Central Eurasian Language Grammars project/organising
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<accesscontrol>CELG</accesscontrol> This page is here for organising thoughts for the Central Eurasian Language Grammars project. See also Central Eurasian Language Grammars First Attempt.
This includes at to-do list and ideas on the name(s) of the volume(s).
The bulk of it, though, is ideas for organising the languages by volume (currently #Medium-density, #Low-density, #Critical, and #Extinct / Historic). Along with the languages in each section are UNESCO declarations about the relative endangerment of the language (including estimates of the number of speakers), and also ideas for who could write a chapter on the language.
There's also a few notes on #Size concerns.
To-do
- Decide target audience
- Decide publisher
Organisational stuff
- Determine general criteria for inclusion of a language.
- Decide on whether to include large numbers of Uralic and Iranic languages.
- Decide on whether to include Tibetan varieties, and where to draw the line.
- Figure out criteria for what constitutes what kind of language for #Language Organisation. A rough explanation of current criteria appears on this wiki at Medium density languages.
Getting things moving
- Decide on people to contact,
Purpose
This project's mission is probably something like this:
In light of the stark lack of serious materials of use to linguists on many languages of Central Eurasia, this project aims to clearly present data, generalisations, and open questions about languages which have some [significant] connection to the [various] Central Eurasian Sprachbund[s throughout history], which linguists may find useful as a source for typological and theoretical work, or as a starting place for deeper research on any of these languages.
And, er, copy-edited so it's legible (thanks Tristan):
we don't think there's enough serious materials for linguists to use when working with central eurasian languages, so we started this project. We aim to produce materials which clearly present data, generalisations, and remaining/unsolved questions about languages that are connected to the various historical central eurasian sparchbunds. We hope linguists will find the materials useful for typological and theoretical work, or as a starting place for deeper research on any of these languages.
Criteria
What makes a language worthy of being included?
Ideas:
- Perhaps some combination of consideration of number of speakers, lack of good materials, relevance to Central Eurasian cultural/linguistic complex?
Name
Ideas for what to name the various volumes go here:
- A linguist's {guide/guidebook/handbook/(desk) reference} {to/of/for/on} (the?) {Medium Density/Low Density/Critical/Extinct~Historical} languages of the Central Eurasian Sprachbund.
- A {guide/guidebook/handbook/(desk) reference} {to/of/for/on} (the?) {Medium Density/Low Density/Critical/Extinct~Historical} languages of the Central Eurasian Sprachbund for linguists!
Language Organisation
Languages are broken down by what volume they should occur in, and then genetic affiliation. Ideas for contributors are included with each language, as well as some info from UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
High-densityThese languages probably don't deserve a volume of their own: good stuff already exists on them!
|
Medium-densityTurkic
Mongolic
Uralic
Tibeto-Burman
IE
|
Low-densityThese are low density languages. UNESCO rates most of these languages as unsafe or definitely endangered. Turkic
Mongolic
Tungusic
IE
Tibeto-Burman
Other
|
CriticalThese are moribund and maybe recently dead languages. Many are classified by UNESCO as severely endangered, critically endangered, or extinct. Turkic
Mongolic
Tungusic
Uralic
IE
Other
|
Extinct / HistoricMost of these won't be able to have full grammars written on them, and many won't be able to have more than "present level of knowledge about the language" written. Maybe this volume should be of a slightly different nature. Turkic
Mongol-Xianbeic
IE
|
Unsorted
- Bojnurdy (Iranian Turkic)
- UNESCO status: none
- Siberian Tatar (Includes Lower Chulym)
- UNESCO status: definitely endangered, data unavailable (counted as Tatar speakers in the Russian census)
- Central Tibetan Languages
- UNESCO status: none
- Silingke
- UNESCO status: none
Size concerns
A decent-quality bare-bones grammar of a medium-density language would be a minimum of about 20 pages, and a more full grammar might be as much as 50 pages. This allows for a maximum of 10-20 languages per volume before a volume starts to get too big. On the level of the volume, do we stress quantity of languages, or quality of grammars (probably the former, but we do want to fit everything)? On the level of the individual language/grammar, we probably stress quality over size? These are things which need to be discussed.
