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In this course we will cover all linguistic aspects of the Uralic language family, the family that includes Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, and numerous smaller languages now or once spoken in the Russian Republic. We will briefly investigate the Uralic proto-language and etymological relationships among the Uralic daughter languages. The majority of the class will be devoted to description of structural features common to all or groups of Uralic languages, including agglutination, vowel harmony, complex locative case systems, and absence of gender. The last portion of the class will be devoted to sociolinguistic issues for the Uralic languages in Russia: the status of the languages vis-a-vis Russian; language planning under the Soviets and after; preservation efforts, and the role of traditional culture and ecological change in the preservation and demise of the languages.
Readings will include works by Decsy, Collinder, and the instructor, among others, collected in a xerox packet. Required readings will be in English, although there may be some supplemental materials available in Russian and German.
Days and Time: Monday and Wednesday, 4:00-5:15.
Goodbody Hall 157 | 1011 East 3rd St. | Bloomington, IN 47405-7005 | Phone: (812) 855-2233 | Fax: (812) 855-7500 | ceus@indiana.edu