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A groundbreaking new work that sheds light on case studies of linguistic human rights around the world, raising much-needed awareness of the struggles of many peoples and communities The first book of its kind, the Handbook of Linguistic Human Rights presents a diverse range of theoretically grounded studies of linguistic human rights, exemplifying what linguistic justice is and how it might be achieved. Through explorations of ways in which linguistic human rights are understood in both national and international contexts, this innovative volume demonstrates how linguistic human rights are supported or violated on all continents, with a particular focus on the marginalized languages of mino...
This volume offers the most comprehensive and wide-ranging treatment available today of the Uralic language family, a group of languages spoken in northern Eurasia. While there is a long history of research into these languages, much of it has been conducted within several disparate national traditions; studies of certain languages and topics are somewhat limited and in many cases outdated. The Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages brings together leading scholars and junior researchers to offer a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the internal relations and diversity of the Uralic language family, including the outlines of its historical development, and the contacts between Uralic and ...
This volume illustrates how language revival movements in Russia and elsewhere have often followed a specific pattern of literacy bias in the promotion of a minority’s heritage language, partly neglecting the social and relational aspects of orality. Using the Vepsian Renaissance as an example, this volume brings to the surface a literacy-orality dualism new to the discussion around revival movements. In addition to the more-theoretically oriented scopes, this book addresses all the actors involved in revival movements including activists, scholars and policy-makers, and opens a discussion on literacy and orality, and power and agency in the multiple relational aspects of written and oral practices. This study addresses issues common to language revival movements worldwide and will appeal to researchers of linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, education and language policy, and culture studies.
This is a Festschrift for Dr. Jack Rueter, compiled on the occasion of his 60th birthday. The book consists of peer-reviewed scientific work by Dr. Rueter’s colleagues. Its contents, compiled by well-established scholars and researchers in NLP, linguistics, philology and digital humanities, pertain to latest advances in natural language processing, to newly developed digital resources, and to endangered languages. Contributions touch upon a wide array of languages such as historical English, Chukchi, Mansi, Erzya, Komi, Finnish, Apurinã, Sign Languages, Sami languages, and Japanese. Most papers present work on endangered languages or on domains with a limited number of resources available for NLP. This book is a tribute to Dr. Rueter’s long career as a true pioneer in the field of digital documentation of endangered languages. His work has always been and remains to be characterized by altruistic thinking and dedication to a greater good in building free and open-source tools and resources for languages which have previously not been afforded such much-needed attention.
The Languages and Linguistics of Northern Asia: A Comprehensive Guide surveys the indigenous languages of Asia’s North Pacific Rim, Siberia, and adjacent portions of Inner Eurasia. It provides in-depth descriptions of every first-order family of this vast area, with special emphasis on family-internal subdivision and dialectal differentiation. Individual chapters trace the origins and expansion of the region’s widespread pastoral-based language groups as well as the microfamilies and isolates spoken by northern Asia’s surviving hunter-gatherers. Separate chapters cover sparsely recorded languages of early Inner Eurasia that defy precise classification and the various pidgins and creole...
'One of the great mythic poems of Europe' The New York Times Sharing its title with the poetic name for Finland - 'the land of heroes' - Kalevala is the soaring epic poem of its people, a work rich in magic and myth which tells the story of a nation through the ages from the dawn of creation. Sung by rural Finns since prehistoric times, and formally compiled by Elias Lönnrot in the nineteenth century, it is a landmark of Finnish culture and played a vital role in galvanizing its national identity in the decades leading to independence. Its themes, however, reach beyond borders and search the heart of human existence. Translated with an Introduction by Eino Friberg
This volume analyses the societal legacy of Lutheranism in Finland in broad terms. It contributes to the recent renewed interest in the history of religion in Finland and the Nordic countries by bringing together researchers in history, political science, economics, social psychology, education, linguistics, media studies, and theology to examine the mutual relationship between Lutheranism and society in Finland. The two main foci are (i) the historical effects of the Reformation and its aftermath on societal structures and on national identity, values, linguistic culture, education, and the economy, and (ii) the adaptation of the church – and its theology – to changes in the geo-politic...
The second edition of the definitive reference on contact studies and linguistic change—provides extensive new research and original case studies Language contact is a dynamic area of contemporary linguistic research that studies how language changes when speakers of different languages interact. Accessibly structured into three sections, The Handbook of Language Contact explores the role of contact studies within the field of linguistics, the value of contact studies for language change research, and the relevance of language contact for sociolinguistics. This authoritative volume presents original findings and fresh research directions from an international team of prominent experts. Thi...
The East Baltic languages are well known for their conservative phonology as compared to other Indo-European languages, which has led to a stereotype that the Balts developed in isolation without much contact with other speech communities. This book challenges that view, taking a deep dive into the East Baltic lexicon and peeling away the layers of prehistoric borrowings in the process. As well as significant contact events with known languages, the lexicon also reveals evidence of contact with unattested languages from which previous populations must have shifted.