Itelmen Lexicon Database Construction and its Comparative Study: Researching Genealogical Relationships and Language Contact

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23520493
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Linguistics
• Research Institution: Chiba University
• Principal Investigator: Chikako Ono 千葉大学, 人文社会科学研究科, 特任研究員 (50466728)
• Project Period (FY): 2011-04-28 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: イテリメン語 / チュクチ・カムチャツカ諸語 / 語彙データベース / 系統関係 / 言語接触 / 方言比較研究 / ロシア

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, an Itelmen Lexicon Database was constructed with old linguistic material and new recordings from fieldwork undertaken in Kamchatka. The database is open to the public on a website and users can search the Itelmen lexicon in English, Russian, Japanese, and Itelmen. The database can also be searched in the Latin or Cyrillic alphabet. The author was also engaged in a comparative study of the dialects of Western Itelmen (Ono 2014). As a result, it became clear that 74% of the lexicon’s cognates originate in the northern and southern dialects (=NI-SI), while the remaining 26 % of the lexicon comprises non-cognates (=NI/SI). The non-cognate lexicon of the northern dialect comprises 80% of the NI/SI lexicon, while the non-cognate lexicon of the southern dialect accounts for 90% of the NI/SI lexicon. In sum, the Itelmen lexicon has a high ratio of its proper cognates.

Free Research Field

言語学