The dialectological atlas of the Uralic languages will be published in Yamal

Scientific researchers of the institute of philology at the Siberian branch of the RAS are preparing the dialectological atlas of the Uralic languages of Yamal for publishing on the state contract concluded between the scientific center for study of the Arctic and the institute.

It contains 100 maps of the region, which show settlements, where researches were conducted on definite programs. Symbols of language features were attributed to these populated areas. This information was given to a correspondent of IA “Sever-Press” by the chief scientific researcher of the institute of philology, doctor of philological sciences Natalia Koshkareva. The chief scientific researcher of the institute of philology tells that the maps depict not just information; each of them is accompanied with comments. They describe phenomena with examples, give explanations and compare positions registered in Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug with positions of these languages on other territories. Natalia Koshkareva gives a following example. A notion “slippery” existing in Khanty language is represented with an adjective, in Nenets language – with a verb. Features of Khanty language were borrowed by separate sub-dialects of Komi-Zyryan people, who had invaded to the area populated by Khanty and Nenets people, in other words, they represented this notion, as in other Finno-Ugric languages, with an adjective. While increasing contacts with Nenets people, Komi-Zyryan people started borrowing semantic structure of the word that was characteristic for Nenets language. In other words, borrowings from Nenets language take place on such deep level that these are not just borrowings of separate words but of structure of meanings of words, as doctor of sciences comments. It is already restructure of the language system under influence of surrounding peoples and contacts with them, as she notes. There are maps, which depict dialectal difference between sub-dialects of one language. For example, two Khanty dialects are spread on the territory of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug: Shuryshkarskiy and Priuralskiy. They differ much on a row of parameters. According to the words of Natalia Koshkareva, the idea of the dialectological atlas is to show that differences exist and also to register the territory of their distribution and the boundary between dialects. Though, it is difficult to make any boundaries in connection with Khanty language. Among Khanty people residing on a watercourse of the Ob River these differences are accumulated gradually from settlement to settlement. There are no precise boundaries, for example, between Kazymskiy and Shuryshkarskiy dialects, between Priuralskiy and Shuryshkarskiy dialects. It needs to make many scrupulous researches in order to register as more as possible language materials in all populated areas. As doctor of sciences says, only a small fragment of this work has been fulfilled. She would like to make the map denser, to depict the bigger number of settlements, to ask the bigger number of people in order to increase accuracy of the data. The primary data were registered. In general, the researchers can speak what differences exist between dialects and sub-dialects.