“LANGUAGES of the WORLD”: Ongoing projects

CML-2008 Montenegro, September 2008

Andrej A. Kibrik (Institute of Linguistics, RAN)

[email protected]

“Languages of the World”: basic information

     Founded in mid-1970s by Viktoria N. Yartseva Motive: fragmented character of individual language descriptions, due to:  actual linguistic differences  various linguistic traditions  personal preferences Goal: produce commensurable descriptions of as many human languages as possible Format: encyclopedia Languaqe: Russian 2

Template

 Tool: typologically-oriented, uncommitted template, including information on:  external aspects of language: • history  • • • • geography sociolinguistics dialects ..........

internal features: • phonetics and phonology • • • • formal morphology representation of semantic categories syntactic constructions lexicon 3

Template

Standard typologically-oriented templates I. Article on language family or group of dialects

a.. Name b.. geographic spread and composition c.. Approximate number of speakers d.. Principles of genetic classification and its variants e.. Chronology of divergence (for higher level families) f.. Typical phonetic and grammatical features Bibliography

II. Article on a language

1.1.0. Background information 1.1.1. alternative names 1.1.2. affilation (position in genealogical classification) 1.1.3. geographic spread; number of speakers 1.2.0. Linguo-geographical information 1.2.1. principal dialects 1.3.0. Socio-linguistic situation 1.3.1. communicative and functional status of the language 1.3.2. level of standartization 4

Properties of the template

   Positive   very general • easily applicable to any language flexible • allows to fit in as much useful info as possible Negative  somewhat outdated (developed in the 1970s) There is no other choice than keep going with the template, as long as we are able to 5

1990s to now

     Switch from the encyclopedia format to individual volumes on language groups Since 1993 – 14 volumes on genealogical and areal language groupings One megaproject is split into a large number of much more graspable and managable individual projects In the 2000s we integrate international colleagues and collect some articles in English Project of the Database “Languages of the World” was developing on the basis on our project, but largely in parallel, and it is only now that some integration began 6

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14 published volumes

              Uralic 1993 Turkic 1997 Mongolic, Tungusic, Japanese, and Korean 1997 Paleoasiatic 1997 South-western Iranian 1997 North-western Iranian 1999 Eastern Iranian 1999 Dardic and Nuristani 1999 Caucasian 1999 Germanic and Celtic 2000 Romance 2001 Old and Middle Indo-Aryan 2004 Slavic 2005 Baltic 2006 8

Management

    Editorial group “Languages of the World” Constituent of the Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences 6 coworkers in the group Each project is managed by:    Supervisor from the group “LW” “Genealogical editor(s)” Group of authors 9

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Not yet published projects

    I. Near completion II. In the making III. Incipient stage IV. Projected 11

I. Near completion

15. Semitic I 16. Semitic II 17. Relict non-Indoeuropean languages of western Asia 12

II. In the making

18. Relict Indoeuropean languages of western and central Asia 19. Relict non-Indoeuropean languages of Europe 20. Modern Indo-Aryan 21. Dravidian 22. Austroasiatic and Andamanese 23. Mande 13

III. Incipient stage

24. Relict Indoeuropean languages of Europe 25. Sino-Tibetan 14

IV. Projected

  26. Tai-Kadai 27. Miao-Yao 15

In toto

  13 forthcoming volumes or more?

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Semitic I

  Akkadian North-Central   Hebrew...

Aramaic...

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Semitic II

 South-Central  Arabic...

  Ethio-Semitic South Arabian 18

Working with dead languages

   many Semitic some Indoeuropean Relict non-Indoeuropean languages of western Asia 19

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Linguistic maps

  Authored by Yuri Koryakov Each volume is accompanied by a series of maps 22

Some are quite general, such as this map of Tibeto-Burman

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Or this map of Semitic in the 2 nd millennium B.C.

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While some are very focused, such as this map of Jewish-Aramaic languages

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Or this map of Old Hebrew inscriptions

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f o rthcoming 27