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A Grammar of the Votic Language
First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
Paperback
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February 13, 2008
Paul Ariste's A GRAMMAR OF THE VOTIC LANGUAGE was first published in Russian after 1947. An English translation was published by the University of Indiana at Bloomington (through Mouton, the Hague) in 1968. This listing describes a wildly overpriced reprinting by Routledge, which is a simple photocopy of the 1968 edition. I'd recommend searching for that 1968 copy on the used market--certainly Uralic linguistics is a world where used copies abound.
When Ariste's grammar appeared, Votic had one hundred speakers left. Now there are only 20 soon, and it is clear that the language will soon be extinct. Nonetheless, we are fortunate that Votic has been documented so well through works like this. Ariste has concentrated mainly here on the Western Votic dialect, especially as spoken in Kattila and environs. The grammar consists of three chapters, Phonology, Morphology, and Derivation. He covers all the standard facets of the description of a small language, but I especially admire his especial attention to sandhi phenomenon, typologically revelant matters (e.g. ergative constructions), and the minutiae of the numerals.
Ariste doesn't dwell much on etymology, but chances are that if you are reading a book on Votic, you already have some training in the history of the Baltic Finnic languages. My only real complaint is that this book was not properly typeset, but rather was prepared with a typewriter. The result is rather hard on the eyes.
When Ariste's grammar appeared, Votic had one hundred speakers left. Now there are only 20 soon, and it is clear that the language will soon be extinct. Nonetheless, we are fortunate that Votic has been documented so well through works like this. Ariste has concentrated mainly here on the Western Votic dialect, especially as spoken in Kattila and environs. The grammar consists of three chapters, Phonology, Morphology, and Derivation. He covers all the standard facets of the description of a small language, but I especially admire his especial attention to sandhi phenomenon, typologically revelant matters (e.g. ergative constructions), and the minutiae of the numerals.
Ariste doesn't dwell much on etymology, but chances are that if you are reading a book on Votic, you already have some training in the history of the Baltic Finnic languages. My only real complaint is that this book was not properly typeset, but rather was prepared with a typewriter. The result is rather hard on the eyes.
Displaying 1 of 1 review