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Final report: Voices from Tundra and Taiga

NWO RUSSIAN‑DUTCH RESEARCH COOPERATION 2002

VOICES FROM TUNDRA AND TAIGA:

A National Sound Archive of Endangered

Languages and Cultures in the

Final Report  July 2005

1             General  Information

File number                          047.014.020

Starting date of the project:    1 May 2002

Dutch project leader:          Dr. T. de Graaf, Frisian Academy, KNAW, NL

Russian co-leader:             Prof. L.V. Bondarko, Saint-PetersburgUniversity , RF

2             Scientific Part

2.1           Overview of Research activities

The research program Voices from Tundra and Taiga, initiated at GroningenUniversityand St.Petersburg Universty, is devoted to the study of endangered arctic languages and cultures of the , which must be described rapidly before they become extinct. This research is in the fortunate position that earlier work on the reconstruction technology for old sound recordings found in archives in St. Petersburghas made it possible to compare languages still spoken in the proposed research area to the same languages as they were spoken more than half a century ago. These sound recordings consist of spoken language, folksongs, fairy tales etc. in the languages of .

In the famework of this project we have finished part of the research program by applying the developed techniques to some of these disappearing minority languages and cultures of such as Nivkh and Uilta (Orok) on Sakhalin, Yukagir and Tungus languages in Yakutia, and Khanty/Mansi in West-Siberia. We have prepared a catalogue of the existing recordings, and a phono- and video-library of recorded stories, and of the folklore, singing and oral traditions of the peoples of  Siberia. For this purpose the existing sound recordings in the archives have been used together with the results obtained from new fieldwork expeditions. The data have been added to the existing archive material in Saint-Petersburg and part of it is made available on the Internet and/or CD-ROM. This material thus becomes available for further analysis to researchers working in the field of phonetics, linguistics, anthropology, history, ethno-musicology and folklore. The information is also important for the development of teaching methods for representatives of the related ethnic groups and for the conservation of their language and culture.

Research and documentation has been carried out in close co-operation with members of the local language communities. In places such as Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Naryan-Mar, Yakutsk and Khanty-Mansiisk training has been given for local scholars and their assistants who participate in the archiving of the sound recordings and in fieldwork expeditions. They are also trained at St. Petersburg State University and specialists from St. Petersburg State University and The Netherlands visit them. Their common task is to set up new centers for the study of local languages and related subjects. For this purpose the new centers have been equipped with computers, software, sound- and videorecorders, monitors, literature and other necessary facilities.

The results of the project have been published in a number of books and scientifi articles, together with sound recordings on CD and on special web sites. During the project period Dr. T. de Graaf has been visiting professor at St.Petersburg University and he became a corresponding member and guest researcher at the Instituteof Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Slavic Research Center of Hokkaido University (). This will facilitate future contacts with colleagues in the and stimulate further joint projects dealing with the (endangered) languages of . In Leiden and Amsterdam Dr C.Odé is involved in the preparation of a special activity on Endangered Languages in Yakutia. The results of our project and the contacts established during the project period provide the necessary perspectives for future new joint projects in the field of endangered languages and endangered archives.

During the first project period a number of subprojects were defined and participants were selected for these subprojects (see progress report no.1). The following subprojects have been identified:

1.             Organisation of special courses at Saint-Petersburg University . Project with Khanty-Mansiisk

2.             Samoyed languages on CD Rom and the Internet.

3.             A databases for Siberian language material in the Pushkinsky Dom.

4.             Nivkh, Uilta, Nanai and Evenki on Sakhalin .

5.             Yukagir and other languages in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia).

In the following sections separate research activities and scientific results obtained so far in the framework of these subprojects are represented. We limit ourselves mainly to the last project year, whereas earlier results have been reported in the progress reports between 1 May 2002and 1 July 2004.

2.2           Scientific Results

Final Report of subproject 1

Organisation of special courses at Saint-PetersburgUniversity. Project with Khanty-Mansiisk.

Coordinator - Professor Liya V.Bondarko

In the project period 2002-2005 the activities were in accordance with the inititial work program and have been reported in the earlier progress reports. Lectures and seminars were organised for specific student groups from minority peoples, in particular Khanty students and they were carried out according to the established curricula. Several Khanty students, speakers of different Khanty dialects received their certificates.

In 2004-2005 some changes were introduced into the work program: a special research plan was developed according to which expert phoneticians organized phonetic seminars in Khanty-Mansiyk. The aim of the seminar was to introduce local linguists to the latest developments in the sound signal analysis, and sound database development, as well as the use of the IPA notation in transcribing sound material. The recordings were digitized and analyzed by expert phoneticians. Detailed phonetic transcription using the IPA notation system was carried out. The aim of the analysis was to establish the phoneme inventory of the dialects and to state the principal differences in the sound systems of the dialects, as much as the quality of the recorded material permitted. 

