[Ura-list] Sad news

[Johanna Laakso]

Dear URA-LIST Community,

I have been procrastinating with this piece of sad news for a few days already. Jocelyne Fernandez-Vest, an outstanding expert of Finnic and Saami, an ambitious and versatile scholar with a broad range of expertise and interests, has passed away. Tuija Virtanen-Ulfhielm on the Finnish LANGNET list captures the essential aspects of her work and why her passing was such a loss:

> Lähettäjä: Tuija Virtanen-Ulfhielm <Tuija.Virtanen at abo.fi>
> 
> It is with profound sadness that I inform you of the passing of Marie-Madeleine Jocelyne FERNANDEZ-VEST, a scholar and friend, on Wednesday 25 March, 2026, in her home in Paris, France. She was born in 1947.
>  
> In addition to her native French, Jocelyne was well versed in English, Estonian, Finnish, Northern Sami and Swedish. Her research interests ranged from typology (oral languages) to field linguistics (Finnish and Norwegian Sami, Finnish immigrants in California), text linguistics (information structuring, discourse particles), discourse semantics and cognition, as well as multilingualism and translation theories. She published some thirty (co)-authored or edited books and hundreds of articles, and translated fiction from various languages into French. Her scholarly website, including an interview, may be found at https://lacito.cnrs.fr/annuaire/mmjocelyne-fernandez-vest/
>  
> Jocelyne was an inspiring colleague, fascinated by languages and linguistics, and always generous with ideas. She is survived by her husband Jouni-Antti and their son Julien-Piera.
>  
> Tuija Virtanen-Ulfhielm

And while still contemplating on this, I found a second piece of sad news in my social media feed: the FB account of the Reguly Társaság informs us that Sándor Csúcs, the primus motor of the Society, has left this world – three years after his colleagues, friends and students celebrated his 80th birthday.

As most of us probably know, Sándor Csúcs, retired professor of Finno-Ugric studies at the Péter Pázmány Catholic University, was one of the leading experts in Permic studies, especially Udmurt, his first love among the Finno-Ugric languages. In addition to numerous studies on various aspects of Permic and Finno-Ugric historical linguistics, he published widely about the popularization of Finno-Ugric studies and also authored a Hungarian textbook for Finnish students, a product of his work at the University of Turku. His special field of interest was the Reguly Society which he founded, and its work for disseminating knowledge about the Uralic peoples and their cultures. Among his most recent works is a monograph about Antal Reguly, the Hungarian pioneer of Uralic field linguistics. 
"Si enim quod evacuatur per gloriam est / multo magis quod manet in gloria est." (Ad Corinthios II 3: 11)

Our heartfelt condolences to all the colleagues, friends and loved ones of these two colleagues now sorely missed.

jl

--
Univ.Prof. Dr. Johanna Laakso
Universität Wien, Institut für Europäische und Vergleichende Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft (EVSL)
Abteilung Finno-Ugristik
Campus AAKH Spitalgasse 2-4 Hof 7
A-1090 Wien
johanna.laakso at univie.ac.at • http://homepage.univie.ac.at/Johanna.Laakso/


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