Nefedov, A.V.

University of Leipzig / Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

The Ket Project: Compiling A Comprehensive Ket-Russian Dictionary

Nefedov, Andrei Viktorovich

Ket Project is a project of compilation of Comprehensive Ket-Russian Dictionary supplemented with additional translation of all lemmata in English and German languages. The project is implemented by the Department of indigenous languages of Siberia at Tomsk State Pedagogical University, faculty of Siberian languages department of Tomsk State Pedagogical University. The project's realization would not be possible without financial support of Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Ket is the last language representing a formerly extensive Yeniseian language family. Genetically isolated, Ket language has a structure which finds no correlations in neighboring languages of Siberian area. At the same time it has certain typological parallels with the languages geographically remote from it (i.e., Na-Dene language family in the north-west of North America, Burushaski language in South Asia and Basque language in South-Western Europe).

At present Ket language is on the brink of extinction. In spite of relatively stable number of ethnic Kets (1494 people in 2002) (Census 2002), Kets speaking their ethnic (native) language are diminishing in number. The results of expeditions held in recent years definitely speak for a fact that only 20-25 Kets are fluent have a perfect command of their native language. Majority of native speakers are older than 50. Thus, according to endangered languages classification suggested by A.E. Kibrik (Kibrik 1992), Ket should be included in “death-sick languages” coming to the brink of extinction in the nearest future (group II) [1]. Therefore, scientists should consider the documentation of this language as a priority. One of documentation types is a dictionary compilation.

Up to the present moment there have been three bilingual dictionaries available to ketologists; two of them designed with the educational purpose were compiled in connection to the introduction of the native language in Ket schools (Verner 1993, Muksunova 2001). These are dictionaries small in volume, compiled on the basis of a certain dialect (the southern and the middle ones). «Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der Jenissej-Sprachen» (Werner 2003) in three volumes is quite a different type of a dictionary. The purpose of the dictionary is drawing parallel words in all fixed Enisey languages and reconstruction of proto-Enisey proto-forms [2]. We should mention the Dictionary of subdialectal forms of Ket nouns (Porotova 2002) and the Morphological dictionary of the Ket verb (Vajda and others 2004) which were published in the project's goals frameworks and aimed at specific objects.

Taking into account existing situation of Ket language, Comprehensive Ket-Russian dictionary was targeted at the academic community as its main auditorium. Therefore, the compilers made a decision to use IPA transcription in Ket part of the Dictionary supplemented with additional lemmata in English and German languages. We cannot but mention that if all existing Ket-Russian dictionaries are based on one of Ket dialects then the Dictionary will consider main peculiarities of all dialects. The distinguishing feature of the dictionary is also supposed to be illustrative contexts aimed at the clarification and description of all meanings of a Ket word.

The work on the Dictionary was started in 2000 and includes three main stages:

The first stage was devoted to compilation of vocabulary entries for all parts of speech (nouns, adjectives, adverbs, numerals, function words) ecxept for the verb. The formation of a glossary (vocabulary) was based on lexical card-index which relied on field records collected by the faculty of Siberian languages department during numerous expeditions held from 1955 till 1984. The original list of lemmata was amplified by materials of the existing dictionaries. All material gathered was examined and amplified in 2000-2004 expeditions held under the Project's aegis.

The second (current) stage was devoted to the most complicated part of the speech of Ket language - the verb. At the present stage the glossary (vocabulary list) is formed on the basis of verbs selected from «Vergleichendes Wцrterbuch der Jenissej-Sprachen». At present this list is amplified with the verbs from the lexical card-index of the faculty of Siberian languages department and with 2005 expedition data.

Structural complexity of the Ket verb influenced the authors' decision to divide the dictionary in two parts (verbal and non-verbal) and refuse from traditional representation of verbal entries in the dictionary's frameworks. The structure of the dictionary's verbal part will be designed according to alphabetical cluster principle (in contrast to the non-verbal part structured in alphabetical order). Moreover, as compared to previous dictionaries of Ket language taking the infinitive as the basic verbal form the Dictionary takes a combination of lexical element of a verbal word form as a lemma according to E. Vajda's position class model (Vajda and others 2004, p. 27) [3].

The third stage will be aimed at consecutive unification of all gathered materials: phonological for lemmata and phonetic (with preservation of all peculiarities of Ket dialects) for illustrative contexts.

References

1. In this work A.E. Kibrik includes Ket in the languages which can remain in a stable state in the case of adequate support (grop IV) (Kibrik 1992, p. 78). [ back ]

2. Nevertheless, this dictionary can be used as bilingual (Ket-German). [ back ]

3. For details on the problem of representation of the Ket verb in the Dictionary see Korotova and others 2003. [ back ]

Bibliography

Verner 1993 - Verner, G.K. Ket-Russian and Russian-Ket (southern Ket dialect) Dictionary. Manual for elementary school students. 1993. St. Petersburg: Prosveschenie.

1. Vaida and others. 2004. - Vaida, E. and Zini, M.A. Morphological dictionary of the Ket verb (based on southern Ket dialect). 2004. Ed. by Korotova, E.G.. Tomsk
2. Kibrik 1992 - Kibrik, A.E. Problem of endangered languages in the former USSR, essays on general and applied aspects of linguistics. 1992. Moscow.P. 67–79.
3. Korotova and others 2004 – Korotova, E.G., Nefedov, A.V. Ket Project: state of the art, problems and perspectives. In Comparative historical and typological studies of language and culture: problems and perspectives. A book of scientific works of the Laboratory of Siberian peoples' languages. Vol.2. 2004. Tomsk, P. 19-32.
4. Maksunova 2001 - Maksunova, Z.V. Concise Ket-Russian dictionary (middle Ket dialect). Ed. by Prof. Verner, G.K.. 2001. Krasnoyarsk.

Census 2002 - Population of Russia according to the principles of ethnic identity and command of Russian. In Russian National Census 2002 (http://www.perepis2002.ru)

5. Porotova 2002 – Porotova, T.I. Dictionary of spoken forms of Ket nouns (with plural forms). 2002. Tomsk
6. Werner 2003 - Werner H. Vergleichendes Wцrterbuch der Jenissej-Sprachen. In 3 Bd. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2002.

Translated into English by O.A. Povoroznyuk

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