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In the article the hydronym Albis/Elbe/Labe is studied from various points of view: geography, historical documentation, diachronic phonetics and morphology, especially word formation. The etymological attempts in the context of Germanic, Celtic and so-called ‘Old European’ hydronymies are evaluated with respect to their semantic motivation in the light of semantic typology.
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The paper discusses Jan Karłowicz’s (1836–1903) contribution to the development of Polish dialectology, consisting mainly in the compilation of the “Dictionary of Polish Dialects” – a major breakthrough in the Polish dialectal lexicography and the first full dialectal dictionary in the Slavonic language area – as well as in his work as an organizer of scientific life. His organizational efforts are presented chiefly on the basis of archival materials, mainly correspondence preserved e.g. in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives and – to a lesser extent – in the Polish archives. The materials exemplify Karłowicz’s co-operation with both professional scientists and laymen (enthusiasts of folklore, dialects and of broadly understood folk culture) as far as collecting ‘folk objects’ is concerned. The paper also presents the content of the “Dictionary of Polish Dialects” with respect to the 1911 critical review by Kazimierz Nitsch.
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The article is devoted to analysis of the undefined situation typical of some parts of speech and morphological forms, their ambivalent interpretation in scientific and practical grammars as well as in the main dictionaries of Lithuanian. The illative‑case form, which is still widely used, is often ignored without reason, i.e., it is simply suppressed. Numerous cases have been found where words having a very similar language structure and semantics are treated as different parts of speech. Ambivalence also exists in interpretation related to nominalisation of some adjectives. Different attitudes also exist towards participle adjectivisation. E.g., the words karpýtas, ‑a ʻtrimmedʼ, prakéiktas, ‑à ʻdamnedʼ, prslėgtas, ‑à ʻdepressedʼ are considered to be adjectives by some linguists and participles by others. The article also embraces a brief overview on the status of adverbs having a pronominal origin – they are interpreted as adverbs by some, as well as both adverbs and conjunctions by others.
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The article discusses terminology associated with the formation of new words and presents the concept of the imitatives. The verbal imitatives and verbs of imitative origin are collected from the sources of Old Prussian language and their structural characteristics is analyzed. The imitatives of Old Prussian language are compared with the ones of Eastern Baltic languages.
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In 1937 Konstantinas Jablonskis published four Lithuanian Court oaths of Ukmergė (one oath had been written beforehand in 1634, two in 1669 and one in 1675) in the sixth volume of the journal Archivum Philologicum. The article also contains a public presentation of three oaths from the books of the Upytė Land Court (of 1624, 1642, and 1653). The files related to the court cases used to be stored in the Manuscript Department of the Vilnius University Library. Unfortunately, full files containing all the aforementioned seven oaths have been torn out of the original Ukmergė manuscript courtbooks. In 2004, Domininkas Burba published three more seventeenth century Ukmergė Court oaths (dating 1648, 1675, and 1677) including facsimiles of the originals. The language of the Ukmergė Court oaths is variegated. Although Ukmergė belongs to the territory of the East Highland (Rytų Aukštaitija) Širvintiškiai subdialect, only two of the 1669 oaths and one oath dating 1675 were written in the East Highland dialect. The aforementioned oaths reflect the transformation of the diphthongs [an], [am], [en], [em] into the diphthongs [un], [um], [in], [im], as well as the retention of the old vowel [ā] in unstressed syllables (both oaths of 1669 contain it also in stressed syllables) and other peculiarities typical of the aforementioned dialect. The remaining four oaths have been edited according to the standards of the middle variant of the sixteenth and seventeenth century written language, which was created by Mikalojus Daukša and other authors of the period. The number of East Highland dialectal forms is very scarce in the latter writings.
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The aim of this research is to identify what kind of approaches Turkish teachers have about evaluating speaking skills. The participants of the study consisteo of forty-two Turkish teachers.The study benefited from a structured interview, consisting of eight open-ended questions. Descriptive analysis method was used in analyzing the data. As a result of the analysis, it has been discovered that Turkish teachers see speaking skills as important as other skills. Besides that, it has been seen that Turkish teachers look out for speaking principles that require cognitive operations in a low level such as students' gestures and facial expressions, adjusting the voice, pronunciation and correct usage of the words. On the other hand, it can be stated that teachers are aware of the fact that the quality of the feedback given has great influence on students.
