The Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus

Linguistic Typology, 2023

This paper presents a general review of the Oxford Handbook of the Languages of the Caucasus. It summarizes over four dozen different typological rarities found in Caucasian languages, and examines what explanations have been given for their presence, and what roles phylogeny, contact and human geography play in their appearance in these languages.

Editorial board: Gilles Authier, Hélène Gérardin, Magomed I. Magomedov, Timur A. Maisak; Compiled by Timur A. Maisak. / Makhachkala: IYaLI DNC RAN, 2017. – 210 p., 2017

This book brings together the abstracts for the oral and poster presentations delivered at the international conference “Historical Linguistics of the Caucasus”, which took place at École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, April 12-14, 2017. The presentations deal mainly with historical aspects of the Caucasian language families – Nakh-Daghestanian, Abkhaz-Adyghe, and Kartvelian – as well as the Indo-European languages of the region. A special thematic workshop within the conference was devoted to imperfectivity and its relation to modality, as part of the international project IMMOCAL – Imperfective Modalities in Caucasian Languages (project coordinator Gilles Authier). For linguists, students of linguistics and philology and all those interested in the languages of the Caucasus.

2023

Azerbaijan lies in an extremely propitious position between the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, and has always been an important stop along the Silk Road, and a melting pot of languages and cultures. Many ethnic, religious and linguistic groups passing through or settling in the territories of present-day Azerbaijan historically came into contact with local communities, hence contributing to this linguistic mosaic. Investigating languages of Azerbaijan is interesting and important not only from the linguistic point of view. It also bears a sociocultural value in that it can offer a new perspective on studying these languages from the standpoint of their vitality and maintenance. This volume offers new data and highly valuable insights into various linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of the East Caucasian, South Caucasian as well as the Iranian varieties spoken in Azerbaijan. With this publication, we hope to set in motion more linguistic activities and research initiatives on the different varieties forming Azerbaijan's languages treasure, including Azerbaijanian dialects-many of which display highly interesting features due to contact with the languages presented in this volume.

2011

Caucasus Studies 2 (edited by K. Vamling), 2010

Language, History and Cultural Identities in the Caucasus. Papers from the conference, June 17-19 2005, Malmö University. —— Published in the series Caucasus Studies (No 2), 2010. Malmö University, Malmö (Sweden) ISBN 978-91-7104-088-6. —— EDITED BY KARINA VAMLING —— Available online, Malmö University: ——http://dspace.mah.se/handle/2043/12518 — —— CONTENTS —— Preface, by Karina Vamling, p. vii. —— The Autocrat of the Banquet Table: the political and social significance of the Georgian supra, by Kevin TUITE, pp. 9–35. —— Continuity of a Tradition: A Survey of the Performance Practices of Traditional Polyphonic Songs in Tbilisi, by Andrea KUZMICH, pp. 36–52. —— An Attempt to Create an Ethnic Group: Identity Change Dynamics of Muslimized Meskhetians, by Marine BERIDZE and Manana KOBAIDZE, pp. 53¬–67. —— The Georgian Language and Cultural Identity in Old Georgia: An Examination of Some Conceptual Foundations, by Tinatin BOLKVADZE, pp. 68–73. —— The Modern Language Situation in Georgia: Issues Regarding the Linguistic Affiliation of the Population, by Manana TABIDZE, pp. 74–80. —— Language Use and Attitudes among Megrelians in Georgia, by Karina VAMLING and Revaz TCHANTOURIA, pp. 81–92. —— The Present-day Situation of the Minority Ethno-Linguistic Peoples within the Avaric Region in the Republic of Dagestan, by Rune WESTERLUND, pp. 93–104. —— Human Rights, Terrorism, and the Destruction of Chechnya, by Ib FAURBY, pp. 105–113. —— Why No Settlement in the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict? – Which are the obstacles to a negotiated solution?, by Märta-Lisa MAGNUSSON, pp. 114–143. —— Discrepancies between Form and Meaning: Reanalyzing Wish Formulae in Georgian, by Nino AMIRIDZE, pp. 144–155. —— Two Types of Relative Clauses in Modern Georgian, by YASUHIRO KOJIMA, pp. 156–167.

Linguistic Diversity in Azerbaijan: Present State and Future Challenges, 2023

Azerbaijan lies in an extremely propitious position between the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea, and has always been an important stop along the Silk Road, and a melting pot of languages and cultures. Many ethnic, religious and linguistic groups passing through or settling in the territories of present-day Azerbaijan historically came into contact with local communities, hence contributing to this linguistic mosaic. Investigating languages of Azerbaijan is interesting and important not only from the linguistic point of view. It also bears a sociocultural value in that it can offer a new perspective on studying these languages from the standpoint of their vitality and maintenance. This volume offers new data and highly valuable insights into various linguistic and sociolinguistic aspects of the East Caucasian, South Caucasian as well as the Iranian varieties spoken in Azerbaijan. With this publication, we hope to set in motion more linguistic activities and research initiatives on the different varieties forming Azerbaijan's languages treasure, including Azerbaijanian dialects-many of which display highly interesting features due to contact with the languages presented in this volume. (Jala Garibova & Elisabetta Ragagnin)

STUF - Language Typology and Universals, 2019

The traces of socio-cultural interaction between the ethnic groups who are neighbour to each other but speak in different languages reflect on their languages. Common words and concepts appear in languages of both ethnic groups. The Caucasus, which is the subject of our article, is a broad geographical region where a great many different ethnic groups live together and have been mixed ethnically to each other for hundreds of years. Our purpose is to study on the vocabulary of different ethnic groups' languages to determine the cultural and linguistic interaction between them. It is possible to draw a conclusion from our study that there is ethnic and cultural interaction among the all peoples of Caucasus thoroughly.

Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences, 2017

The paper is devoted to the study of language ecology of the North Caucasus in the context of language policy. The following problems have been identified among the main ecolinguistic issues: many languages of the peoples of Russia are facing the threat of extinction or are endangered; the actual ethnic composition of the population and the number of languages in the country have not been identified yet; in the conditions of irresistible globalization there is little chance of small ethnic groups' languages survival, the groups having neither written language nor the language of official status; ethnicity is doomed to extinction as their language is falling out of use, yet it is the main bearer of the cultural code of the people. The paper concludes that the threat to the Russian language and culture from other peoples and their cultures seems exaggerated. In relation to the urgency of preserving the Russian language as the state language and the language of interethnic communication in the country as a whole as well as in the republics, it is vital to consider the importance of preservation of all the languages spoken by the peoples of Russia and create the conditions for their further development.