Language Isolates

This new four-volume collection from Routledge brings together the major works of scholarship concerned with the ‘language isolates’ of the world. ‘Isolated’ languages are languages without any known relatives, languages which are not demonstrably part of any ‘language family’, with Etruscan, Basque, and Ainu being arguably some of the best-known examples of such ‘linguistic orphans’. The language-specific materials collected here are arranged geographically, and each language-chapter is preceded by a short introduction to the linguistic situation of the language(es) involved and, if not given in anthologized works themselves, to the current state of research and past and present scholarly debates. The volumes are preceded by a problem-oriented general introduction, which deals with the basic concepts and methodological principles of language classification, the present state and the nature of ongoing controversies, an epistemiological typology of language families, and, in the light of this, a theoretical justification of the concept of isolates as well as the choice of languages covered in the volumes. Some of the gathered works are general introductions to their object language (in terms of sociolinguistics, attestation, documentation, history of scholarship, guides to published studies, overviews of linguistic characteristics), others highlight and discuss particularly salient and interesting typological characteristics of an isolate (some of them are breakthrough studies for the understanding of a particular language), and others focus on the very status of the language under discussion as an isolate in the first place. Some isolated languages are still very much alive; at least one of them, Korean, is a major national language. The majority of the languages and small families covered here are endangered, and some will certainly cease to be used during the coming decades. Thus, isolated languages are particularly interesting objects for students of language endangerment, but they are also prime research objects for linguistic descriptionists, for, when they are gone, not only will another of the 6,000 or so human languages have disappeared, but, in those cases, whole linguistic lineages (and their ways of coping with the world) will be gone forever.

Volume I Part 1: Isolated Languages of Europe 1.1 Basque 1. R. L. Trask, ‘A Thumbnail Sketch of the Language’, The History of Basque (Routledge, 1997), pp. 82–123. 2. R. L. Trask, ‘Origins and Relatives of the Basque Language: Review of the Evidence’, in J. I. Hualde, J. A. Lakarra, and R. L. Trask (eds.), Towards a History of the Basque Language (John Benjamins, 1995), pp. 65–99. 3. Luis Michelena, ‘The Latin and Romance Element in Basque’, in J. I. Hualde, J. A. Lakarra, and R. L. Trask (eds.), Towards a History of the Basque Language (John Benjamins, 1995), pp. 137–69. 1.2 Etruscan 4. Helmut Rix, ‘Etruscan’, in R. D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 943–66. Part 2: Isolated Languages of the Ancient Near East 2.1 Sumerian 5. I. M. Diakonoff, ‘Ancient Writing and Ancient Written Language: Pitfalls and Peculiarities in the Study of Sumerian’, in St. J. Lieberman (ed.), Sumerological Studies in Honor of Thorkild Jacobsen on His Seventieth Birthday, June 7, 1974 (University of Chicago Press, 1975), pp. 99–121. 6. Piotr Michalowski, ‘The Lives of the Sumerian Language’, in Seth L. Sanders (ed.), Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures (University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 163–88. 7. Miguel Civil, ‘The Sumerian Writing Systems: Some Problems’, Orientalia Nova Series, 1973, 42, 21–34. 8. Gonzalo Rubio, ‘Sumerian Morphology’, in A. S. Kaye (ed.), Morphologies of Asia and Africa, Vol. 2 (Eisenbrauns, 2007), pp. 1327–79. 9. Piotr Michalowski, ‘Sumerian as an Ergative Language, I’, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 1980, 82, 86–103. 10. Gonzalo Rubio, ‘On the Alleged "Pre-Sumerian Substratum"’, Journal of Cuneiform Studies, 1999, 51, 1–16. 2.2 Hattic 11. J. Klinger, ‘Hattisch’, in M. P. Streck (ed.), Sprachen des alten Orients (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2007), pp. 128–34. 12. Petra Goedegebuure, ‘The Alignment of Hattian: An Active Language with an Ergative Base’, Babel und Bibel, 2007–8, 4–5, 949–81. 2.3 Elamite 13. Matthew W. Stolper, ‘Elamite’, in R. D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 60–94. Volume II 2.4 Hurrian and Urartean 14. Gernot Wilhelm, ‘Hurrian, in R. D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 95–118. 15. Gernot Wilhelm, ‘Urartian’, in R. D. Woodard (ed.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 119–37. 16. Gernot Wilhelm, ‘Suffixaufnahme in Hurrian and Urartian’, in Frans Plank (ed.), Double Case: Agreement by Suffixaufnahme (Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 113–35. Part 3: Isolated Languages of South Asia 3.1 Burushaski 17. John Biddulph, ‘Boorishki (Nager Dialect)’, in J. Biddulph, Tribes of the Hindoo Koosh (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1880), pp. ii–xxxix. 