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The article treats the contribution of prof. Jorgji Gjinari, one of the most prominent Albanian dialectologists in the study of Albanian dialects, focusing on his major work “The dialects of Albanian language”. After emphasizing his contribution in the descriptive study of several Albanian varieties, either from Gheg or Tosk dialect, as well as his merit in defining the division of Albanian dialects, the article focuses in the second phase of the Albanian dialectological studies, related to the need to further expand the study in two directions: on the one hand, to explain the reasons for specific dialectal phenomena and on the other hand, to achieve a greater generalization of dialect phenomena in order to highlight the common features of Albanian dialects and to bring forth the unity of the Albanian language. This is the claim that Jorgji Gjinari supports in his work “The dialects of Albanian language” published in 1989. This work was a state-of-the-art of the work carried out to date on the Albanian dialectology research not only by the author himself but also by other dialectologists. This work marked a qualitative leap in the study of Albanian dialects, because it implemented a new method in the field of synchronic studies of Albanian, the structural-functional method of the Prague School, which began to be utilized in Albania in the 70s. According to this method, in the course of the study, every dialectal phonetic feature is viewed within the language system and analyzed for their structural and functional aspects, by considering their functional value within the respective dialectal systems. The author has also applied the same structuralist method to the study of the morphological differences of Albanian dialects, which remains a pioneer work in our grammatical studies. The author has also paid attention to the diachronic study of the main dialectal features that differentiate Albanian dialects. The study focuses on some of the more important dialectal phonetic phenomena that have occurred in the history of the Albanian language, such as the opposition of nasal vowel in Gheg vs accentuated /ë/ in Tosk, the opposition of the vowel after their length, the accentuated vowels /i/ and /y/, the vowel clusters /ua/, /ye/, /ie/, the rhotacism in Tosk, the palatal consonants /q/ and /gj/, the consonant clusters /kl/ /gl/ and some other historical phonetic phenomena in consonant clusters in Albanian. The study also tackles the tricky and still unresolved issue of the origin of the division of Albanian dialects. This is one of the rare attempts in Albanian linguistics that provides an interdisciplinary view of the dialectal change associated with the history of the people.
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The article focuses on the contribution of linguist Jorgji Gjinari in the field of Albanian dialectology. Gjinari as a linguist, among else, has payed attention to the improvement of scientific level of Albanian linguistic studies. As a well-known dialectologist, he thinks that applying a scientific methodology in Albanian dialect studies, is the only way for reaching scientific results. Based on the well-known “The linguistic circle of Prague”, in 1984 he proposed a methodology and analysis which was different from that of the first stage of Albanian dialects studies. Gjinari claims that in the first phase of dialectological studies, up to the early 50s of XX century, studies were committed mainly by foreigners, they were disorganized and did not cover entirely all the characteristics of Albanian dialect speaking. Gjinari emphasized that, unlike the first phase, during the second phase of dialect studies, it was necessary the study of Albanian dialects in an organized manner and with the same scientific method. He finds very appropriate the implementation of structural-functional classification method for the recognition of Albanian morphological differences in dialects of Albanian, as well as for specifying limits of their expansion in space and in different social strata. Gjinari has implemented this method earlier in his studies, for bringing in the spot of light differences in the field of phonetics and phonology of Albanian dialects. In his article “Essay for a classification of morphological diversity of dialects of Albanian language” author speaks specifically about the way of performing morphological analysis and dialect. For the first time, he explained why the structural-functional approach should be applied even in the study of morphological dialectal differences. Gjinari asserts that while ensuring inventory of differences in dialectal system of morphology, along with that of phonetic one, is an important contribution in the field of Albanian dialectology, because through this inventory it is possible to have a good knowledge of the variability of dialects in the field of morphology, this way of working, characteristic for the first stage, is insufficient for having an accurate vision and objective morphological differences of dialects, because in the first phase of dialect studies, differences are seen separately from each other, with the same value and without their escalation within the system.
