LANGUAGES of the WORLD: Ongoing projects Olga Romanova Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) CML-12 Croatia, September

Languages of the World: basic information Initiated in mid-1970s by Victoria N. Yartseva Purpose: to present comprehensive descriptions of natural languages in a uniform format that allows for comparability of linguistic data Aiming to overcome: inconsistent terminology in different descriptive traditions, insufficient depth of analysis of certain aspects of language structure, gaps in traditional descriptions Format: encyclopaedia Languaqe: Russian

Preliminary publications PRINCIPLES OF DESCRIBING LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD. MOSCOW : NAUKA, THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF LINGUISTIC CLASSIFICATION. MOSCOW : NAUKA, 1980, vol. 1; 1982, vol. 2. LANGUAGES AND DIALECTS OF THE WORLD. MOSCOW : NAUKA, ZHURINSKAYA M., NOVIKOV А., YAROSLAVTSEVA Е. ENCYCLOPAEDIC DESCRIPTION OF LANGUAGES. THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ASPECTS. М.: NAUKA 1986.

PROJECT MANAGEMENT Editorial group Languages of the World, Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) 6 staff members Each project is managed by: Editor from the group LW Genealogical editor(s) Group of authors Experts on particular field of linguistics

Subdivision into series Geographical principle of subdivision I. Languages of Euro-Asia II. Languages of Africa, America, Australia and Oceania

16 volumes published so far 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: Akkadian. Northwest Semitic 2010 Ancient Relict Languages of the Near East 2010

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

I. At the final stage of preparation 17. Semitic: Ethio-Semitic 18. Semitic: Arabic. Epigraphic Old South Arabian. Modern South Arabian 19. Relict Indo-European languages of Western and Central Asia

Future Projects I. At the final stage of preparation II. In the making III. Incipient stage IV. Planned

II. In the making 20. Relict non-Indo-European languages of Europe (provisional title) 21. Modern Indo-Aryan 22. Dravidian 23. Austroasiatic 24. Mande

III. Incipient stage 25. Relict Indo-European languages of Europe 26. Sino-Tibetan

IV. Planned 27. Tai-Kadai 28. Miao-Yao

c o v e r e d s o f a r f o rthcoming

1990s up till the present time Since 1993 – 16 volumes on genealogical and areal language groupings Since early 2000s the project has become international; some articles are being written in English and then translated into Russian Project of the Database Languages of the World was developing on the basis on our project, but largely in parallel, and it is only now that some integration began

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

4 TEMPLATE VARIANTS Applied to describe 1. A linguistic family or genetically related group of languages/dialects 2. A well-described language of a (relatively) high sociolinguistic status with numerous speakers 3. A dialect 4. A scantily described language or a language with a (relatively) small number of speakers. For describing dead languages either Template 2 or Template 4 are applied, depending on the availability of data.

Template I. Family of languages, group of languages/dialects 1.Name 2.Localisation and major representatives 3.Approximate number of speakers 4.Principles of genealogical classification; existing classifications 5.Chronology of divergence (for the large families of languages) 6.Typical phonetic and grammatical characteristics 7. Bibliography

II. Language General facts Variants of names Genealogical affiliation Localisation and number of speakers Geographical distribution Overview of the dialects Socio-linguistic situation Communicative and functional status of the language Degree of standardization Pedagogical status Writing system History Structural changes due to contacts

2.0.0.Linguistic characteristics Phonology Vowels and consonants Prosody Positional realization of the phonemes and supra-segmental features Syllable; status of length-based oppositions (long vs. short vowel, simple vs. geminated consonant etc.) Morphonology Phonological structure of morpheme and/or word, syllable/morpheme relationship oppositions of the morphological units and categories on the phonological level Types of alternations

2.3.0.Grammatical semantics Criteria of parts of speech classification; categorial means of expressing the universal meanings (general characteristics) Type of nominal classification Category of number: structure and the means of expression Case semantics and the means of its expression; possessivity Verbal categories and the means of their expression: voice, aspect, tense, mood, transitivity, verb pattern groups Deixis and the means of its expression; category of person as expressed in the noun and in the verb, definiteness/indefiniteness, indication and spacial orientation, anaphora, negation Parts of speech Paradigms

2.5.0.Morphosyntax Typical word structure (for the languages with full-fledged morphology); suffixation/infixation as the predominant means of word-formation; morphologically anomalous groups of words Word formation Typical word order; subject/object marking; syntactic positions; types of clause Sentence structure Loan words; their source, volume and relative weight in a language Dialects/regional variants Bibliography

Properties of the template Positive Very general Easily applicable to any language Flexible Allows to fit in as much information as possible Numbered positions allow for efficient cross-referencing Negative There's a certain degree of overlapping between the positions

CONTENTS About the publication Languages of the World7 Preface9 L.E. Kogan. The Semitic languages15 Akkadian L.E. Kogan, S.V. Loesov. Akkadian113 E.V. Markina. Old Akkadian (Sargonic)178 L.E. Kogan. Old Assyrian195 Northwest Semitic L.E. Kogan. Ugaritic205 The Canaanite languages L.E. Kogan. The Canaanite languages239 A.K. Lyavdansky. Phoenician278 L.E. Kogan, S.V. Loesov. Ancient Hebrew296 L.M. Dreyer. Modern Hebrew375

The Aramaic languages S.V. Loesov. The Aramaic languages414 S.V. Loesov. Imperial Aramaic496 A.V. Nemirovskaya. Jewish Palestinian Aramaic 531 S.V. Loesov. Classical Syriac562 A.V. Nemirovskaya. Classical Mandaic626 A.K. Lyavdansky. The Neo-Aramaic languages 660 A.K. Lyavdansky. Neo-Mandaic 693 L.E. Kogan, S.V. Loesov. Neo-Aramaic of Maalula 705 L.E. Kogan, S.V. Loesov. Turoyo751 Glossary of linguistic terms806 Notation and abbreviations806

Appendix I: A.K. Lyavdansky. The origin and early development of the West Semitic alphabets811 Samples of the West Semitic alphabets818 Appendix II: Templates822 Maps of the Semitic languages 824

Linguistic maps Authored by Yuri Koryakov Each volume is accompanied by a series of maps

Some are quite general, such as this map of Tibeto-Burman

Or this map of Semitic in the 2 nd millennium B.C.

While some are very focused, such as this map of Jewish-Aramaic languages

Or this map of Old Hebrew inscriptions

Some maps reflect diachronic situation, like this map of Turoyo (Neo-Aramaic)