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LANGUAGES of the WORLD(Jazyki mira) A
longitudinal project
Paris, February 29, 2012

• Andrej A. Kibrik
• Yuri B. Koryakov
• (Institute of Linguistics, RAN)
• aakibrik_at_gmail.com

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Languages of the World basic information

• Founded in mid-1970s by Viktoria N. Yartseva
• Motive fragmented character of individual
  language descriptions, due to
• actual linguistic differences
• various linguistic traditions
• personal preferences
• Goal produce commensurable descriptions of as
  many human languages as possible
• Format encyclopedia
• Languaqe Russian

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Template

• Tool typologically-oriented, uncommitted
  template, including information on
• external aspects of language
• history
• geography
• sociolinguistics
• dialects
• ..........
• internal features
• phonetics and phonology
• formal morphology
• representation of semantic categories
• syntactic constructions
• lexicon

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Template
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Properties of the template

• Positive
• very general
• easily applicable to any language
• flexible
• allows to fit in as much useful info as possible
• easy to use
• numbered positions allow for efficient
  cross-referencing
• Negative
• somewhat outdated (developed in the 1970s)
• some overlap between positions
• There is no other choice than keep going with the
  template, as long as we are able to

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1990s to now

• Switch from the encyclopedia format to individual
  volumes on language groups
• Since 1993 17 volumes on genealogical and areal
  language groupings
• One megaproject is split into a large number of
  much more graspable and managable individual
  projects
• Beginning from 2000s we integrate international
  colleagues and collect some articles in English

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c o v e r e d s o f a r
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17 published volumes

• Uralic 1993
• Turkic 1997
• Mongolic, Tungusic, Japanese, and Korean 1997
• Paleoasiatic 1997
• South-western Iranian 1997
• North-western Iranian 1999
• Eastern Iranian 1999
• Dardic and Nuristani 1999
• Caucasian 1999
• Germanic and Celtic 2000
• Romance 2001
• Old and Middle Indo-Aryan 2004
• Slavic 2005
• Baltic 2006
• Semitic I
• Relict non-Indoeuropean languages of Near East
• New Indo-Aryan languages

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Management

• Editorial group Languages of the World
• Constituent of the Institute of Linguistics,
  Russian Academy of Sciences
• 6 coworkers in the group
• Each project is managed by
• Supervisor from the group LW
• Genealogical editor(s)
• Group of authors

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Not yet published projects

• I. Near completion
• II. In the making
• III. Incipient stage
• IV. Projected

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I. Near completion

• 18. Semitic II Ethio-Semitic
• 19. Relict Indoeuropean languages of western and
  central Asia
• 20. Dravidian
• 21. Relict non-Indoeuropean languages of Europe

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II. In the making

• 22. Austroasiatic and Andamanese
• 23. Mande

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III. Incipient stage

• 24. Relict Indoeuropean languages of Europe
• 25. Sino-Tibetan

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IV. Projected

• 26. Tai-Kadai
• 27. Miao-Yao

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c o v e r e d s o f a r
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In toto

• 10 forthcoming volumes
• or more?

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Applications

• Reference tool
• Educational instrument
• Tool for quantitative research

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Database Languages of the World (Jazyki mira)

• Based on the encyclopedia
• Initiated in the 1980s
• Significantly advanced in the 2000s
• Vladimir Polyakov and Valery Solovyev

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Features, JM

• p. 41

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The database

• http//www.dblang.ru/en/Default.aspx
• About 350 languages, mostly Eurasia
• Relatively complete coverage of languages
• Hierarchically organized features
• 3800 binary features
• Over 1 million data points

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Applications of the DB Jazyki mira

• typological studies
• areal-typological studies
• genealogical classifications of less-studied
  families
• shift from purely lexical basis for
  classification to the inclusion of grammatical
  properties
• contribution of areal and genealogical factors
• diachronic studies language evolution and
  language prehistory

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DB Jazyki mira and WALS

• Polyakov V., Solovyev V., Wichmann S., Belyaev O.
  Using WALS and Jazyki mira. Linguistic Typology.
  V. 13. 2009. P. 135165.

