From the Back Cover
This volume provides an overview of experimental methods, approaches, and techniques used by field linguists of the Russian school, and highlights the fieldwork experience of Russian scholars working in regions with a range of languages that differ genetically, typologically, and in the degree of their preservation.
The collection presents language and sociolinguistic data relating to fieldwork in diverse languages: Uralic, Altaic, Paleo-Siberian, Yeniseian, Indo-European Iranian, Vietic, Kra-Day, and Mayan languages, as well as pidgin.
The authors highlight the fieldwork techniques they use, and the principles underlying them.
The volume's multidisciplinary approach covers linguistic, ethnolinguistic, sociolinguistic, educational, and ethnocultural issues. The authors explore problems associated with the study of minority languages and indicate diverse and creative techniques for data elicitation. Close collaboration with speakers lies at the core of their approach. The collection presents strategies for eliciting systems of knowledge from mother-tongue speakers, triggering linguistic self-awareness, and providing semantic and morphosyntactic context for their languages.
This publication is intended for academics, and for specialists in the field of linguistics and minority and indigenous languages. It will also benefit students as a guide to field research, as well as language activists, interested in documenting and preserving their mother tongue.
Tatiana B. Agranat, Doctor habil., is Leading Researcher and Head of the Finno-Ugric Languages Group at the Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, and a Professor in the Department of General and Applied Linguistics at Moscow State Linguistic University (MSLU).
Prof. Agranat has research interests in Uralic languages, primarily the Baltic-Finnic group, as well as the intragenetic typology of Uralic languages. She also conducts field research in the structure and functioning of minority and endangered languages, the documentation and revitalization of endangered languages, and the methodology of field linguistic research.She has led numerous expeditions to areas where native speakers of Votic, Ingrian, Vepsian, Seto and Saami languages live compactly; she is also head of the project "Expeditions along the route of M.A. Kastren's travels in Lapland, Northern Russia and Siberia".As a Professor atMSLU, Tatiana B. Agranat combines academic research with teaching general and specialized courses for students and postgraduate students. She is Editor-in-chief of the "Rodnoy Yazyk/Mother Tongue" linguistic journal.
Her principal publications include: "The first two grammars of the Votic language (publishing editor)" (St. Petersburg 2017), "Comparative analysis of grammatical systems of Balto-Finnic languages: the principles of intragenetic typology" (Moscow 2016), "Votic texts with morpheme-by-morpheme glosses" (Moscow 2012), and "Western dialect of the Votic language" (Moscow-Groningen 2007).
Leyli R. Dodykhudoeva, PhD, is a Senior Researcher working in the Iranian Languages Unit of the Department of Indo-European languages at the Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow.
Dr Dodykhudoeva specializes in minority Iranian languages, including endangeredindigenous languages and those of linguistic minorities (Pamir, Zoroastrian Dari, Gilaki and Mazandarani) in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and China. She is actively involved in field research, working with native Pamir language speakers on language documentation, revitalization and intangible cultural heritage, with particular focus on languages in a state of decline.
Her articles on Pamir languages, particularly those of the Shughnani-Rushani group, Sanglechi and Ishkashimi, have been published in numerous publications on Iranian languages. These include, co-authored with D.I. Edelman, the sections on "Pamir languages" and "Shugh(na)ni language" in "The Iranian languages" encyclopaedic collection edited by Gernot Windfuhr (Routledge 2009), as well as new data on the rare "Sanglichi language" widespread in Afghan Badakhshan, co-authored with Sh.P. Yusufbekov and published in the "Foundations of Iranian Linguistics" (Moscow 2008). Apart from herinterest in the languages and cultures of minority peoples, Leyli R. Dodykhudoeva has published a number of studies devoted to the distinctive poetic and philosophical Persian vocabulary of Nasir Khusraw.