The first local seminar for the Khanty language in Khany-Mansijsk (March 2003) assembled more than 40 participants – representatives of the Khanty and Mansi: interested teachers, students, mass media and region government representatives. This seminar was the beginning of the series of similar outward forums organized by the department of phonetics and methods of teaching foreign languages and supported by the NWO project. During these seminars participants have discussed phonetic problems of the Nivkh, Uilta (Orock), Nanay, Khanty, Mansi and Buryat languagesand they took place in: Khanty-Mansijsk (March 2003, October 2005), Saint-Petersburg (March, 2003; April, 2004, October, 2004), Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (October, 2003) and Buryatia (June 2005).

                In October 2004 L.Radnaeva and A.Kondratovskaja were invited to the Ugric Research Institute of Khanty-Mansijsk, where they organised a phonetic seminar on the sound system of Khanty and Mansi for local specialists and speakers of the languages involved. During this seminar they recorded sound material from several informants, which will be used for further digital processing and acoustic analysis. New insights have been obtained in the phonetic structure of the Khanty language and its dialects and problems have been solved related to the pronunciation standard and possible orthography.

                In June 2005 L.Radnaeva and T. de Graaf participated in an international conference on the relation between and Asiain Ulan Ude. There they reported on the results of the project and prepared seminars for teachers (similar to the one on Sakhalinin 2003). In three different locations (Kurumkan, Ulan Ude and Aginsk) they met with groups of teachers and students and provided instruction on the use of information technology for the teaching of Buryat and Evenki, the local languages. They received a very positive response and made plans future joint activities in the field of minority language education.

This work has been mentioned in a new project proposal to the organisation INTAS of the EU. It will be aimed at the preparation of multimedia teaching material to stimulate people to study the minority languages involved in the project: not only interested linguists, but also representatives of the related ethnic groups. In this project, we should like to extend our experience to a few other language minorities in the , namely Buryat, Votic and Ingrian (Votic/Ingrian):minor Balto-Finnic languages. This choice has been made because of the availablity of special expertise in our research group and the fact that these languages represent two different cases: Buryat is the state language of the republic of Buryatia and is spoken by more than 300,000 people, whereas Voticand Ingrian are twohighly endangered languagesin the Russian Federation without state protection and with less than a few hundred speakers.

             The teaching materials developed by the project team will be introduced in teacher seminars and schools. The results will be evaluated, reported and used for general new approaches to minority language learning. Following the evaluation, we shall be able to standardise the procedures for the creation of linguistic educational tools, based on multimedia resources. A comparison will be made with the experience of minority language teaching in countries of the European Union, in particular with the results obtained in the Mercator Education project of the Frisian Academy , where T. de Graaf has become senior researcher in 2004.

Final Report of Subproject 2

Samoyed languages: Multimedia Dictionaries for the Nenets and Nganasan Languages on CD-ROM and the Internet.

Coordinator: Dr M.Lublinskaia.

During the project period the following language resources were created for endangered Samoyedic languages (multimedia database development):

-Nenets-Russian-English Dictionary and

- Nenets-Nganasan Comparative Dictionary.

 For this purpose three main databases created: 1) Nenets dictionary database; 2) Nganasan dictionary database; and 3) Combined corpus, which allows references and links from one database to another.

The corpora of the both dictionaries were translated into English and audio corpora for Nenets and Nganasan were created and added to the dictionary.

The Nganasan speakers were recorded in Taymyr-region during the expedition of the Instituteof Linguistics RASand the Nenets speakers were recorded in St-Petersburg. Audio material of the both languages was digitalized and segmented and the new recordings were entered into the Nenets and Nganasan databases.

The “Nenets-Russian-English Multimedia Dictionary” is presented in two variants: a CD-ROM edition and a Web-publication, which is located at www.speech.nw.ru/DNenets/index.html.

The dictionary contains about 4000 Nenets entries, which represent different meanings of about 2100 Nenets words. Many of them are supplied by phrase examples. Idioms are listed as well. The reverse English-Nenets and Russian-Nenets dictionaries have 4200 and 5400 entries accordingly. The internet edition, being connected immediately with the database, allows to perform search for any part of the word in English, Russian and Nenets.

All the dictionaries are linked. So it is possible to immediately translate into English the entries from Nenets-Russian and Russian-Dictionaries. The same procedure is available for translation into Russian on the Nenets-English dictionaries.

The “Nenets-Nganasan-Russian-English Multimedia Dictionary” is based on the combined corpus of the Nenets and Nganasan databases. It is also presented in two variants: CD-ROM edition and Web-publication, which, along with the other multimedia products, is located at www.speech.nw.ru/Dictionaries/index.html

Both versions of the dictionary need a standard Internet browser, enable to work with frames. The upper part of the window presents four frames; each presenting word lists for Nenets, Nganasan, Russian and English. When choosing the word, the lower window shows the correspondent Nenets-Nganasan pair(s) with their translation into Russian and English. Sound examples are available for each Nenets and Nganasan word.

The edition of CD-ROM «Nganasan Multimedia Dictionary» with booklet has been prepared and produced in two versions (Russian and English). This edition numbers 200 copies of the Russian version and the same number of the English one. The Dictionary is distributed among the researches and the interested organizations; in most of cases it is free of charge. To order the CD one should email the Institute for Linguistic Studies in St.Petersburg (dir(a)iling.nw.ru).

