The former Soviet Union (USSR) provides the ideal territory for studying language contact between one and the same dominant language (Russian) and a wide range of genealogically and typologically diverse languages with varying histories of language contact. This is the first book that bundles different case studies and systematically investigates the impact of Russian at all linguistic levels, from the lexicon to the domains of grammar to discourse, and with varying types of outcomes such as relatively rapid language shift, structural changes in a relatively stable contact situation, pidginization and super variability at the post-pidgin stage. The volume appeals to linguists studying language contact and contact-induced language change from a broad range of perspectives, who want to gain insight into how one of the largest languages in the world influences other smaller languages, but also experts of mostly minority languages in the sphere of the former Soviet Union.

In the past two decades, post-Soviet countries have emerged as a contested linguistic space, where disagreements over language and education policies have led to demonstrations, military conflicts and even secession. This collection offers an up-to-date comparative analysis of language and education policies and practices in post-Soviet countries.

The second edition of the definitive reference on contact studies and linguistic change—provides extensive new research and original case studies Language contact is a dynamic area of contemporary linguistic research that studies how language changes when speakers of different languages interact. Accessibly structured into three sections, The Handbook of Language Contact explores the role of contact studies within the field of linguistics, the value of contact studies for language change research, and the relevance of language contact for sociolinguistics. This authoritative volume presents original findings and fresh research directions from an international team of prominent experts. Thirty-seven specially-commissioned chapters cover a broad range of topics and case studies of contact from around the world. Now in its second edition, this valuable reference has been extensively updated with new chapters on topics including globalization, language acquisition, creolization, code-switching, and genetic classification. Fresh case studies examine Romance, Indo-European, African, Mayan, and many other languages in both the past and the present. Addressing the major issues in the field of language contact studies, this volume: Includes a representative sample of individual studies which re-evaluate the role of language contact in the broader context of language and society Offers 23 new chapters written by leading scholars Examines language contact in different societies, including many in Africa and Asia Provides a cross-section of case studies drawing on languages across the world The Handbook of Language Contact, Second Edition is an indispensable resource for researchers, scholars, and students involved in language contact, language variation and change, sociolinguistics, bilingualism, and language theory.

This volume offers the most comprehensive and wide-ranging treatment available today of the Uralic language family, a group of languages spoken in northern Eurasia. While there is a long history of research into these languages, much of it has been conducted within several disparate national traditions; studies of certain languages and topics are somewhat limited and in many cases outdated. The Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages brings together leading scholars and junior researchers to offer a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the internal relations and diversity of the Uralic language family, including the outlines of its historical development, and the contacts between Uralic and other languages of Eurasia. The book is divided into three parts. Part I presents the origins and development of the Uralic languages: the initial chapters examine reconstructed Proto-Uralic and its divergence, while later chapters provide surveys of the history and codification of the three Uralic nation-state languages (Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian) and the Uralic minority languages from Baltic Europe to Siberia. This part also explores questions of endangerment, revitalization, and language policy. The chapters in Part II offer individual structural overviews of the Uralic languages, including a number of understudied minority languages for which no detailed description in English has previously been available. The final part of the book provides cross-Uralic comparative and typological case studies of a range of issues in phonology, morphology, syntax, and the lexicon. The chapters explore a number of topics, such as information structure and clause combining, that have traditionally received very little attention in Uralic studies. The volume will be an essential reference for students and researchers specializing in the Uralic languages and for typologists and comparative linguists more broadly.

The languages of the world make use of a variety of techniques for describing events and putting sentences together. This volume takes a typological approach to clause chaining, a fascinating feature of the grammar of hundreds of languages outside Europe, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, East Africa, across Central Asia, and the Americas. Clause chains consist of several dependent clauses and one main clause, and are used to organize discourse and to foreground or background events and participants; they often go together with switch-reference marking, an indication of whether upcoming subjects will be co-referential with preceding subjects or not. The introductory chapter features a discussion of the typological properties of clause chaining, with a brief overview of previous approaches to and investigations of clause chains followed by an overview of their recurrent grammatical features; it ends with an appendix featuring notes for fieldworkers. The first part of the book explores general issues in clause chaining, including prosody, acquisition, and language contact and history; later parts then examine clause chaining and related phenomena in a wide range of languages from around the world.

What shapes and magnitude can language loss have in East Asian endangered languages? How does it differ with regards to the languages' historical development and sociolinguistic environment? This book surveys a number of minority and, in most cases, endangered languages spoken in China, Japan, Taiwan, and Russia which all face, or have faced in their recent history, loss of language features. The contributions in this publication present you with different cases of obsolescence attested throughout East Asia and highlight how this process, though often leading back to common causes, is in fact a multifaceted reality with diverse repercussions on grammar and linguistic vitality.

Soviet language policy provides rich material for the study of the impact of policy on language use. Moreover, it offers a unique vantage point on the tie between language and culture. While linguists and ethnographers grapple with defining the relationship of language to culture, or of language and culture to identity, the Soviets knew that language is an integral and inalienable part of culture. The former Soviet Union provides an ideal case study for examining these relationships, in that it had one of the most deliberate language policies of any nation state. This is not to say that it was constant or well-conceived; in fact it was marked by contradictions, illogical decisions, and inconsistencies. Yet it represented a conscious effort on the part of the Communist leadership to shape both ethnic identity and national consciousness through language. As a totalitarian state, the USSR represents a country where language policy, however radical, could be implemented at the will of the government. Furthermore, measures (such as forced migrations) were undertaken that resulted in changing population demographics, having a direct impact on what is a central issue here: the very nature of the Soviet population. That said, it is important to keep in mind that in the Soviet Union there was a difference between stated policy and actual practice. There was no guarantee that any given policy would be implemented, even when it had been officially legislated.

The volume contains contributions on contact-induced language change in situations in which one of the languages is a Turkic one. Most papers deal with cases of long-standing language contact. The geographic areas covered include the Balkans (Macedonian Turkish, Gagauz), Western Europe (Turkish-German, Turkish-Dutch contacts), Central Europe (Karaim), Turkey (Turkish-Kurdish, Turkish-Greek contacts, Old Ottoman Turkish), Iran (Turkic-Iranian contacts) and Siberia (Yakut-Tungusic contacts). The contributions focus on various phenomena of code interaction and on various types of structural changes in different contact settings. Several authors employ the Code Copying Model, which is presented in some detail in one of the articles.

In Communist times, it was impossible to do sociolinguistic work on Hungarian in contact with other languages. In the short period of time since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, Hungarian sociolinguists have certainly done their very best to catch up. This volume brings together the fruits of their work, some of which was hitherto only available in Hungarian. The reader will find a wealth of information on many bilingual communities involving Hungarian as a minority language. The communities covered in the book are located in countries neighboring Hungary (Austria, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania and Ukraine) as well as overseas (in Australia and the United States). Several of the chapters discuss material derived from the Sociolinguistics of Hungarian Outside Hungary project. Throughout the book, the emphasis is on how the language use of Hungarian minority speakers has been influenced by the majority or contact language, both on a sociolinguistic macro-level as well as on the micro-level. In the search for explanations, particular attention is given to typological aspects of language change under the conditions of language contact.