18. Philip Lemont Barbour, ‘Buruçaski: A Language of Northern Kashmir’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1921, 41, 60–72. 19. Peter C. Backstrom, ‘Burushaski’, in P. C. Backstrom and C. F. Radloff (eds.), Sociolinguistic Survey of Northern Pakistan, Vol. 2 (National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan/Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1992), pp. 31–54. 20. Gregory D. S. Anderson, ‘Burushaski Morphology’, in A. S. Kaye (ed.), Morphologies of Asia and Africa, Vol. 2 (Eisenbrauns, 2007), pp. 1233–75. 3.2 Kusunda 21. Johan Reinhard, ‘The Ban Rajas: A Vanishing Himalayan Tribe’, Contributions to Nepalese Studies, 1976, 4/1, 1–22. 22. David E. Watters, ‘Kusunda: A Typological Isolate in South Asia’, in Y. Yadava et al. (eds.), Contemporary Issues in Nepalese Linguistics (Kathmandu: Linguistic Society of Nepal, 2005), pp. 375–96. 23. Madhav P. Pokharel, ‘Strategies of Pronominalization in Kusunda’, in Y. Yadava et al. (eds.), Contemporary Issues in Nepalese Linguistics (Kathmandu: Linguistic Society of Nepal, 2005), pp. 189–92. 3.3 Nihali 24. Robert Shafer, ‘Nahali. A Linguistic Study in Paleoethnography’, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 1940, 5, 346–71. 25. Norman H. Zide, ‘On Nihali’, in Gregory D. S. Anderson (ed.), The Munda Languages (Routledge, 2007), pp. 764–76. 3.4 Andamanese 26. Anvita Abbi, ‘Is Great Andamanese Genealogically and Typologically Distinct from Onge and Jarawa?’, Language Sciences, 2009, 31, 791–812. 27. Yogendra Yadav, ‘Great Andamanese: A Preliminary Study’, in D. Bradley (ed.), Papers in South-East Asian Linguistics (Pacific Linguistics, 1985), pp. 185–214. Part 4: Isolated Languages of North Asia 4.1 Palaeosiberian 28. Roman Jakobson, ‘The Paleosiberian Languages’, American Anthropologist, New Series, 1942, 44, 4, 1, 602–20. 4.2 Ket and Yeniseian 29. Stefan Georg, ‘The Gradual Disappearance of a Eurasian Language Family: The Case of Yeniseian’, in M. Janse and S. Tol (eds.), Language Death and Language Maintenance: Theoretical, Practical and Descriptive Approaches (John Benjamins, 2003), pp. 89–106. 30. Edward Vajda, ‘The Kets and their Language’, Mother Tongue, 1998, IV, 4–16. 31. James Byrne, ‘Middle Yenisseian and Kottian’, General Principles of the Structure of Language, Vol. I (Trübner, 1885), pp. 466–72. 32. Edward Vajda, ‘The Role of Position Class in Ket Verb Morphophonology’, Word, 2001, 52, 3, 369–436. 33. Stefan Georg, ‘Yeniseic Languages and the Siberian Linguistic Area’, in A. Lubotsky, J. Schaeken, and J. Wiedenhof (eds.), Evidence and Counter-Evidence: Essays in Honour of Frederik Kortlandt, Vol. 2 (Rodopi, 2008), pp. 151–68 Volume III 4.3 Yukaghir 34. Nikolai Vakhtin, ‘The Yukaghir Language in Sociolinguistic Perspective’, Linguistic and Oriental Studies from Poznan, 1992, 1, 47–82. 35. Elena Maslova, ‘Yukagir Focus in A Typological Perspective’, Journal of Pragmatics, 1997, 27, 457–75. 36. Mark Schmalz, ‘Towards a Full Description of the Focus System in Tundra Yukaghir’, Linguistic Discovery, 2012, 10, 2, 53–108. 37. Irina Nikolaeva, ‘Chuvan and Omok Languages?’, in A. Lubotsky, J. Schaeken, and J. Wiedenhof (eds.), Evidence and Counter-Evidence: Essays in Honour of Frederik Kortlandt, Vol. 2 (Rodopi, 2008), pp. 313–36. 4.4 Nivkh 38. P. G. von Moellendorff, ‘The Ghilyak Language’, China Review, 1894, XXI, 141–6. 39. Robert Austerlitz, ‘Gilyak Internal Reconstruction, 1: Seven Etyma, Folia Slavica 5/1-3’, Papers from the Second Conference on the Non-Slavic Languages of the USSR, Columbus (Slavica, 1982), pp. 81–8. 40. Robert Austerlitz, ‘Gilyak Internal Reconstruction, 2: Iron and Questions Related to Metallurgy, Folia Slavica 7/1-2’, Papers from the Third Conference on the Non-Slavic Languages of the USSR, Columbus (Slavica, 1984), pp. 39–48. 41. Robert Austerlitz, ‘Gilyak Internal Reconstruction, 3: Ligneous Matter’, in H. I. Aronson (ed.), Non-Slavic Languages of the USSR: Papers from the Fourth Conference (Slavica, 1994), pp. 229–33. 4.5 Ainu 42. Anna Bugaeva, ‘Southern Hokkaido Ainu’, in N. Tranter (ed.), The Languages of Japan and Korea (Routledge, 2012), pp. 461–508. Part 5: Isolated Languages of Africa 5.1 Jalaa 43. Ulrich Kleinewillinghöfer, ‘Jalaa—An Almost Forgotten Language of Northeastern Nigeria: A Language Isolate?’, in D. Nurse (ed.), Historical Language Contact in Africa (Rüdiger Köppe, 2001), pp. 239–71. 5.2 Shabo 44. Christopher Ehret, ‘Do Krongo and Shabo Belong in Nilo-Saharan?’, in Robert Nicolaï and Franz Rottland, Actes Cinquième Colloque de Linguistique Nilo-Saharienne/Fifth Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, Nice, 24–29 août 1992, Actes/Proceedings (Köppe, 1993), pp. 169–93. 45. Anbessa Teferra, ‘A Sketch of Shabo Grammar’, in M. Lionel Bender (ed.), Proceedings of the Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium (4th, Bayreuth, West Germany, August 30–September 2, 1989) (Helmut Buske, 1991), pp. 371–87. 5.3 Ongota 46. Graziano Savà, ‘Ongota (Birale), A Moribund Language of Southwest Ethiopia’, in M. Janse and S. Tol, Language Death and Langua