Northwestern Tungus Language/Dialect Continuum

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This project is designed to gather, organize and analyze data from the Northwestern Tungusic languages: Oroqen, Evenki, Negidal, and Solon. The languages, which are spoken in northern China and Siberian Russia, are not well- documented and all are seriously endangered. Therefore, a primary goal of the project is to collect information about the structure of the languages while they are still spoken. This information will be derived through recordings of the languages and elicitation sessions with native speakers. The geographic distribution of the Northwestern Tungusic languages has hampered comparative work on them in the past. Russian linguists and Chinese linguists who have engaged in fieldwork on these languages have had little scholarly dialogue. An important aspect of our research involves bringing together the work of our Russian and Chinese colleagues. The actual genetic relationships among these four languages and their relationships to other Tungusic languages are unclear. On the basis of the data we collect, we can provide a more accurate assessment of the genetic affiliations within the language family. We will also conduct tests of mutual intelligibility using recordings of narrative texts. The Northwestern Tungusic languages are being replaced by Russian, Chinese, and Yakut, all of which are genetically and typologically distinct. We aim at determining the kinds of structural changes the Tungusic languages are undergoing as they become obsolescent, with specific attention to the role of the three contact languages.