Jenni Santaharju (née Leppänen)

Major interests

• Multidisciplinary research
• Change in time and place
• Divergence and convergence
• Open Science

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, spoken language in Helsinki, written language in Kotiliesi, and compared Finnish east-west division in genes, language and culture. Our aim is to use data from different field to create a holistic view about the human past in the Uralic speaker area and to understand variation and change in different kinds of data on human diversity.

ORCID iD 0000-0002-7925-2715

Recent presentations

2025

UraLaari – Digitaalisen aineiston infrastruktuuri uralilaisten kielten puhuma-alueista. Kielitieteen päivät, Helsinki. 13.5.2025. Talk. Presenter.

Drivers of the East-West human group boundaries in Finland. Uncovering past with linguistic data: methodological, typological and area-specific studies, Riga. 15.3.2025. Talk. Presenter.

2024

• Digitized historical data of Finnish dialects, culture and environment. 8.11.2024. Lummaa Lab meeting, Lammi. Talk. Presenter.
• Linguistic convergence and its drivers in Finnish dialects. Human diversity consortium workshop and steering group meeting. 23.9.2024. Seili. Talk. Presenter.
• Linguistic convergence and its drivers in Finnish dialects. The 21st International Congress of Linguists. Poznan. 9.9.2024. Talk. Co-author.
• Linguistic convergence and its drivers in Finnish dialects. Societas Linguistica Europaea 57th Annual Meeting. 21.8.2024. University of Helsinki, Helsinki. Talk. Presenter.
• Digitized language variation for computational dialectology: The Dialect Atlas of Finnish by Lauri Kettunen (1940). 8th Conference on Digital Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries. 30.5.2024. Reykjavik. Poster presentation and lightning talk. Presenter.
• Suomen murremaiseman uudet laskennalliset tuulet. Kielitieteenpäivät. 7.5.2024. University of Jyväskylä, Jyväskylä. Talk. Presenter.
• Human encounters cascading into linguistic legacy. Tiedepäivät. 26.4.2024. University of Turku, Turku. Poster presentation and lightning talk. Presenter.
• 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.
• Pähkinänsärkijä: Suomen itä-länsijako ja sen taustatekijät. Archealogy days, theme: Rajat ja rajattomuus itä-länsi-akselilla ja Ihmisjäännösten tutkimuksen etiikka ja hallinto. 16.11.2023. Turku. Talk together with Timo Rantanen, presented by Timo Rantanen.
• 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 -seminar. 27.9.2023. University of Turku, Turku, Finland. Talk. Presenter and organizer.
• Evoluutionäkökulmia kielelliseen historiaan. Tiedeilta. 23.8.2023. Lounais-Suomen Luma-center, University of Turku, Turku. Science popularization talk together with Outi Vesakoski and Antti Kanner.
• 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. Talk. 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. Presenter.
• Genetic and linguistic east-west division of Finland. Congressus XIII Internationalis Fenno-Ugristarum. 24.8.2022. Presenter 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. Presenter and symposium co-organizer.
• Suomen kielellis-geneettis-kulttuurinen kahtiajako ja jakolinjojen syyt. Kielitieteen päivät 14.5.2022. Presenter together with Outi Vesakoski and symposium co-organizer. University of Turku. Turku, Finland.

Publications

• Jordman, P.; Honkola, T; Tammi, I.; Rantanen, T.; Vesakoski, O. & Santaharju, J. Digitized historical cultural and environmental data of Finland. Manuscript.
• Knuutila, S.; Kuparinen, O.; Peltonen, J; Leino, U.; Mustanoja, L.; Savonen, T. & Santaharju, J. Kysyvien lausumien muutos ja vaihtelu puhutussa suomessa. In revision.
• Rantanen, T.*, Santaharju, J.*, Salmela, E., Dunn, M., Tolvanen, H., Välimäki, R., Leino, U., Onkamo, P. & Vesakoski, O. East-west division of genes, language and culture in Finland – drivers and hindrances. Manuscript. *shared first authorship.
• Santaharju, J., Honkola, T., Seppä, P., Syrjänen, K., Leino, U-P. & Vesakoski, O. Linguistic convergence and its drivers in Finnish dialects. Resubmitted revision, Language.
• Savonen, T., Kuparinen, O., Peltonen, J., Santaharju, J., Knuutila, S., Mustanoja, L. & Leino, U. Kielen syntaktinen variaatio ja muutos Kotiliesi-lehden henkilöhaastatteluissa 1960–2020. Resubmitted revision, Sananjalka.
• Santaharju, J., Kaj Syrjänen, K., Honkola, T. Seppä, P., Vesakoski, O. & Leino, U. Data release: Digitized Dialect Atlas of Finnish by Lauri Kettunen. Digital Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries Publications 7 (3). 
• Vesakoski, O., Dunn, M., Roose, M. & Santaharju, J. The Uralic Trove (UraLaari) – The digital data infrastructure of speaker areas of Uralic languages and Finnish dialects. Digital Humanities in the Nordic and Baltic Countries Publications 7 (3). 
• Vesakoski, O., Aarikka, L. & Santaharju, J. Tieteen matkamiehen siivellä – Lauri Kettusen Suomen murteet tutkimusaineistona ennen ja nyt. Saarte keeled. Ellen Niidi juubeliraamat”. Emakeele Selts. In press.
• Knuutila, S., Kuparinen, O, Santaharju, J., Mustanoja, L., Leino, U. & Peltonen, J. Miksi kato leviää? hd-yhtymän katovariantin diffuusion syyt Helsingin puhekielessä 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

Lummaa lab

SUMU research group

Email: jenni.santaharju (at) utu.fi