In June 2004 Marina Lublinskaya went to Naryan Mar for a field expedition in order to make further Nenets recordings in tundra. The other aim of the expedition was to have more consultations from the competent Nenets speakers and discuss the possibilities of the further development of our multimedia products and their distribution among the native Nenets and Nganasan. The list of Nenets names of the natural and landscape phenomena was discussed with the native speakers and the words were recorded and digitalized.

The CD's produced as a result of the project are added to the final report

Final Report of Subproject 3

A databases for Siberian language material in the Pushkinsky Dom.

Coordinator: Prof. N.D.Svetozarova.

An investigation of the catalogues, documentation and sound material in the phonogramarchive of the Instituteof Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of  Sciences (Pushkinsky Dom) resulted in a special book with articles on the collection of the Northern Peoples. This publication is sent to NWO together with the final report and it contains more detailed information about the results of the subproject.

The specialists in Ethnic music continued their work in making the catalogs of the materials and checking up as well as the standartisation the notes of the collectors written in Cyrillic letters. In the preliminary stage of the compiling of the electronic catalogue the participants of the project conducted the listening of the recordings for the appreciation of their technical conditions and verification of the notes of the collectors.

During this work some corrections were made in the annotations of the recordings. Usually such corrections relate to the names of the places of recordings, in the ethnic names if the collectors used non-standard ethnic names, sometimes in the family names of the performers written down incorrectly.

At the same time the participants of the project continued the work with the manuscripts of the Phonogrammarchive of Pushkinsky Dom. This collection of manuscripts contains the materials relating to the phonographic recordings, usually to these ones which were made by Z.V.Evald, V.V.Gippius and S.D.Magid in 1928-1937.

The main part of the manuscript materials of the Phonogrammarchive consists of the texts of songs – there are texts in the native language, translations of the songs into Russian or parallel versions in the native language and in Russian. The most numerous collections of songs belong to Evenki and Nanai, the specimens of songs in the other languages are considerably rare. Totally the manuscript materials present Khanty, Saami, Evenki, Nanai, Chukchee, Itelmen languages. The comparing of the manuscript materials with the data of the electronic catalog of the collections of Pushkinsky Dom gave us the opportunity to find a correspondence between the recordings and the written texts – usually in the titles of songs, in some cases in the names of the performers, or in the cases when the number of the recording was indicated in the manuscript.

The participants of the project selected more than 20 texts of songs from manuscript collection and prepared them for publication in the forthcoming issue of the series “From the History of Russian Folklore Studies” (“Iz Istorii Russkoy Folkloristiki”).

At the same time according to the plans of application of the materials we continued the work with the materials relating to shamanism. Even in case when the text of shaman’s rite is not understandable, it is possible to eshablish the following characteristic features of the rite: gender of the performer (man/woman), age (young/old), using the drum or other musical instrument, the character of performing (singing telling), presence of absence of shamans’ assistants and their number. This sound picture of shamanistic rite can be compared with the descriptions of the shamans’ rites which are presented in the ethnographical sources (descriptions of the travellers etc) and in the special works on shamainsm.

During the work with the manuscript materials of Phonogrammarchive, we made the selection of documents that can present good illustration of elaboration and developing of the written form of the languages of the aboriginal peoples of the Far North, Siberiaand the Far East of Russia. In this relation manuscript collection of Phonogrammarchive gives us the unique materials showing the real processes of introducing of the written form of these languages into teaching and common use. These documents were scanned and placed on CD together with some recordings, for which we could find written texts and\or translations into Russian.

The preliminary result of the research is one CD-disk with recordings of songs of the peoples of the North of Russia made in the 1930-ies and with the scanned pictures of documents related to the work on transcription of the recordings and translations of the texts into Russian. The CD-disk contains 12 recordings and 20 pictures of documents and it is added to the book with the description of the collections,the  catalogue of all collections connected with the peoples of the North of Russia, and annotations to the pictures placed on the disk.

Future possible directions of the work were specified in this book, which is published by the research group and to which we refer for further details.

Final Report of Subproject 4

Nivkh,Uilta, Nanai and Evenki on Sakhalin.

Coordinator: Dr T.P. Roon.

This subproject is also financially supported by the Dutch-Japanese company Sakhalin Energy, which is implementing one of the greatest investments in oil and gas exploration in the . The commitment of this company to sustainable development on the island implies that it carries out its activities in combination with environment protection and cultural and educational programs for the indigenous peoples. We have completed various projects on Sakhalintogether with Japanese colleagues and a small part of the NWO grant has been used for this purpose.

The work on Nivkh, one of the aboriginal languages on Sakhalin, is the research topic of the Groningen PhD student Hidetoshi Shiraishi. He received a PhD scholarship at GroningenUniversityand will finish his dissertation on Sound patterns and acoustic databases of the Northern languages of , in particular Nivkhin March 2006. Since August 2000, he has been working with colleagues of the Sakhalin Museum of Regional Studies (Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk), which enabled him to set up fieldwork to Northern Sakhalinwhere the majority of the Nivkh people of the island live. He  managed to record plenty of linguistic-ethnographic data, including recitations of folktales, legends, songs, natural speech, etc. With the help of his local colleague G.D. Lok, he has published part of this material (Shiraishi and Lok 2002, 2003) and similar publications will soon be released. These publications contain Nivkh texts with translations into Russian, Japanese and English. They also contain an audio-medium, which will help researchers and all those who want to learn the language, in particular representatives of the Nivkh people themselves. A linguistic database set up in this way will provide important information in order to check various linguistic hypotheses. This database is added to the existing Groningen database A Guide to the Languages of Russia (see also www.let.rug.nl/~toshi).

