One of the most exhilarating experiences I can remember was a lecture given by Professor Pertti Virtaranta in my very first term in the Main Building’s old-fashioned lecture hall 5 on the 'new' side! The professor, on the brink of retirement, told us about his field trips in Karelia, showed slides and, with the help of a reel-to-reel tape recorder, exposed us to the Karelian lament, the venerable custom of singing one’s sorrows out of the body. In my mind’s eye the funereal ribbons tied to the crosses in cemeteries, windplaces, were there before me, flapping in the breeze.

Tiina Onikki-Rantajääskö is a linguist whose particular expertise lies in semantics. Terminology work is an extension of her research on Finnish grammar and morphology. Her project Suomen kielen kognitiivista kielioppia sukukielten kehyksessä is part of the international research network Cognitive Linguistic Perspectives on other Finno-Ugric Languages.

Tiina Onikki-Rantajääskö, Professor of Finnish at the University of Helsinki, is heading the Bank of Finnish Terminology in Arts and Sciences research project. The Bank is in the process of compiling the specialist Finnish vocabulary of every field in a flexible database.