Past talk abstracts

Fall 2019

November 8: Livia Souza (Rutgers University)

Title: On Fieldwork and Time: Language Documentation and Theoretical Linguistics in the Amazon

Abstract: In this talk, I discuss the methodologies, the logistics and the challenges involved in nearly 10 years of conducting language documentation in the Brazilian Amazon. I present some of my research with two Panoan groups, which are worlds apart despite the geographical and linguistic proximity: the Yawanawa, who have been in contact with Western society since the late 19th century and struggle with language vitality, and the Xinane Yura, who first made contact with the outside world in 2014 and are completely monolingual. I will discuss research ethics and collaborative projects with the language communities, as well as how I have reconciled language documentation and theoretical linguistics in both these cases.

October 15: Yaron Matras (University of Manchester)

Title: The documentation of Domari, a now moribund language of Jerusalem

Abstract: Domari is the namThe documentation of Domari, a now moribund language of Jerusaleme of a language spoken by peripatetic communities across the Middle East, currently attested mainly in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine. The paper focuses on the variety spoken in Jerusalem, which is the only one to have been documented extensively (Matras 2012). Domari is an Indic language, which shows some archaic features, but also a language that has been heavily influenced by contact, especially with Arabic. The language was already endangered when I began my documentation in Jerusalem in 1996, and is now moribund, and probably has just one single living fluent speaker and a few semi-speakers. I discuss the ethnographic setting, the language’s history and the reasons for its abandonment, and theoretical dilemmas of description and analysis that arise through the wholesale import of entire categories from Arabic into Domari, including what I term ‘bilingual suppletion’ (the reliance on Arabic structures in certain paradigmatic positions).

Before turning to Domari, I will introduce some of my other language documentation projects, with special reference to Lekoudesch (the now extinct Jewish Cattle Traders Jargon from the Black Forest area in Germany), Romani, and Kurdish.