Mari Uusküla (until July 1, 2005 Mari Bogatkin; born January 23, 1980) is an

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

linguist.

Early life and education

Uusküla is the daughter of the ceramist Georg Bogatkin and the paternal granddaughter of the artists Vladimir Bogatkin and

Valli Lember-Bogatkina Valli Lember-Bogatkina (30 October 1921 – 14 June 2016) was known as "The Grand Old Lady of Estonian watercolor". Her works are exhibited in cities around the world. Biography Valentine Lember was the daughter of a builder, Gustav Lember, a ...

. She is the maternal granddaughter of the sculptor Endel Taniloo. Uusküla graduated from in 1998 and from the

University of Tartu The University of Tartu (UT; ; ) is a public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country.

's Faculty of Arts and Humanities in 2003, majoring in Hungarian. Both her master's thesis and doctoral dissertation were supervised by

Urmas Sutrop Urmas Sutrop (born 7 June 1956) is an Estonian linguistics, linguist. He graduated from high school in 1974 and in 1984 from the University of Tartu with a biology degree. His thesis was titled "Ardisia crispa A. DC. lehe baktersõlme siseste ta ...

at the University of Tartu. She defended her dissertation, ''Basic Colour Terms in Finno-Ugric and Slavonic Languages: Myths and Facts'', in 2008 at the Department of General Linguistics.

Career

Uusküla teaches psycholinguistics, anthropological linguistics, semantics, and pragmatics at

Tallinn University Tallinn University (TLU; , ''TLÜ'') is a public research university in Estonia. Located in the centre of Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, Tallinn University is one of the three largest institutions of higher education in the country. Both QS ...

. She has taught at several other European universities, in

Roskilde Roskilde ( , ) is a city west of Copenhagen on the Danish island of Zealand. With a population of 53,354 (), the city is a business and educational centre for the region and the 10th largest city in Denmark. It is governed by the administrative ...

Verona Verona ( ; ; or ) is a city on the Adige, River Adige in Veneto, Italy, with 255,131 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region, and is the largest city Comune, municipality in the region and in Northeast Italy, nor ...

Milan Milan ( , , ; ) is a city in northern Italy, regional capital of Lombardy, the largest city in Italy by urban area and the List of cities in Italy, second-most-populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of nea ...

, and

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

. She is the head of the Western European Studies program at Tallinn University's Institute of Humanities, where she is an associate professor of linguistics and translation studies. She is the head of the Department of Language History, Dialects, and Finno-Ugric Languages at the

Institute of the Estonian Language The Institute of the Estonian Language () is the official language-regulatory authority of the Estonian language. It is located in the capital city of Estonia, Tallinn. Its stated formal goal is to contribute to the long-term survival of the Est ...

. Much of her research has focused on linguistic aspects of colors.

Publications

*2008: ''Basic Colour Terms in Finno-Ugric and Slavonic Languages: Myths and Facts'' *2011: ''Värvinimede raamat'' (A Book of Color Names) *2015: "Applying Points-of-View Analysis to Individual Variations in Colour Sorting Data," in ''Journal of Cognition and Culture'' 15 *2016: ''Color Language and Color Categorization'' (coeditor) *2020: "When Does 'Bright' Mean 'Prototypical'? Color-Term Modifiers in Eight European Languages, Examined with Color-Survey Data," in: ''

Journal of the Optical Society of America The ''Journal of the Optical Society of America'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of optics, published by Optica. It was established in 1917 and in 1984 was split into two parts, A and B. ''Journal of the Optical Society of America A'' ...

'' 37 *2023: "Is Purple Lost in Translation? The Affective Meaning of Purple, Violet, and Lilac Cognates in 16 Languages and 30 Populations," in: ''Journal of Psycholinguistic Research'' 52 *2023: "Translation of Color Language," in: ''Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology'' (Cham: Springer), pp. 1531–1535 *2024: "The Purple Mystery: Semantic Meaning of Three Purple Terms in French Speakers from Algeria, France, and Switzerland" (coauthor), in: ''Color Research & Application'' 49

Awards and recognitions

*2000: Estonian National Culture Foundation Scholar *2020: Professor of the Year, Tallinn University School of Humanities *2021: Achiever of the Year, School of Humanities of Tallinn University *2021:

Estonian Science Communication Award The Estonian Science Communication Award () is an Estonian award given to an individual or group for the popularization of science since 2006. The award is financed by the Ministry of Education and Research (Estonia), Ministry of Education and ...

(incentive prize)

References

1980 births Living people Linguists from Estonia University of Tartu alumni Academic staff of Tallinn University {{Improve categories, date=January 2024