From the editor
Dear readers!
In front of you is No2, 2016. The journal is now published twice a year, which is our big news.
For the first time in the renewed journal we have a section “Word of the People”, in which we present samples of texts in the languages of Russia and neighboring countries. Such a section was in the predecessor journal, for more details see “From the history of the journal “Native Language” 1994” in No1 (2) 2014. Modern conditions require a new format for presenting texts, and here we publish not only the translation into Russian, as it was customary before, but also the original, as well as a glossed recording...
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Linguistic data processing
A. V. Dybo, А. М. Sheimovich
A morphological parser for the Khakass Language Corpus
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This paper describes the Russian Academy of Science's project to develop a corpus of the Khakass language and to design a morphological parser for this corpus, carried out within a broader corpora development macroproject for the minority languages of Russia, including the Turkic languages. The algorithm for automatically annotating Khakass morphology is based on dictionary entries that take into account phonetic alternations within the word stem and on computational modeling of Khakass word forms (lexical templates). The present work describes the attempt to create such a model and to define a set of phonological rules that constrain the choice of what components can constitute a Khakass word.
Keywords: Khakass, corpus linguistics, morphological annotation, automatic parser, derivational and inflectional morphology, computational modeling of lexical morphology, StarLing database system
A. Sh. Bakhtovarshoev
On transliterating Pamir-language orthographies
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This article illustrates the transformation (transliteration) of the alphabets of two Pamir languages (Shughnani and Rushani) from Cyrillic to Latin script and vice versa. The author suggests a transliteration table for these alphabets based on two different systems and demonstrates that this table preserves the natural frequency of the letters in the specified languages and can be applied in practice.
Keywords: information technology, transliteration, Pamir languages, Shughnani, Rushani
Language contact
O. A. Mudrak
Caucasian loanwords in Ossetic: The semantic domains of livestock and horses
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This article offers an etymological and structural analysis of loanwords in the Ossetic language belonging to two semantic domains: livestock and horses. Most of these loanwords are borrowed from certain linguistic subgroups of other North Caucasian languages. These borrowings can help us better understand migration patterns through the Greater Caucasus area. There are regular phonetic correspondences in Ossetic adaptations of numerous borrowings from Caucasian languages. Based on these correspondences, we can propose the ways that both lexical items and related cultural elements historically spread through the area.
Keywords: historical linguistics, etymology, phonetic correspondences, Ossetic language, Caucasian languages, borrowings, semantic domains, stock-raising, horse breeding
Language and society
J. I. Edelman
The development of writing systems and written literature in Pamir minority languages
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The peoples of the Pamir Mountains have for many years longed to develop writing systems and written literature in their native languages. This aspiration is deeply rooted in their rich folklore traditions and in the fact that literate people knew the classical Persian-Tajik literature. Pamir intellectuals strived for many decades to produce alphabets and publish literary works in their native languages. Today we can observe the effect that these efforts are having.
Keywords: mother tongues, written language, alphabet, literature, Pamir languages, Indo-Iranian
Issues in grammar
E. L. Rudnitskaya
Distinctive features of the use of Evenki grammatical devices, particularly focus particles
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The present paper is based on an analysis of Evenki oral stories told from 2005 to 2011. In these stories, several distinctive features can be seen in the use of focus particles, as well as in the grammatical marking of verbs, such as participles that function as matrix predicates. Changes include a tendency towards amalgamation and fuzziness in their grammatical functions, and a reduction of the set of particles used. The number of contexts in which the focus particles and participles are used is rather broad, so that these devices sometimes occur in the same contexts as already existing grammatical focus devices. These changes are partially caused by the fact that most storytellers no longer use Evenki in their everyday speech, having shifted to Russian.
Keywords: grammatical category, participle, focus particle, information structure, oral story
Mother-tongue texts
T. B. Agranat
The Votic folk tale “Saint Kuisma”
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The folk tale “Saint Kuisma” in the western dialect of the Votic language was written down in the middle of the 19th century by A. Ahlqvist and published in [Ahlqvist 1856] without any translation. In this article it is presented in its original transcription with a translation into Russian and an adapted transcription with glosses. Such a format will make this text useful not only for specialists in Votic but also those working on other Uralic languages, as well as for typologists, folklorists and ethnologists.
Keywords: the history of Votic, folk tales
Reviews
Yu. N. Ebzeeva
[Review of:] Catégorisation des langues minoritaires en Russie et dans l'espace post-soviétique [Categorization of minority languages in Russia and the post-Soviet space]. ― Viaut A., Moskvitcheva S. (dirs.) ― Bordeaux–Pessac: Maison des sciences de l'homme d'Aquitaine, 2014. ― 405 p.
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S. M. Yaroshevich
[Review of:] Maysak T.A. Agul texts of the 1900–1960s (Research and materials on the languages of the Caucasus. Issue 2). — Moscow: Academia, 2014. — 496 p.
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Recent events
A. N. Bitkeeva
International round table “Functional development of languages in multi-ethnic countries of the world (Russia-Vietnam)”.
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A. S. Alekseeva
All-Russian seminar for specialists from the North-Western, Ural, Siberian, Volga, Southern, North Caucasus and Far Eastern federal districts on issues of ensuring the quality of literary translation into Russian of works of fiction created in the languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation.
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M. D. Lyublinskaya
All-Russian seminar-meeting “Language policy in the field of education: a tool for the formation of all-Russian civic identity”
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Rodnoy Yazyk, 2 2016