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Phylogenetic tree, WALS (Solovyev 2011)
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Phylogenetic tree, JM
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Language maps

• Authored by Yuri Koryakov
• http//lingvarium.org/maps.shtml
• Each volume is accompanied by a series of maps

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Language maps vs. Linguistic maps

• Language maps demonstrate the spread of
  languages, or of their dialects, unified by
• common territory (Language Atlas of China. S. A.
  Wurm et al. (eds). 1987)
• common genealogical affiliation (??????? ?.?.
  ????? ?????????? ??????)
• another common characteristic (Atlas of Languages
  of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific,
  Asia, and the Americas, 1996).

• Linguistic maps demonstrate the spread of
  linguistic phenomena, by means of dots,
  isoglosses, or areas
• within one language (e.g. on dialectological
  maps)
• in one region (e.g. ??????????????
  ??????????????? ????? 19652011, Atlas Linguarum
  Europae 19752002)
• world-wide (WALS 2005/2008)

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Some language maps are quite general, such as
this map of Tibeto-Burman
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While some are very focused, such as this map of
Jewish-Aramaic languages
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Applications of language maps

• They serve as a visualization accompanying
  language description
• Particularly useful in the studies in linguistic
  geography, areal typology, dialectology
• The very process of mapping encourages linguists
  to pay close attention to many specific aspects
  of language description

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Visual illustrations for language descriptions
Languages of Eastern Caucasus
Reduction of the Vodic territory in the 20th
century
Source Authier G. Grammaire kryz (Langue
caucasique d'Azerbaïdjan, dialecte d'Alik).
Paris Peeters, 2009.
Source ??????? ?.?. ???????? ??????? ????????
?????. Mitteilungen der Societas Uralo-Altaica
26. ?????? ?????????, 2007
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Production of this map provoked the editors of
the Indo-Aryan volume to substantially correct
and expand linguo-geographical information
Source ????? ???? ????? ???????????? ?????. ?
?. Academia, 2011.
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Phenomena resistent to mapping multilingualism,
social / age-related / community-related
distribution of speakers, decay of
languages/dialects
Complex linguistic situation in Istria and
adjacent areas
Gradual decay of French dialects
Source Atlas of Romance languages. Moscow, 2001.
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Maps may be combined with other representations,
e.g. classification schemes
Source Atlas of Romance languages. Moscow, 2001
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Creation of language maps

• When creating language maps, a variety of sources
  is used, including textual and cartographic
• There are several techniques used in the creation
  of language maps

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Maps may rely on census data, on the
community-by-community basis, subsequently
generalized
Linguistic profiles of individual communities
Areas are generalized from communities
Maps for the forthcoming publication ???????
?.?. ????? ?????? ??????
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Generalization accompanying scaling-down
Sources ??????? ?.?. ????? ?????????? ??????.
?., 2006 ?????? ?.?. ????????????-????????????
???????????. ?., 2005.
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Use of isoglottic maps for the identification of
dialect boundaries
Isoglottic map
Dialect map
Source ????????? ???????? ????????? ???????????
???????? ?????? ?????????. 2006. Isogloss data
from Herzog, Marvin, et al. ed., YIVO, The
Language and Culture Atlas of Ashkenazic Jewry, 3
vols., Tübingen, 19922000.
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Historical language maps
Stage 2 Locations of finds
Stage 3 Language boundaries
Stage 1 Historic base
Source ????? ???? ????????? ?????. ?????????
????. ?????????????????????? ?????. ?.,
Academia, 2009.
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Our latest publication

• New Indo-Aryan languages. Ed. by Tatiana I.
  Oranskaia, Julia V. Mazurova, Andrej A. Kibrik,
  Leonid I. Kulikov, Aleksandr Y. Rusakov.
• 896 pp.