The Use of Archives and Fieldwork for the Study of the Endangered Languages of Russia

• Main Author: Tjeerd De Graaf
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Russian North
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.542.1362; http://www.mpi.nl/lrec/2002/papers/lrec-pap-29-Las_Palmas-text0424.pdf

This contribution considers some collaborative projects of Groningen University with Russian institutions. A survey is given of the use of sound archives in St. Petersburg with large collections on the languages of Russia. In the framework of our projects part of this material has been recovered, such as recordings made of colonial German dialects, which are now available in an acoustic database. This is also the case for local Russian dialects, the Yiddish language and other language groups. The material is used for a further study of language contact, folklore and other aspects of Russia's cultural heritage. This historical material is complemented by the results of present-day fieldwork in various regions of Russia. Specific results on the language of the Siberian Mennonites and Yiddish are mentioned, whereas the study of language contact in the Russian North and phonological properties of Siberian languages are also current research projects. The results of these projects make it possible to learn about the cultures and languages of Russia and they provide new methods of teaching these topics, not only in universities, but also in special locations for the minority peoples themselves. 1.