Central Eurasian Language Grammars project

This page is here for presenting the current state of the Central Eurasian Language Grammars project to contributors. Members of the editorial committee should see Central Eurasian Language Grammars project/organising.

The purpose

Linguists working with particular theories or typological questions often seek basic facts about some aspect of the grammar of many languages. However, most linguists have little access to information which they might find useful about Central Eurasian languages. Existing grammars, at best, are designed as quick references for reading knowledge for people (philologists, mostly) who may already know a not-distantly-related language. At worst, existing grammars make [lousy] paperweights.

This collection will attempt to provide grammatical sketches of the core languages of modern Central Asia. Its coverage of linguistic topics will not be complete, but it will focus on the most basic and essential elements of the grammar of each language, which are poorly covered elsewhere anyway. These grammars will be written by Linguists who have good knowledge of the language they're describing, and preferably coauthored by a native speaker "informant". One result of this is that outstanding issues in the grammar will be pointed out—that is, topics needing further analysis or which do not lend themselves nicely to analysis within present theoretical models. This furthers the usefulness of the grammars to other linguists, both by being honest about places where our understandings fall short, and by providing research ideas for other linguists.

An ulterior purpose of this volume will be to offer a good reference to people attempting to learn the languages.

The plan

We are currently planning a series of volumes, organised by language size and area. The first volume will be on the "medium-density non-peripheral languages" of Central Asia. Later volumes will be on low-density, critical, and extinct / historical languages, potentially for various regions of Central Eurasia.

The first volume

The first volume is on the core languages of Central Asia—that is, languages with at least one million speakers that are not located on the edges of Central Asia.

Turkic

• Tashkent Uzbek
  (23.5M speakers)
  • Contributor: ??
  • Informant: Umida Khikmatullaeva
• Kazakh
  (12M speakers)
  • Contributor: Jonathan?
  • Informant: ???
• Uyghur
  (10M speakers)
  • Contributor: Niko
  • Informant: ???
• Turkmen
  (9M speakers)
  • Contributor: Elliott Hoey
  • Informant: ???
• Kyrgyz
  (3.5M speakers)
  • Contributor: Jonathan
  • Informant: Tolgonay
• Uzbeki
  a.k.a. Afghan Uzbek (1,451,980 speakers)
  • Inviting: ???

Mongolic

• Khalkha
  (2.6M speakers)
  • Contributor: Andrew
  • Informant: ???

Tibeto-Burman

• Central Tibetan
  (3-6 million speakers speakers)
  • Inviting: ???
• Amdo Tibetan
  (800'000 speakers)
  • Inviting: ???

IE

• Pashto
  (~26M speakers)
  • Inviting: ???
• Balochi
  (8M speakers)
  • Inviting: ???
• Dari
  (7.6M speakers)
  • Inviting: ???
• Tajik
  (4.5M speakers)
  • Inviting: ???