The papers in this volume describe and analyze an array of intriguing linguistic phenomena as they occur in the Saami languages, ranging from etymological nativization of loanwords to the formation of deadjectival and denominal verbs. Saami displays a number of characteristics that are unusual from a cross-linguistic perspective, including partial agreement on verbs, a three-way quantity distinction in consonants and spectacular consonant gradation. The eight papers presented here approach these and other issues from diverse theoretical perspectives in morphology, phonology, and syntax. The volume includes an extensive research bibliography which will be helpful for anyone interested in Saami linguistics.
Pite Saami is a highly endangered Western Saami language in the Uralic language family currently spoken by a few individuals in Swedish Lapland. This grammar is the first extensive book-length treatment of a Saami language written in English. While focussing on the morphophonology of the main word classes nouns, adjectives and verbs, it also deals with other linguistic structures such as prosody, phonology, phrase types and clauses. Furthermore, it provides an introduction to the language and its speakers, and an outline of a preliminary Pite Saami orthography. An extensive annotated spoken-language corpus collected over the course of five years forms the empirical foundation for this description, and each example includes a specific reference to the corpus in order to facilitate verification of claims made on the data. Descriptions are presented for a general linguistics audience and without attempting to support a specific theoretical approach, but this book should be equally useful for scholars of Uralic linguistics, typologists, and even learners of Pite Saami.
With unusual structural characteristics, Finnish and Saami offer interesting challenges to linguistic theories formulated around more popular languages. Grammatically, for instance, languages in the Finnic and Saami group utilize extensive systems of case inflection on nouns to signal a broad variety of relations that in almost all other languages require additional words. Phonologically, as another example, the phenomenon of "consonant gradation" is of particular interest to linguists. This volume is the first to examine the phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics of Finnic and Saami languages within current generative linguistic frameworks. Collected here is research on these less-studies languages, some of which now face extinction.
The Handbook of Educational Linguistics is a dynamic, scientifically grounded overview revealing the complexity of this growing field while remaining accessible for students, researchers, language educators, curriculum developers, and educational policy makers. A single volume overview of educational linguistics, written by leading specialists in its many relevant fields Takes into account the diverse theoretical foundations, core themes, major findings, and practical applications of educational linguistics Highlights the multidisciplinary reach of educational linguistics Reflects the complexity of this growing field, whilst remaining accessible to a wide audience
This book offers a language revitalisation method that can be used with Indigenous and minority languages, especially in cases where the native language has been lost among people of a working age. It gives practical examples and a theoretical frame of reference for how to plan, organise and implement an intensive language programme.
Language contact phenomena have been researched throughout the history of the discipline, but the intensity of the research has undoubtedly risen during the last decades due to growing globalization. This peer-reviewed volume presents twelve papers from the Second Conference on Language Contact in Times of Globalization (University of Groningen, June 2009) which deal with a wide range of topics, languages and contact situations. Five of them involve a Finno-Ugric language (Saami-Komi-Russian; Finnic-Baltic; Mordvin-Turkic; Estonian-German; Saami general), two a Slavic language (Slavic-Romance; Slavic general), two Germanic-Romance contact and three situations outside Europe (The Arabic World; Central Asia; South America). Methods range from field research and corpus analysis to historical linguistics, and both synchronic and diachronic approaches are used. The authors are Rogier Blokland and Michael Rießler, Martine Bruil, Louise-Amélie Cougnon, Anissa Daoudi, Santeri Junttila, Janneke Kalsbeek, Folke Müller and Susan Schlotthauer, Johanna Nichols, Pekka Sammallahti, Peter Schrijver, Remco van Pareren, and Willem Vermeer. Keywords / target groups: General linguistics, Contact linguistics, Finno-Ugric linguistics, Slavic linguistics.
The Uralic Languages, second edition, is a reference book which brings together detailed discussions of the historical development and specialized linguistic structures and features of the languages in the Uralic family. The Uralic languages are spoken today in a vast geographical area stretching from Dalarna County in Sweden to Dudinka, Taimyr, Russia. There are currently approximately 50 languages in the group, the largest one among them being the state languages Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian; other Uralic languages covered in the book are South Saami, Skolt Saami, Võro, Moksha Mordvin, Mari, Udmurt, Zyrian Komi, Mansi, Khanty, Nganasan, Forest and Tundra Enets, Nenets, and Selkup. The book also contains a chapter on Finnic languages, the reconstruction of Uralic, the history of Uralic studies, connections of Uralic to other language families, and language names, demographics, and degrees of endangerment. This second and thoroughly revised edition updates and augments the authoritative accounts of the first edition and reflects recent and ongoing developments in linguistics and the languages themselves, as well as our further enhanced understanding of the relations and patterns of influence between them. Each chapter combines modern linguistic analysis and documentary linguistics; a relatively uniform structure allows for easy typological comparison between the individual languages. Written by an international team of experts, The Uralic Languages will be invaluable to students and researchers within linguistics, folklore, and Siberian studies.
Many of the world's languages have diminishing numbers of speakers and are in danger of falling silent. Around the globe, a large body of linguists are collaborating with members of indigenous communities to keep these languages alive. Mindful that their work will be used by future speech communities to learn, teach and revitalise their languages, scholars face new challenges in the way they gather materials and in the way they present their findings. This volume discusses current efforts to record, collect and archive endangered languages in traditional and new media that will support future language learners and speakers. Chapters are written by academics working in the field of language endangerment and also by indigenous people working 'at the coalface' of language support and maintenance. Keeping Languages Alive is a must-read for researchers in language documentation, language typology and linguistic anthropology.
In the last three decades the field of endangered and minority languages has evolved rapidly, moving from the initial dire warnings of linguists to a swift increase in the number of organizations, funding programs, and community-based efforts dedicated to documentation, maintenance, and revitalization. Sustaining Linguistic Diversity brings together cutting-edge theoretical and empirical work from leading researchers and practitioners in the field. Together, these contributions provide a state-of-the-art overview of current work in defining, documenting, and developing the world's smaller languages and language varieties. The book begins by grappling with how we define endangerment—how languages and language varieties are best classified, what the implications of such classifications are, and who should have the final say in making them. The contributors then turn to the documentation and description of endangered languages and focus on best practices, methods and goals in documentation, and on current field reports from around the globe. The latter part of the book analyzes current practices in developing endangered languages and dialects and particular language revitalization efforts and outcomes in specific locations. Concluding with critical calls from leading researchers in the field to consider the human lives at stake, Sustaining Linguistic Diversity reminds scholars, researchers, practitioners, and educators that linguistic diversity can only be sustained in a world where diversity in all its forms is valued.
