Olesya Khanina

This project is devoted to multilingualism in Siberia, and takes two approaches: first, it will collect descriptions of all oral multilingual practices attested today in the area, and second, it will reconstruct multilingual practices of the past based on linguistic, anthropological, and historical data. The aim of the initiative is to create a database of all areas of multilingualism and to visualize these data with the help of maps and an interactive web resource.

There are some descriptions of individual multilingual areas of Siberia, but there is no resource that would integrate all current knowledge on the multilingual locations, either in the past or in present. Data on the actual patterns of language choice in the multilingual settings are even more scattered: with whom and in what situations which language is/was used. This project aims to collect all the existing data on multilingualism in Siberia and make the resource available to researchers and to a wider public.

First, a database of all modern multilingual areas of Siberia will be created. For every location with more than two indigenous languages of Siberia spoken, information on actual multilingual practices will be collected. Second, the data points of modern multilingualism will be complemented by historical information. The modern and historical data will be received from specialists working on these languages and ethnic groups and extracted from published sources. Later, for selected locations, historic reconstructions can be added. Finally, the best visualization for the data will be searched for. I believe that visualization of the database on multilingualism is not just a nice addition to the data itself, but a true necessity for readability and usability of the data. Visual representation of the data is complicated by its multidimensionality: geographical, temporal, and structural dimensions should be shown on maps, and the details of the visualization concept will be developed in the course of the project.

The proposed project aims to create a resource for an underdescribed area informed by the latest sociolinguistic research. As such, it can then be used for a variety of research purposes. On the local level, specialists on Siberia could use the resource as a starting point of further investigation into languages, cultures, and history of the area. Similar phenomena in different parts of Siberia will become visible and this will open paths for comparative studies that are impossible now. At the same time, the web-resource visually representing the existing multilingual practices of Siberia could easily be used by a wider audience. On the global level, the resource could help answer the questions what is shared by all multilingual areas of the world and what is specific to some areas only.

Languages and linguistic communities of Siberia are still underrepresented in modern linguistics, and I hope to fill the gap with the proposed resource on multilingualism.