Alho Alhoniemi (born 1933 in

Suomussalmi Suomussalmi () is a municipality in Finland located in the Kainuu region about northeast of Kajaani, the capital of Kainuu and south of Kuusamo. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population ...

) is a Finnish linguist specializing in the

Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th centur ...

. Alhoniemi graduated from high school in 1952 in

Kannus Kannus is a town and municipality of Finland. It is situated in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Central Ostrobothnia region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of , of which is water. The populatio ...

. He obtained his PhD in 1967 with a thesis about the

lative case In grammar, the lative ( ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates motion to a location. It corresponds to the English prepositions "to" and "into". The lative case belongs to the group of the general local cases together with the loc ...

in Mari and served as professor of Finno-Ugric linguistics at the

University of Turku The University of Turku (, shortened ''UTU'') is a multidisciplinary public university with eight faculties located in the city of Turku in southwestern Finland. The university also has campuses in Rauma and Pori and research stations in Kevo ...

from 1971 to 1996. He was appointed member of the

Finnish Academy of Science and Letters The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters (; ) is a Finnish learned society. It was founded in 1908 and is thus the second oldest academy in Finland. The oldest is the Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters, which was founded in 1838. Member ...

in 1981 and received an honorary doctorate from

Uppsala University Uppsala University (UU) () is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in operation. Initially fou ...

in 1994. He served as chairman of the Society for the Finnish Language (''Suomen Kielen Seura'') from 1971 to 1979. His research interests include the syntax of the Mari and Mordvinic languages. In 1985, he published an extensive grammar of Mari in Finnish, which was translated into German in 1993.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alhoniemi, Alho 1933 births Members of the Finnish Academy of Science and Letters Living people Academic staff of the University of Turku Finnish Finno-Ugrists People from Suomussalmi