The book presents authentic texts in two Yukaghir languages, Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir, an isolate group of languages spoken by few small communities in Siberia. The major goal of the book is to make primary Yukaghir data accessible for readers who have no previous knowledge of these languages. Each text is provided with a detailed morph-to-morph translation following thecurrent linguistic standards, as well as with idiomatic English translation. In addition, the book contains Yukaghir-English vocabularies for both Yukaghir languages, with cross-references to all text occurrences of each word, a set of comprehensive morphemic and grammatical indices to text corpora, and abrief overview of basic ethnographic and grammatical facts. The principles of text representation are described in a user's guide. The book will serve as a useful source of data for scholars of the Yukaghir languages and cultures, as well as for anyone interested in cross-linguistic or cross-cultural studies.

Kolyma Yukaghir is a seriously endangered language spoken by about 50 people in the northeast of Asiatic Russia. It is one of the two surviving languages of the Yukaghir family, which is considered by different scholars either as an isolate left over from before the expansion of other languages and language families into Siberia, or as a distant relative of the Uralic family. In many ways, Yukaghir fits the grammatical type widespread among the languages of Siberia, namely that of predominantly verb-final dependent-marking language with relatively rich agglumative morphology and deranking strategies of clause linking. Furthermore, it has a number of typologically remarkably features, which will be of interest to general linguists irrespective of their theoretical orientation. These include Yukaghir focus-marking system, differential object marking based on global effects of person hierarchy, the obligatory use of bound possesive markers to indicate non-coreference of the possessor with the subject, elaborated switch-reference system, initimate interaction between aspect and valence-changing derivation, etc. The book incorporates all major components of descriptive grammar, from phonology to syntax, with a special chapter on coreference and discourse coherence, annotated and translated sample texts, a Yukaghir-English vocabulary, and a subject index. The description is based on extensive field materials and richly exemplified by non-elicited data. The organization of the book facilitates its use as a reference grammar, with numerous cross-references between sections and concise summaries of interrelated phenomena discussed in various parts of the grammar. The book is of interest to scholars of Uralic and Siberian languages, linguistic typology, and general linguistics.

The Historical Dictionary of Yukaghir has two main purposes. First, it is intended as a relatively complete source of information on the lexicon of Yukaghir. Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir are closely related, highly endangered languages spoken in the extreme North-East of Siberia. No modern comprehensive lexicographic description of these languages is available for the international linguistic community. The dictionary presents all known varieties of Yukaghir in comparative format. Some of the materials included come from published sources, others were obtained by the author through fieldwork and are published for the first time. The dictionary also contains examples of now extinct early forms of Yukaghir, which began to be recorded in the late 17th century. Second, the dictionary provides a first reconstruction of the common ancestor of all known Yukaghir varieties. The proto-Yukaghir stems are established based on internal reconstruction, comparison between various Yukaghir idioms, and external data. Although the dictionary does not attempt to provide etymologies for all Yukaghir words, it includes possible cognates of some Yukaghir stems from other languages, mainly Uralic and Altaic. Since Yukaghir forms are not only cited in their modern shape but are reconstructed, the dictionary will provide a foundation for future etymological work and contribute to investigating the genetic affiliation of Yukaghir, usually classified as isolated. The book will also be useful for linguists interested in the distant genetic relations between language families and the reconstruction of the ethnic and linguistic situation in prehistoric northern Asia.

Publisher description

Roman Jakobson's writings range over the entire field of general linguistics, as well as embracing Slavic linguistics and literature theory. Jakobson has had a tremenduous influence on the development of linguistic theory. He was a founder of and prime mover in the Prague Linguistic Circle. On the basis of the new structuralist concepts, he set forth bold theories of general linguistics and illustrated them with brilliant demonstrations based on Slavic and other languages. Taking a leading role in the elucidation of the structural linguistic field of phonology, Jakobson used these insights to develop new trends in historical phonology. Altogether, his linguistics appears to incorporate the technical design of modern theoretical concepts, but at the same time transcends purely formal modeling through its interdisciplinary focus upon historical and poetic matters. Jakobson was enormously successful in presenting innovative theoretical insights and relating them to possible practical applications. Specifically, his work on the general processes of language acquisition and loss, on child language and aphasia, opened up entirely new methods for linguists and doctors alike. The series Selected Writings represents the whole range of Roman Jakobson's field of research.

Records of meetings 1808-1916 in v. 11-27.