In 2021, members of the Linguistic Convergence Laboratory published three articles on the Russian language in Dagestan
Dagestan is a relatively new territory for the spread of the Russian language. At the end of the 19th century, very few people spoke Russian here. In addition to indigenous languages, which Dagestan is very rich in (linguists count more than forty languages in this small territory), local people spoke Azerbaijani, Georgian, Chechen and Arabic. But there has never been a language common for all residents of Dagestan (the language of interethnic communication or lingua franca). Russian became the first such language for Dagestan.
Members of the Linguistic Convergence Laboratory published a paper in Language
In early October, members of the Linguistic Convergence Laboratory published a paper in Language . Language is the flagship journal of the Linguistic Society of America and one of the most respected general linguistics journals in the world; perhaps the most prestigious one. Since the journal’s launch in 1925, it has seen the publication of only two papers whose first author is a researcher affiliated with a Russian university or institute.
The International Linguistic Convergence Laboratory has launched a new website with resources
One of the tasks of the International Linguistic Convergence Laboratory is the creation of new open electronic resources dedicated to the minor languages of Russia, Russian dialects and contact varieties of Russian speech. For more than four years, these resources have become so abundant that the laboratory had to acquire its own server and create a special website where all the resources are conveniently located.
Members of the Linguistic Convergence Laboratory contributed chapters to new Oxford Handbook of Languages of the Caucasus
A new Oxford Handbook dedicated to the languages of the Caucasus appeared this month. It contains several contributions from members of the Linguistic Convergence Laboratory.
Lingtypology – the package for linguistic mapping and typology – is four years old.
Until four years ago there was no simple tool for linguists to mark a set of points on a map with different colors. A point corresponded to a language, and its color corresponded to a linguistic feature of the language. This inspired George Moroz, of HSE’s Linguistic Convergence Laboratory and School of Linguistics, to create a new software product that turned out to be very popular: lingtypology.
An article by members of the Linguistic Convergence Laboratory was published in the journal “Language variation and change”
From a northern village to an academic article, or How many linguists do you need to describe variation in Russian dialect?
New International Summer School on Areal Linguistics and Languages of Russia
The Linguistic Convergence Laboratory and the School of Linguistics are organizing an International Summer School on Areal Linguistics and Languages of Russia.
Members of the laboratory participated in the 16th Conference on Typology and Grammar for Young Scholars
From November 21 to 23, members of the laboratory attended the 16th Conference on Typology and Grammar for Young Scholars which was held in Saint Petersburg.
Language Science Press has published a book on the Mehweb language
Language Science Press has published a book on the Mehweb language, edited by Michael Daniel and Nina Dobrushina of the Linguistic Convergence Laboratory and Dmitry Ganenkov of the Laboratory of Caucasian languages.
Members of the Laboratory Participated in International Conferences
At the end of the summer members of the Laboratory presented their researches at two large international conferences on linguistics — SLE and ALT.