Ebook: Comparative Nivkh Dictionary

In this dictionary the lexis and morphology of the Nivkh proto-language is reconstructed. This has been achieved by marshalling all the extensive (if uneven) data available in published form on the contemporary dialects. It relies heavily on the considerable body of descriptive and comparative work carried out by scholars in the past on this fascinating polysynthetic isolate, previously referred to as “Gilyak”. This goes back to the lexical material first gathered during the expedition to the Amur region in the mid-19th century organized by the Russian Academy of Science and published by W. Grube. Although the time depth between the four “dialects” of Nivkh is relatively shallow, the complex morphophonemics of the language and its phonologically much reduced compounds allows for deep internal reconstruction, as Robert Austerlitz emphasized in his work with it. Moreover, the differences between the dialects is greater than references to it as a single language might suggest. Mutual understanding between speakers of the Amur dialect (A) and the East Sakhalin one (ES) is said to be low, and still lower between A and the South Sakhalin (SS) dialect. The North Sakhalin dialect of the Schmidt Peninsula (NS) is intermediate between A and ES. West Sakhalin (WS) is simply a form of the Amur dialect brought by newcomers from the continent, at some stage displacing Sakhalin dialect speakers. A, ES, and SS may in fact qualify as separate languages.