In March 2005 the third volume was published in the series Sound Materials of the Nivkh Language by the University of Groningen , whereas Hidetoshi Shiraishi got a position at Sapporo Gakuin University in . He is continuing the work for his dissertation, which will be finished in March 2006.

T. de Graaf has again been invited as guest researcher at the Slavic Research Center of Hokkaido University in , where he will work from 1 September until 1 November 2005. During this period he will report on the results of our project and investigate the possibilities for new joint projects with Russian and Japanese colleagues in the future.

Final report on Subproject 5

Yukagir and other languages in the SakhaRepublic(Yakutia).

Coordinator: Dr C.Odé.

This subproject started in November 2003 for reasons mentioned in the previous periodic report. Invited by the Sakha Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture, Dr Odé visited the Sakha Republic in November 2004, where she was the guest of Prof. Y. Sheikin at the Arctic Institute. Together with Mrs A. Bukhantsova, whose mother was a Tundra Yukagir (henceforth: TY), she went on fieldwork to the remote village Andryushkino for audio and video recordings of especially the elder TY. From Prof. G. Kurilov of the Sakha Academy of Sciences, himself a TY, she received a list of native speakers who, according to Kurilov, master the TY language and traditional singing and also know TY folktales, and who urgently needed to be recorded as long as they are still alive.

        In Andryushkino, Odé visited the TY community, attended lessons at the kindergarten, primary and secondary schools where TY children learn their mother tongue. In order to observe the traditional way of living, she also attended, for instance, funeral rituals, and travelled on a sledge to a TY nomad family of reindeer herders and to a family of fishermen in the tundra. On location she made audio and video recordings; some of the recorded issues that are relevant for the study of the language will be analysed.

        Starting with a study of the phonetics and phonology of TY, Odé made an inventory of gaps in the scarcely existing literature on the language. Since only some 50 speakers fluently master TY, she became aware of the urgent need to hurry studying the language and safeguard the TY culture. For the revitalization of the language, courseware for the highly motivated children needs to be developed. The few native teachers of TY literally make all teaching materials with their own hands. At present Odé is looking for further funding of this project. In the meantime, Mrs Bukhantsova already started with a transcription of the audio-recorded text fragments. After her fieldwork, Odé gave a lecture on her trip for students of the Arctic Institute in Yakutsk. She was also interviewed for the local newspaper Vechernii Iakutsk and for the national radio.

        In March 2005, Odé attended the World Congress of Reindeer Herders held in Yakutsk. During the congress, a separate conference was organized by Prof. Sheikin on the languages and cultures of people of the north, where Odé presented two lectures and a powerpoint demonstration on her fieldwork in November 2004. She was offered the possibility to get to know cultures of the other indigenous northern peoples living in Sakha, that are also included in the project Voices from Tundra and Taiga, notably Kolyma Yukagir, Ewen and Ewenki.

2.3 Publications:

M. Bergmann and T. de Graaf: “Iazyki severnoi i vostochnoi Tartarii – o iazykovykh svedeniiakh v knige N. Vitsena” (The Languages of North and East Tartary – About the Linguistic Data in the Book of N. Witsen), Proceedings of the Conference on General Linguistics, Saint-Petersburg, 2003.

M. Bergmann: CD-ROM “Nenets Multimedia Phrasebook” (version March 2003) in cooperation with Dr Marina Lublinskaia (Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg) and Dr Tat’iana Sherstinova (Institute of Phonetics, Saint-Petersburg State University), March 2003.

M. Bergmann: “Golosa tundry i taigi v Internete – Novye perspektivy dlia podderzhki iazykov Severa”  (The Voices of Tundra and Taiga on the Internet – New Perspectives for the Support of the Languages of the North), Proceedings Conference Herzen Institute, November 2003.

L.V. Bondarko, L.D. Radnaeva and P.A. Skrelin: “Phonetic aspects of preservation of the languages of the peoples of the North”, Proceedings of the International Conference Preservation of Cultural traditions of minor languages of the North and the problems of stability of their development, Khanty-Mansiisk, June 23-26, 2003.

L.V.Bondarko: "Mnogoobrazie foneticheskikh sistem". Sbornik "Eksperimental'no-foneticheskij analiz rechi: problemy i metody". Band 5 "Foneticheskie mnogoobrazie yazykov mira". St.Peterburg, 2004, pp.3-6.

L.V. Bondarko, L.D.Radnaeva and P.A. Skrelin P.A. Modern multimedia means of phonetic study of languages. Proceedings of the International Conference Formation of Educational Programs Aimed at a New Type of Humanitarian Education in Siberian Polyethnic Society, Novosibirsk , 28-30, 2003.