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Jorgji Gjinari is one of the most distinguished Albanian dialectologists. He set the example that the facts of Albanian language might be studied better synchronically, when they are touched upon ex catedra, right where they exist. This is also the reason why his researches are coherent and of a great importance. Amidst his manifold scientific contribution, the scholar Gjinari paid close attention to the varieties of the Northern Tosk, by contrasting it to the Southern Tosk variety. He emphasizes that: “The study of the varieties of the Northern Tosk is of a crucial importance” and that “they are reflected in the written Tosk, more than the other Southern varieties” (Gjinari 1962). This comparison is useful to demonstrate that the sharp division among the two dialects has not been and it is not a reality, especially not a convenient one to the standard of Albanian. But, that reality of yesterday and of today, due to the process of urbanization and demographic concentration, are serving as a unifying ground of the extreme components. Nevertheless, this claim has to be verified in the actual situation of the language in use. Further research might shed light to how the assertions of four or five previous decades, made by professor Gjinari and other dialectologists, and how the relocation of the population toward urban centers, the metropolis and the seacoasts present a new perspective of the dialects situation and a new combination of this “language mixture” with the standard toward the language in use.
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La région de Himara ou la Côte Supérieure comprend les villages de Palasa, Dhërmi, Ilias, Pilur, Kudhës, Vuno et Qeparo, ainsi que la ville de Himara, faisant partie de la municipalité de Himara de la préfecture de Vlorav Cette région s’étend le long du versant sud-ouest des monts de l’Éclair, entre le col de Llogora au nord et la rivière de Borsh au sud. Au nord-ouest, elle est limitée par la région de Dukat, au nord par Tërbaç et Vranisht, des villages de la région du Mesaplik, à l’est par les villages du Bas Kurvelesh et au sud par Borsh, un village de la Côte Inférieure. Du point de vue ethnographique, la Côte Supérieure et Inférieure forment la région de la Côte, qui est une des unités ethnographiques de la Laberie.
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Arbërishte and arvanitishte as dialect forms of Albanian language, are significantly influenced by the languages in contact, relatively the standard and dialectal variants of Italian and Greek. Primarily, this paper focuses on vocabulary and identifying of greek elements with high frequency in the arberesh dialect of San Constantino Albanese; secondly, in the approach of these common Greek elements to the arvanite language, respectively the Andros dialect. Also, in this paper are identified and analyzed some phonological and morphological aspects of the Greek elements present at the respective Albanian dialects. This approach shows the chronological stratification and methodology of the penetration of some Greek phonetic elements and morphological structures inside of two dialects, objects of this study. So, as a result of the coexistence of two or more languages, occur lingustic interferences not only in the lexical level, which is the most sensitive part of the linguistic system, but also in the syntactic, morphological and phonological levels.
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In the second part of this series of papers the author investigates the way how the Khitan Small Script rendered the vowels of the Khitan language. The graphic system was tailored to the contemporary Chinese language, nevertheless, it is possible to make conclusions concerning the system of vowels. Three illabial vowels /a/, /e/ and /i/ can be identified, the back vocalic /ï/ can only be supposed. The vowel /o/ is dominant, for traces of /ö/ no sure data can be given. The phoneme /u/ can be clearly detected, the phoneme /ü/ can be supposed. The former opinion that the Khitan had a front:back vowel harmony can be confirmed. The paper presents a few newly deciphered Khitan words. The system of the Khitan word formation is emerging and a few earlier readings have been corrected.
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In the present paper we will examine a number of graphotactic rules which emerge from an analysis of several graphemic alternations, observed in a delimited Turkic text corpus in Brāhmī script. This analysis will lead us to propose a possible reconstruction of the phonemic dorsal system denoted by the linguistic domain here considered: such a system is intended to be effective exclusively within this specific domain. In particular, we will examine the graphophonemic status of the ak-aras usually transcribed as ‹qa› and ‹g1a› within the Northwestern Brāhmī script system, as they occur both in Tokharian and Turkic scribal practice. Though our primary goal is the consistency of the proposed reconstruction, rather than its historical soundness, we will eventually argue that, within the dorsal system here described, no ‘voiced’–‘voiceless’ opposition is retrievable.
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The Shors are one of the minor indigenous Turkic peoples of Siberia the majority of whom are living in the Kemerovo Oblast’. The Shor language is a conglomeration of two basically very different northern Turkic dialects, identified by river names as Kondoma Shor (the southern dialect) and Mrass Shor (the northern dialect). The Mrass dialect belongs to the azaq[/taγlïγ]-group, whereas the Kondoma dialect belongs to the [ayaq/]taγlïγ-group. The Shor literary language was formed on the basis of the Mrass dialect in the 1920s but soon after its formation it suffered a decline from the late 1930s to the early 1990s due to the Soviet policy of assimilation of minorities. It is now a severely endangered language. In the present paper the month names in Shor (Mrass dialect) are treated. The material is based on the fieldwork study of the Altaic Society of Korea and the testimony of month names in the Shor dictionaries. Wherever necessary, these month names were also compared with those to be found in other Turkic languages.
