Helle Metslang
Helle Metslang (born 29 July 1950 in Paide) is an Estonian linguist. Biography. Metslang studied Estonian philology at the University of Tartu, graduating in 1974. She subsequently worked at the Institute of the Estonian Language in Tallinn. In 1978 she defended her candidate thesis on syntactic aspects of Estonian folk poetry. She received her doctoral degree at the University of Oulu in 1994 for a comparative study of Estonian and Finnish. In 2000, Metslang became Professor of Estonian at Tallinn University, and she held the Chair of Contemporary Estonian at the University of Tartu from 2007 until her  retirement in 2020. She has also worked as visiting professors at the University of Helsinki and the University of Oulu. Metslang has been the recipient of numerous national and international awards, including the Wiedemann Language Award (2020), an honorary doctorate from the University of Tartu (2020), and the Grand Medal of the University of Tartu (2020). In 2016 she was elected as a member of the Academia Europaea. Research. Metslang's research focuses on Estonian syntax, especially the syntax of the verb. She also works on typology and contrastive linguistics, often with a focus on Estonian and Finnish. Along with  Mati Erelt and Reet Kasik she is one of the lead authors of "Eesti keele grammatika", the main current descriptive grammar of the Estonian language.