A.A. Burykin: “K istorii izucheniia i publikacii skazochnogo i pesennogo fol’klora evenov” (Towards the history of studies and publication of folktales and songs of the Evens). Remota relata. Essays on the History of Oriental Studies in Honour of Harry Halen, Edited by Juha Janhunen and Asko Parpola, Studia Orientalia 97, Helsinki 2003, pp.1-12.
 

A.A. Burykin: “Muzykal’nyi fol’klor evenov”, Recenziia na knigu Pavlova, T.V.: Obryadovyj folkl'or Evenov Yakutii, YALIK (Iazyki, Literatura, Istoriia, Kul’tura) (Musical Folklore of the Evens, Review of the book by Pavlova T.V.: The ritual Folklore of the Evens of Yakutia, YALIK (Languages, Literature, History, Culture.)), Saint-Petersburg, 2001.

A.A. Burykin: “Fonograficheskie zapisi pervoi treti XX veka kak istochnik izucheniia
shamanskoi praktiki narodov Severa, Sibiri i Dal’nego Vostoka”, Mifologiia i religiia v sisteme kul’tury etnosa, Materialy Vtorykh Sankt-Peterburgskikh Etnograficheskikh chtenii 2003 (Phonographic recordings of the first third of the XXth century as the source of studies in Shamanistic practice of the peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East of Russia, Mythology and religion in the system of ethnic culture, Materials of the Second Ethnographical Readings in Saint-Petersburg), Saint-Peterburg 2003.

A.A. Burykin: “Zvuchat golosa predkov” (The sounding Voices of the Ancestors), Newspaper “Yakutia” June 2003.

A.А.Бурыкин, А.Ю.Кастров, Ю.И.Марченко, Н.Д.Светозарова. Обзор материалов по языкам и фольклору народов Крайнего севера, Сибири и Дальнего Востока России, хранящихся в Phonogrammarchiveе Института русской литературы (Пушкинский Дом) РАН / Язык и речевая деятельность. Том 7. С.-Петербург, 2005 (в печати)

А.А.Бурыкин, А.Ю.Кастров, Ю.И.Марченко, Н.Д.Светозарова.  Из истории собирания материалов по языкам и фольклору  народов Крайнего Cевера, Сибири и Дальнего Востока России,  хранящихся  ныне в Phonogrammarchiveе Института русской литературы  (Пушкинский Дом) РАН.

A.A. Burykin: Язык малочисленного народа в его письменной форме. Социолингвистические и собственно лингвистические проблемы (на материале эвенского языка). СПб., «Петербургское востоковедение», 2004. - 374 с.

A.A. Burykin: Федор Петрович Литке – исследователь этнографии ненцев / Земля Тюменская: Ежегодник Тюменского областного краеведческого музея. Вып. 17. Тюмень, 2004. С.210-218.

A.A.Burykin:Международная конференция «Фольклор палеоазиатских народов» / Этнографическое обозрение, 2004, № 5. С. 156-161(Совместно с О.Б.Борисовой).

A.A. Burykin: Первое собрание образцов фольклора эвенов Якутии /Якутский эпос в контексте эпического наследия народов мира. Сборник научных статей. Якутск, ЯФ изд. СО РАН, 2004. С.110-122.

A.A. Burykin: Фонографические записи первой трети ХХ в. как источник изучения шаманской практики народов Севера, Сибири и Дальнего Востока /Мифология и религия в системе культуры этноса. Материалы Вторых Санкт-Петербургских этнографических чтений. СПб., 2003.С.187-188.

A.Kh.Girfanova: Udeghe. München; Newcastle : LINCOM Europa, 2002. – 000 с. (Серия: “Languages of the World”).

A.Kh.Girfanova: Орочский язык / Языки народов России. Красная книга. Энциклопедический словарь-справочник. М.: «Academia», 2002. С. 148-150.

A.Kh.Girfanova:  Удэгейскийязык: историяиперспективыизучения// Siberia, Land and Peoples: Destruction or Survival? Interdisciplinary International Conference. 6-8 september 2002. Univ.of Leeds . Leeds: Univ.of Leeds , [2002]. 1 p. (направахрукописи).

A.Kh.Girfanova: Из истории удэгейской лексикографии (к описанию лексики языка агглютинативного типа) / Лингвистика. История лингвистики. Социолингвистика Под ред. К. А. Долинина. СПб.: Изд. С.-Петерб. ун-та, 2003. С. 88-98. (Проблемы современного теоретического и синхронно-описательного языкознания. Вып. 5).

A.Kh.Girfanova:  Из истории изучения удэгейского языка / Remota Relata. Essays on the History of Oriental Studies in Honour of Harry Halén. Ed by Juha Janhunen and Asco Parpola. Helsinki , 2003 (Studia orientalia. Published by the Finnish Oriental Society).

A.Kh.Girfanova: Minority Languages in Modern // Ed. by Osohito Miyaoka and Fubito Endo. Languages of the North Pacific Rim. Vol. 9. The Project “Endagered Languages of the Pacific Rim(ELPR)”. Osako: Ed. of. Osoke Gakuin Univ., 2004. P. 69-77 (Faculty of Informatics).

