Documentation of Enets: digitization and analysis of legacy field materials and fieldwork with last speakers

Bernard Comrie, Max Planck Institute

Project Details:

Major Documentation Project. Duration: 2007-2010. £128,188

Project Summary:

The project will document Enets, an almost extinct Northern Samoyedic language spoken on the Taimyr Peninsula, Siberia (about 30 speakers, all over 45). It will be devoted both to digitizing of legacy materials (manuscripts and tapes) of Soviet researchers of the 1930s-1990s and their analysis in the field, and to fieldwork with the last speakers, documenting the phonology and morphology of modern Enets. By documenting Enets at two temporal stages, we will track the structural changes attested in the language of the last speakers. We will also create a range of commnity materials designed for both speakers and semi-speakers.