Preserving and accessing indigenous languages of northern Eurasia

The territory of the Russian Federation is home to a wide variety of indigenous languages, of which some are spoken actively by only a few inhabitants of the region and others are acutely endangered, if not extinct.

Goals

  • Providing language resources for indigenous languages and creating a digital research infrastructure for the use of these resources

Project Description

The territory of the Russian Federation is home to a wide variety of indigenous languages, of which some are spoken actively by only a few inhabitants of the region and others are acutely endangered, if not extinct.

The existence of these languages has been documented in numerous materials, including handwritten texts, analog sound recordings, word lists, etc., which are currently located in archives and collections (e.g. in Hamburg, Helsinki, Moscow, St. Petersburg, Tartu and Tomsk).

The discovery and development of these resources – in some cases even the documentation of their existence – is one of the initial activities that INEL has been pursuing since the beginning of 2016. Using the latest methods of digital data processing, the unique data contained in the collections are being collected, partially scaled, digitized and enriched with a wealth of other linguistic information.

The resulting digital empirical data collections (corpora) will be made permanently available online in an interdisciplinary network. INEL acts as a bridge between the exploration of indigenous languages and the international partner institutions.

Funding

The Long-term Project is funded in the framework of the Academies Programme, which is coordinated by the Union of the German Academies of Sciences and Humanities.

The Long-term Project is carried out in cooperation with the Universität Hamburg at the Institute for Finno-Ugric/Uralic Studies (IFUU).

Key facts
Complete title of the Long-term Project:

INEL. Grammatical Descriptions, Corpora, and Language Technology for Indigenous Northern Eurasian Languages

Direction:

Prof. Dr. Beáta Wagner-Nagy

Duration:

01.02.2016 bis 31.12.2033

For more information

Project flyer

Project website

Project film

Project film with German Sign Language synchronisation

The AGATE-Portal (research information system of the Academies of Sciences and Humanities)

 

Address

Project INEL

Institut für Finnougristik/Uralistik (IFUU)
Universität Hamburg
Max-Brauer-Allee 60
22765 Hamburg

Contact
Dr. Alexandre Arkhipov
Email: inel(at)uni-hamburg.de
Tel.: +49 40 42838 6890