A.Kh.Girfanova: Shamanism in the Life of Udeghe / The 7 Conference of International Society for Shamanism Research (ISSR). Abstracts of the Papers. August 2004, Bejing, . [Bejing], 2004. P. 31-32.

T. de Graaf:  “The Use of Acoustic Databases and Fieldwork for the Study of the Endangered Languages of Russia”,Conference Handbook on Endangered Languages, Proceedings of the Kyoto ELPR Conference 2002, Kyoto 2002, pp.57-79.

T. de Graaf: “The Use of Acoustic Databases and Fieldwork for the Study of the Endangered Languages of Russia”, Proceedings of the International LREC Workshop on Resources and Tools in Field Linguistics, Las Palmas 2002, 29.1–.4 (CD-ROM).

T. de Graaf: “Akusticheskie bazy dannykh iazykov Rossii” (Acoustic databases of the languages of ), Proceedings of the conference “Phonetics Today”, Moscow 2003.

T. de Graaf:  “Description of Minority Languages in on the Basis of Historical Data and Fieldwork”, Proceedings of the XVIth International Congress of Linguists, Prague 2003.

T. de Graaf: “Voices from Tundra and Taiga: Data on Minority Languages in from Historical Data and Fieldwork”, Proceedings of the Conference “Formation of Educational Programs Aimed at a New Type of Humanitarian Education in Siberian Polyethnic Society”, Novosibirsk 2003.

T. de Graaf: “Endangered Languages in Europeand Siberia: State of the Art, Needs and Solutions”, International Expert Meeting on UNESCO Programme “Safeguarding of Endangered Languages”, Paris 2003.

T. de Graaf: Presentation of the UNESCO Document “Language Vitality and Endangerement”, Focus on Linguistic Diversity in the New Europe, European Bureau for Lesser Used Languages, Brussels 2003. 28 p.

T. de Graaf: “Voices from Tundra and Taiga - a joint project of and The Netherlands”, Theses of the IV International Conference Phonetics Today in Zvenigorod, Moscow 2003.

T. de Graaf, A. Gerd and M Savijarvi: Iazyk i Narod (Language and Ethnos). A collection of Papers,  Saint-Petersburg 2003, 135p.

T. de Graaf and H. Shiraishi: “Voices from Tundra and Taiga, Capacity Building for some Endangered Languages of Russia”, Language Documentation and Description, Volume 2, edited by Peter K. Austin,  SOAS, London 2004.

T. de Graaf: “The Status of Endangered Languages in the Border Areas of Japan and ”, Invited Paper at the Eighth Conference of the Foundation for Endangered Languages, Barcelona , 1 - 3 October 2004.

M.D. Lublinskaia: “Consonant System of the Tundra Dialect and its Realizing in Sub-dialects”, Theses of the IV International Conference Phonetics Today in Zvenigorod, Moscow 2003.

M.D. Lublinskaia, Tat’iana Sherstinova: “Saving the Traditions of Learning in The Institute of the Northern Peoples”, Theses of the International Conference in the RussianStatePedagogical Universirty The Reality of Ethnos, Saint-Petersburg 2003.

M.D. Lublinskaia, T.Iu. Sherstinova: “Multimediinie bazy dannykh ischezayushchikh iazykov na primere nenetskogo i nganasanskogo”, Materialy XXXII filologicheskoy konferentsii (Multimedia databases of engangered languages Nenets and Nganasan, Proceedings of the XXXII philological conference), Saint-Petersburg, 11-14 March 2003.

M.D. Lublinskaia, T.Iu. Sherstinova, V.Iu. Goussev: The Nganasan Multimedia Dictionary (version March 2004), Saint-Petersburg 2004.

M.D. Lublinskaia: “Sozdanie audiofondov ischezajushchih iazykov” (The Creation of Audio-fonds for the Endangered Languages), Voprosy Uralo-Altaiskoi Lingvistiki, Saint-Petersburg 2004, pp.67–70.

M.D.Lublinskaya, M., Sherstinova, T.Functional Types of Computer Audio Collectionfor Endangered Languages(for Northern Samoyedic Languages as an example) Moscow, 27TH – 29TH October 2003. Moscow 2004.

M.D.Lublinskaya, Sherstinova T. Computer Textbooks for Minority Languages (Case of Nenets and Nganasan). In: Proceedings of Workshop “Creation of New Generation of High School Textbooks for Minority Siberian Langiages. Novosibirsk . November 25-27, 2004. (in Russian)

M.D. Lublinskaya: Creation of Audio Funds of Endangered Languages (on the Example of Nenets and Nganasan). In: The First International Symposium on Field Linguistics. Moscow . October 23-26. 2003. Moscow . 2004. (in Russian)

M.D. Lublinskaya: The Necessity to Keep Traditions when Teaching in the Instituteof Nations of the Far North. In: Proceedings of the Yearly Conference in the Institute of Northern Nations “Ethnoses: the Prospect of Development”. St. Petersburg , 2003. (in Russian).

