological source analysis. We researched historical and archival sources, and academic and popular literature published on the medicinal use of E. angustifolium in the regions of our field sites as well as internationally, paying close attention to the literature that might have directly or indirectly contributed to the popularity of E. angustifolium at different times in history. Results: Our results show that the sudden and recent popularity in the medical use of E. angustifolium in Estonia has been caused by local popular authors with academic medical backgrounds, relying simultaneously on “western” and Russian sources. While Russian sources have propagated (partially unpublished) results from the 1930s, “western” sources are scientific insights derived from the popularization of other Epilobium s

Individual variability in sound change was explored at three stages of final vowel reduction and loss in the endangered Finnic varieties of Ingria (subdialects of Ingrian, Votic and Ingrian Finnish). The correlation between the realisation of reduced vowels and their phonemic categorisation by speakers was studied. The correlated results showed that if V was pronounced > 70%, its starting loss was not yet perceived, apart from certain frequent elements, but after > 70% loss, V was not perceived any more. A split of 50/50 between V and loss in production correlated with the same split in categorisation. At the beginning of a sound change, production is, therefore, more innovative, but after reanalysis, categorisation becomes more innovative and leads the change. The vowel a was the most innovative in terms of loss, u/o were the most conservative, and i was in the middle, while consonantal palatalisation was more salient than labialisation. These differences are based on acoustics, articulation and perception.

The paper analyses existing moraic conceptions of Estonian quantity. Main features of functional, generative and phonetically-instructed moraic accounts of Estonian are considered. In most generative accounts, morae simultaneously represent several layers of functionally and structurally diverse information. This brings along a considerable increase in formal analytical machinery and internal controversies. In a structural functional framework, morae can be used to formalise the prosodic contrast of long and short stressed syllables in Estonian. Its relevance is seen in actual functioning of the prosodic system. This contrast is built upon the segmental contrast of short and long phonemes and, in turn, serves as a basis for the contrast of two distinctive foot accents, light and heavy. As an example, a formal morphonological algorithm of calculating Estonian foot accents, which also shows the place of the syllable weight contrast, is proposed.

The typology of word prosody is still a subject of debate. Tone and stress remain the central units of classification; however, there is not an established consensus about their definitions. In this chapter, I focus on two specific word-prosodic units with a non-pitch based primary phonetic exponent: prosodic quantity in Standard Estonian and prosodic laryngealization in Copenhagen Danish. I summarize their main phonetic and functional features with special attention placed on their relation to pitch and stress in the respective languages. I also compare these prosodic units with functionally similar cases of pitch-based word prosody in other languages and put them in the framework of mainstream word-prosodic typology. Both cases are challenging for the typology, as they are full-fledged phonological word-prosodic units, but do not qualify either as tone or as stress. In the end, I discuss a possible input from such cases into the debate on distinction between the notions of tone, stress, and accent.

Review on a manual on Estonian phonetics meant for Estonian university students

The paper considers two typologically rare phonological phenomena related to the development of sound lengthening and reduction that appear in two dialects of the severely endangered Ingrian language in North-Western Russia. The first is attested in the Soikkola dialect, and involves a phonological ternary quantity contrast of consonants. The second exists in the Lower Luga dialect, and involves a phonological opposition of full modal and reduced voiceless vowels. First, brief phonetic, phonological and typological profiles of these contrasts are given. Furthermore, I analyze their probable further evolution against the typological background of similar phenomena in genetically related and unrelated languages. In the end, I discuss the question of stability and maintenance forces of these contrasts, as well as their significance in light of general prosodic development of the Soikkola and Lower Luga dialects.

The chapter discusses Finnic languages spoken in Ingria (Votic, Ingrian and Ingrian Finnish), gives a detailed overview of the current language situation, and analyses the processes that have caused a language and identity shift. There are many common features in the history of these languages, and they greatly influenced each other through intensive language contacts. Nonetheless, the current situation shows individual characteristics for each language. The paper addresses the following issues for each of the three languages: the dialectal structure and historical language contacts; contemporary language situation (the number and geographical distribution of the speakers, their age, gender, mobility, contacts with other languages and attitudes towards the native language); historical background of the present situation; and prospects for the near future and recent language maintenance and revitalization efforts.