This is the linguistics weblog of Christopher Culver, who graduated with a B.A. Classics from Loyola University Chicago and is currently doing an M.A. in Finno-Ugrian linguistics at the University of Helsinki.
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You are currently browsing the Christopher Culver’s Linguistic Weblog weblog archives for October, 2008.
Arthur T. Hatto is an interesting character. Professor of German Language and Literature at the University of London, his interest in epic led him to study, of all things, Turkic linguistics. He edited two important collections of Kirghiz poetry. The Memorial Feast for Kökötöy-khan (Oxford University Press, 1979) is an edition of a manuscript prepared [...]
Linguistic Areas: Convergence in Historical and Typological Perspective edited by Yaron Matras, April McMahon and Nigel Vincent (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006) ISBN 1403996571. Linguistic Areas ed. Matras, McMahon and Vincent is a collection of 11 papers on areal linguistics, from scholars holding a variety of different views. The first two papers intriguingly suggest doing [...]
As I continue my studies of contact between Mari and other languages, I’ve lately been turning my attention to Tatar. In the introduction to Татарский язык: интенсивний курс by F.S. Safiullina and K.S. Fatkhullova (Kazan’: Tatarskoe Respublikanskoe izdatel’stvo ‘Kheter’, 1999) there’s the following little song: That’s not a bad way to get into Tatar. From [...]
I’m not really sure what to make of this passage in András Róna-Tas’ paper ‘Turkic influence on the Uralic languages’, found in The Uralic Languages ed. Denis Sinor (Amsterdam: Brill, 1988). Róna-Tás is describing borrowings between Ancient Turkic and Proto-Samoyed: PS kåptə̂- ‘to castrate’, kåptə̂ ‘a castrated reindeer ox’ (Ne, Ng, En, Sk: JJ 60) [...]
Robert J. Jeffers and Ilse Lehiste, Principles and Methods for Historical Linguistics (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1979) ISBN 0262100207. Robert J. Jeffers and Ilse Lehiste developed this textbook over several years in teaching introductory courses at the Ohio State University. It was ultimately published by the MIT Press in 1979. Excluding back matter, the [...]