M.D. Lublinskaya: System of Consonant Phonems of Nenets Language Tundra Dialects and its Realization in Different Patoises. In: Proceedings of the IV Scientific Conference “Phonetics Today: Actual Problems and University Education”. Zvenigorod, April 11-13, 2003. Moscow . 2003. (in Russian).

N.Mamcheva: "Obryadovye musykalnye instrumenty aborigenov Sakhalina" (Cerimonial musical instruments of the Sakhalinaboriginals), with illustrations, Sakhalin Regional Museum , 2003, 89pp.

C. Odé: “Voices from Tundra and Taiga”, IIAS Newsletter No. 29, November 2002, p.33.

C. Odé: “Kak preodolet’ prepiatstviia v izuchenii i prepodavanii intonatsii” (Why studying and teaching intonation need not to be a stumbling block), Russkoe slovo v mirovoj kul’ture, Plenarnye zasedaniia: Sbronik dokladov, Tom II, X Kongress Mezhdunaradonoi Assotsiatsii Prepodavatelei Russkogo Iazyka i Literatury, Politekhnika Izdatel’stvo, Sankt-Peterburg 2003, pp.205-212.

C. Odé: “Voices from Tundra and Taiga: Vitality and Education”, IIAS Newsletter 33, March 2004, pp.44-45.

C. Odé : “Zachem gollandke Yukagirskii?” (What is the use of Yukagir for a Dutchwoman?) Interview in Iakutsk Vechernii No. 47, 26-11-2004, p.3.

C. Odé: “Talen met uitsterven bedreigd”. Interview met foto’s in Hypothese, NWO-blad voor de wetenschap, December 2004, p.16-19.

C. Odé: “New agreement on Scientific Cooperation between IIAS and the Institute of the Indigenous Peoples of the North in Yakutsk, Sakha (Russian Academyof Sciences, Siberian Division).” In IIAS Newsletter 37, June 2005, p.33.

L.D. Radnaeva: “Kombinatorno-pozitsionnoe variirovanie glasnykh v sviaznom tekste”,
Materialy XXXII filologicheskoy konferentsii (Combinatory and positional variation of vowels in connected speech, Proceedings of the XXXII philological conference), Saint-Petersburg 2003.

L. D. Radnaeva: “Two types of transcription, The Buryat Language Database”, Proceedings of the 15th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Barcelona 2003, pp.2737-2740.

L.D.Radnaeva: "The phonetic system of the Buryat language and new multimedia opportunities of it’s research and presentation". Proceedings of the International Congress of “ICANAS –37”, Moscow , 2004.

L.D.Radnaeva “The sound form of the Contemporary Buryat language”.

Thesis Saint-Petersburg University , 2003. 450 P.

L.D.Radnaeva “Kolychestvennyje kharakteristiki allophonnogo varjirovanija glasnykh I soglasnykh, Sbornik: Ekperimental’no-phonetichesky analiz rechi: problemy i metody. Phoneticheskoje mnogoobrazije yazikov mira. Vypusk 5. Saint-Petersburg, 2004, pp. 124-168.

T.Roon and T. de Graaf: "The international Project Voices from Tundra and Taiga and the Sakhalin Regional Museum 2001-2003. Izverstiya Instituta Naslediya Bronislawa Pilsudskogo, no. 8, 2004, pp. 280-291.

T.Y. Sherstinova, Lublinskaya M.D. Multimedia Collections of Endangered Languages in the Internet / CD-ROM edition:  Proceedings of International conference“Information for all” UNESCO Programme Universal Access to Information. St. Petersburg, . 23-25 June2004.

H. Shiraishi: “Kita Sakhalin o tatsu asa” (My last morning in north Sakhalin(in Japanese)), Kita no kotoba field note -18 no gengo to bunka (Field notes on the languages of the north -18 languages and cultures), T. Tsumagari (ed.), Hokkaido University Press, Sapporo 2003, pp.7-17.

H. Shiraishi: “Vowel devoicing of Ainu: How it differs and not differs from vowel devoicing of Japanese”, A New Century of Phonology and Phonological Theory, A Festschrift for Professor Shosuke Haraguchi on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday, T. Honma, M. Okazaki, T. Tabata and  S. Tanaka (eds). Tokyo, Kaitakusha 2003, pp.237-249.

H. Shiraishi: “Folktales of the Saru dialect of the Ainu 2 -Ueda Toshi's Uepeker 2”, Journal of Chiba University Eurasian Society No.6, 2003, pp.143-192.

H. Shiraishi: “Folktales of the Saru dialect of the Ainu 2 -Ueda Toshi's Uepeker 2” (in Japanese), Languages of the North Pacific Rim vol. 10, Toshiro Tsumagari (ed.), ELPR Publication A2-33, 2002, pp.111-137.

H. Shiraishi and G.D. Lok:  “Zvukovye Materialy dlia issledovaniia Nivkhskogo Iazyka I” (Sound materials for the Study of the Nivkh Language), ELPR Publication A2-015, Kyoto 2002.

H. Shiraishi and G.D. Lok: “Sound Materials of the Nivkh Language 2 - Songs and Folktales of the Amur Dialect”, ELPR publication A2-036, Kyoto 2003.

