Major interests
- Multidisciplinary research
- Change in time and place
- Divergence and convergence
About me
I am an evolutionary biologist fascinated by genetic, linguistic and cultural diversity. My interests concern what has caused the areal variation that we can see today in populations of humans and other species. What has driven or inhibited populations differentiation or contacts? What does the contemporary variation tell us about the past? In my PhD I studied phylogeoraphy and speciation of ants in the Palearctic region. During my postdoc I have been applying population genetic framework to linguistic data, and studied Uralic languages, Finnish dialects, and spoken language in Helsinki. Our aim is to use data from different field to create a holistic view about the human past in the Uralic speaker area.
List of publications
ORCID iD 0000-0002-7925-2715
Presentations
2024
- Uusia mittareita, esimerkkinä kielikontaktit. In the presentation of Human diversity: Discovering how human contacts cascade into genetic and cultural legacies. 15.1.2024. Meeting of the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters. Turku, Finland. Speaker together with other members of the Human diversity -consortium.
2023
- Human diversity as a window into our past, present and future – cascading effects of human encounters into genetic and cultural legacies. TeamUp – Cultural Memory and Social Change 11.12.2023. University of Turku, Turku, Finland. Invited speaker together with Aïda Nitch.
- Language change across time, space and social groups. What is change -symposium. 4.12.2023. University of Turku, Turku, Finland. Invited speaker.
- Selittävätkö historialliset rajat suomalaisten itä-länsijakoa? Pähkinänsärkijä: Suomen itä-länsijaon kehittyminen -seminaari. 27.9.2023. Human diversity seminar series. University of Turku, Turku, Finland. Presenter and organizer.
- Linguistic diversity revealing our population history. Diversity in human diversity -seminar. 21.8. 2023. University of Turku, Turku, Finland. Invited speaker and panelist.
- Suomen murrealueiden kielelliset ja geneettiset kontaktit. Kielitieteen päivät 25.5.2023. University of Oulu. Oulu, Finland. Presenter.
2022
- Ethical co-writing and research team work. Langnetin kesäkoulu 2022: Kielentutkimuksen etiikka. 16.8.2022. Åbo Akademi. Turku, Finland.
- Genetic and linguistic east-west division of Finland. Congressus XIII Internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum. 24.8.2022. Together with Timo Rantanen. University of Vienna. Vienna, Austria.
- Kielen variaatio ja muutos populaatiogenetiikan viitekehyksessä. Kielitieteen päivät. 14.5.2022. University of Turku. Turku, Finland.
- Suomen kielellis-geneettis-kulttuurinen kahtiajako ja jakolinjojen syyt. Kielitieteen päivät 14.5.2022. Together with Outi Vesakoski. University of Turku. Turku, Finland.
Publications
- Santaharju, J., Honkola, T., Seppä, P., Syrjänen, K., Leino, U-P. & Vesakoski, O. Linguistic convergence and its drivers: Formation of Finnish dialectal landscape. In review: Language.
- Knuutila, S., Kuparinen, O, Santaharju, J., Mustanoja, L., Leino, U. & Peltonen, J. Miksi d katoaa? Katomuotojen diffuusion etenemisen syistä Helsingin puhekielessä yleiskielen hd-yhtymässä. Sananjalka, 64: 67-85. https://doi.org/10.30673/sja.115658 pdf
- Kuparinen, O., Santaharju, J., Leino, U., Mustanoja, L. & Peltonen, J. 2021: Katomuotojen eteneminen yleiskielen hd-yhtymässä Helsingin puhekielessä. Virittäjä, 126 (3): 316–338. Final submission here.
- Kuparinen, O., Peltonen, J., Mustanoja, L., Leino, U. & Santaharju, J. 2021. Lects in Helsinki Finnish – a probabilistic component modeling approach. Language Variation and Change, 33 (1), 1 – 26. Final submission here.
- Kuparinen, O., Mustanoja, L., Peltonen, J., Santaharju, J. & Leino, U. 2019: Muutosmallit Helsingin puhekielessä. Patterns of change in a longitudinal corpus of three points in time. Sananjalka 61(61), 30-56. preprint pdf
- Honkola, T., Santaharju, J., Syrjänen, K. & Pajusalu, K. 2019. Clustering lexical variation of Finnic languages based on Atlas Linguarum Fennicarum. Linguistica Uralica 55:(3), 161-184. pdf
- Lehikoinen, A., Fraixedas, S., Burgas, D., Eriksson, H., Henttonen, H., Laakkonen, H., Lehikoinen, P., Lehtomäki, J., Leppänen, J., Mäkeläinen, S., Niemimaa, J., Pihlajaniemi, M., Santaharju. J. & Välimäki, K. The impact of weather and the phase of the rodent cycle on breeding populations of waterbirds in Finnish Lapland. Ornis Fennica 93: 31-46.
- Leppänen, J., Seppä, P., Vepsäläinen, K., & Savolainen, R. 2016: Mating isolation between the ant Myrmica rubra and its microgynous social parasite. Insectes Sociaux (63), 79-86.
- Leppänen, J., Seppä, P., Vepsäläinen, K., & Savolainen, R. 2015: Genetic divergence between the sympatric queen morphs of the ant Myrmica rubra. Molecular Ecology 24 (10): 2463-2476. pdf
- Leppänen, J., Vepsäläinen, K., Anthoni, H. & Savolainen, R. 2013: Comparative phylogeography of the ants Myrmica ruginodis and Myrmica rubra. Journal of Biogeography,40 (3):479-491.
- Leppänen, J., Vepsäläinen, K. & Savolainen, R. 2011: Phylogeography of the ant Myrmica rubra and its inquiline social parasite. Ecology and Evolution 1: 46-62.
Theses
- Leppänen, J. 2012: Phylogeography and population genetics of social parasitism in Myrmica ants. Doctoral dissertation (article-based), University of Helsinki, Faculty of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Department of Biosciences, 109 pages. https://helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/37496
- Leppänen, J. 2005: Oravan elinpiirit ja elinympäristön käyttö. Pro gradu thesis, University of Helsinki, Faculty of Biosciences, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, 52 pages.
Book chapters
- Leppänen, J. 2009: Liito-orava on öisen latvuston huimapää. Luonnossa nisäkkäät 1. Weilin+Göös, p. 96-97.
- Leppänen, J. 2009: Orava – pihapiirin tuttu pörröhäntä. Luonnossa nisäkkäät 1. Weilin+Göös, p. 44-45.
- Leppänen, J. 2005: Orava – metsän akrobaatti. Jahtimailla – Riistanisäkkäät. Weilin+Göös. p. 212-25.
Contact Information
University of Turku, Human Diversity consortium, Faculty of Faculty of Humanities, School of Languages and Translation Studies
Email: jenni.santaharju (at) utu.fi