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Persian surrounds much of the Tabari (or Māzandarāni) speaking area, that is, the province of Māzandarān south of the Caspian Sea. The transition zones between the two languages lay in the valleys and foothills of the Alborz range, which separates Māzandarān from the Iranian Plateau. Within this zone we find a range of hybrid dialects that are divided into two distinct groups: Persian dialects influenced by Tabari and vise versa. This study aims at the latter group, which we call Tabaroid, i.e., Tabari varieties carrying various amounts of Persian mix. The linguistic data come from some twenty villages in the south-central Alborz, separated from Tehran by a mountain ridge. The main objective here is to establish the dialectal and areal position of the Tabaroid varieties by closely examining their diachrony, phonology, and above all morphosyntax.
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The dialect lexical representations of notions from the “public opinion” sphere are the subject of the research. The motivational analysis of such words allowed to reveal the key meanings “showing the attitude to the person”, “assessment”, “influence on the person”, and “the person’s image”. The native Russian speaker bases on them the choice of the motivational feature for the words that represent the lexical-semantic field “public opinion”.
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The article deals with the main principles according to which Mongolian sounds are rendered into Chinese in the Sino-Mongolian glossary Dada yu/Beilu yiyu (late 16th–early 17th century) where one of the late Middle Mongolian dialects is reflected. Three such principles are distinguished by the author: (1) principle of phonetic identity (the Chinese and Mongolian segments completely coincide with each other by their features); (2) principle of phonetic substitution in its two varieties: weak phonetic substitution (the Chinese and Mongolian segments differ from each other in only one distinctive feature) and strong phonetic substitution (the Chinese and Mongolian segments are distinguished from each other by two or more features); (3) principle of zero marking (the Mongolian segment is in no way rendered into the Chinese transcription because of the impossibility of its notation by means of Chinese). The influence of different stages of the phonetic development of Chinese on the glossary’s system of transcriptions is also emphasised, such as Standard Chinese, Late Ming Guanhua, and Ancient Mandarin.
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During their long history Tungusic and Mongolic peoples have had intensive contacts extending to all fields of human existence. These contacts have left their traces also in the respective languages. The aim of this paper is to present and characterise the Dagur elements traceable in the Solon Evenki language.
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During their long history Tungusic and Mongolic peoples have had intensive contacts extending to all fields of human existence. These contacts left their traces also in the respective languages. The aim of this paper is to present and characteristics of the Mongolic elements traceable in the Barguzin dialect of the Evenki language which is one of the dialects subjected to a considerable Mongolic influence. My work to be published later will comprise some 300 words and I will examine these words from the etymological, phonetical, and morphological points of view, and attempt to determine the time of borrowing. In the following I will try to present a few categories which may help resolve the problems concerning the different layers of the loanwords.
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Mubi-Toram is a group of languages in the Republic of Chad (some of them close to the border with Sudan). This group belongs to the eastern subbranch of Chadic and thus represents the member of the immense Afro-Asiatic (Semito-Hamitic) macrofamily comprising six equipotential branches: Semitic, Egyptian, Berber, Cushitic, Omotic, and Chadic. Mubi-Toram is namely the last (26th) Chadic group in the classification proposed by H. Jungraithmayr (Jungraithmayr – Ibriszimow 1994, Vol. II, p. xv). This is one of the least studied Chadic groups from the standpoint of both lexicography and comparison. For each of its daughter languages we usually find just one wordlist, among them only Mubi is relatively better provided with sources. The success of modern research on Chadic phonological and lexical reconstruction (initiated by V. M. Illič-Svityč and P. Newman in the mid-1960s) fundamentally depends on how the inner reconstruction and the external (Afro-Asiatic) comparison of every single individual Chadic language group proceeds at the same time. Unfortunately, out of the 26 Chadic groups, only six (namely, Angas-Sura, Bole-Tangale, North Bauchi, Bura-Margi, Mafa-Mada, Kotoko) have been so far more or less satisfactorily studied from this viewpoint. Work on the planned comparative lexicon of the Mubi-Toram languages was begun by the author in the summer of 2008. The present series of papers is to integrate this remote lexical stock in its wider Chadic and Afro-Asiatic context by providing materials for the research outlined above.
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