H. Shiraishi and G.D. Lok: “Sound Materials of the Nivkh Language 3 - Songs and Folktales of the Amur Dialect”, Publication of the international NWO project Voices from Tundra and Taiga, Groningen, 2005.

L.A.Vasil’eva, S.O. Tananajko, T.Iu. Sherstinova: “Internet tekhnologii i izuchenie zvukovykh izmenenii”, Tekhnologii sovremennogo obshchestva - Internet i sovremennoe obshchestvo, Trudy YI Vserossiiskoi ob”edinënnoi konferentsii (Internet-technology in the study of sound change, Technologies in Modern Society - The Internet and Modern Society. Working papers of the VI Pan-Russian conference), Saint-Petersburg 2003, pp.45-47.

M.G. Vasil’eva: “Nekotorie foneticheskie kharakteristiki slozhnykh soglasnykh v khalkha-mongol’skom iazyke, Materialy XXXII filologicheskoi konferentsii (On phonetic properties of consonants in Khalkha-Mongol, Proceedings of the XXXII philological conference), Part 1, Saint-Petersburg 2003, pp.8-14.

Conferences attended

Kyoto : International Conference on Endangered Languages, November, 2002.

Paris : UNESCO conference on Endangered Languages, March 2003.

Moscow : Conference Phonetics Today, April 2003.

Khanty-Mansiisk: Conferenceon the Preservation of Cultural traditions of minor languages of the North and the problems of stability of their development, June 2003.

Prague: XVIth International Congress of Linguists, August, 2003.

Novosibirsk : Conference “Formation of Educational Programs Aimed at a New Type of Humanitarian Education in Siberian Polyethnic Society", November, 2003.

London : Workshop Training and Capacity Building for Endangered Language Communities, SOAS, Febr. 2004.

Sapporo : Forum of the Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Cultureon the problem of language endangerment for the Northern peoples, March 2004.

St.Petersburg: Rusland-Nederland: op het kruispunt van meningen, June 2005.

Ulan Ude: Russia-Asia: Formation and Development of National Self-Consciousness, June 2005.

Yakutsk: International Scientific Conference on the Culture of Reindeer Herders Peoples (organized by the Education Centre of Sami Area (Finland), the Arctic Institute of Culture and Art and the Institute of the Indigenous Peoples of the North), Iakutsk, Sakha Republic,16-20 March 2005.

Popular Scientific Report

The research program Voices from Tundra and Taiga, initiated at Groningen University and St.Petersburg Universty, is devoted to the study of endangered arctic languages and cultures of the Russian Federation, which must be described rapidly before they become extinct. This research is in the fortunate position that earlier work on the reconstruction technology for old sound recordings found in archives in St. Petersburg has made it possible to compare languages still spoken in the proposed research area to the same languages as they were spoken more than half a century ago. These sound recordings consist of spoken language, folksongs, fairy tales etc. in the languages of Russia.

In the famework of the NWO project nr. 047.014.020 we have finished part of the research program by applying the developed techniques to some of the endangered minority languages and cultures of Russia such as Nivkh and Uilta (Orok) on Sakhalin, Yukagir and Tungus languages in Yakutia, and Khanty/Mansi in West-Siberia. We have prepared a catalogue of the existing recordings, and a phono- and video-library of recorded stories, and of the folklore, singing and oral traditions of the peoples of Siberia. For this purpose the existing sound recordings in the archives have been used together with the results obtained from new fieldwork expeditions. The data have been added to the existing archive material in Saint-Petersburg and part of it is made available on the Internet and/or CD-ROM. This material thus becomes available for further analysis to researchers working in the field of phonetics, linguistics, anthropology, history, ethno-musicology and folklore. The information is also important for the development of teaching methods for representatives of the related ethnic groups and for the conservation of their language and culture.

Research and documentation has been carried out in close co-operation with members of the local language communities. In places such as Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Naryan-Mar, Yakutsk and Khanty-Mansiisk training has been given for local scholars and their assistants who participate in the archiving of the sound recordings and in fieldwork expeditions. They are also trained at St. Petersburg State University and specialists from St. Petersburg State University and The Netherlands visited them. Their common task is to set up new centers for the study of local languages and related subjects. For this purpose the new centers have been equipped with computers, software, sound- and videorecorders, monitors, literature and other necessary facilities.

The results of the project have been published in a number of books and scientific articles, together with sound recordings on CD and on special web sites. During the project period Dr. T. de Graaf has been visiting professor at St.Petersburg University and he became a corresponding member and guest researcher at the Institute of Linguistic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Slavic Research Center of Hokkaido University (Japan). This will facilitate future contacts with colleagues in the Russian Federation and stimulate further joint projects dealing with the (endangered) languages of Russia. In Leiden Dr C.Odé is involved in the preparation of a joint research project on Endangered Languages in Yakutia where she recently carried out fieldwork. The results of our project and the contacts established during the project period provide the necessary perspectives for future new joint projects in the field of endangered languages and endangered archives.

key words:

endangered languages, endangered archives, acoustic databases