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The single most important imperative of contemporary linguistics is to document, describe, and analyze endangered languages and other lesser-known languages and dialects. This open access, peer-reviewed series publishes titles on poorly studied languages and dialects around the world, and especially welcomes contributions on languages of Japan and the rest of the Asia-Pacific region. Single and multi-authored monographs discussing a single language or multiple languages are welcome, as well as thematic collections of contributions by various scholars. Authors not affiliated with the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL) or with the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UHM) are encouraged to apply for open access funding with their own institutions or with relevant private or governmental funding organizations. Information about open access publishing with Brill may be found here.
Interested scholars may contact the Acquisition Editor at Brill, Dr Uri Tadmor. Please direct all other correspondence to Associate Editor Elisa Perotti.
Interested scholars may contact the Acquisition Editor at Brill, Dr Uri Tadmor. Please direct all other correspondence to Associate Editor Elisa Perotti.
Austronesian and Papuan Studies
What can the languages spoken today tell us about the history of their speakers? This question is crucial in insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea, where thousands of languages are spoken, but written historical records and archaeological evidence is yet lacking in most regions. While the region has a long history of contact through trade, marriage exchanges, and cultural-political dominance, detailed linguistic studies of the effects of such contacts remain limited.
This volume investigates how loanwords can prove past contact events, taking into consideration ten different regions located in the Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and New Guinea. Each chapter studies borrowing across the borders of language families, and discusses implications for the social history of the speech communities.
This volume investigates how loanwords can prove past contact events, taking into consideration ten different regions located in the Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and New Guinea. Each chapter studies borrowing across the borders of language families, and discusses implications for the social history of the speech communities.
Austronesian and Papuan Studies
What can the languages spoken today tell us about the history of their speakers? This question is crucial in insular Southeast Asia and New Guinea, where thousands of languages are spoken, but written historical records and archaeological evidence is yet lacking in most regions. While the region has a long history of contact through trade, marriage exchanges, and cultural-political dominance, detailed linguistic studies of the effects of such contacts remain limited.
This volume investigates how loanwords can prove past contact events, taking into consideration ten different regions located in the Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and New Guinea. Each chapter studies borrowing across the borders of language families, and discusses implications for the social history of the speech communities.
This volume investigates how loanwords can prove past contact events, taking into consideration ten different regions located in the Philippines, Eastern Indonesia, Timor-Leste, and New Guinea. Each chapter studies borrowing across the borders of language families, and discusses implications for the social history of the speech communities.
Grammatical Sketches of Japanese Dialects and Ryukyuan Languages
Volume Editor:
Japanese is definitely one of the best-known languages in typological literature. For example, typologists often assume that Japanese is a nominative-accusative language. However, it is often overlooked that Japanese, or more precisely, Tokyo Japanese, is just one of various local varieties of the Japonic language family (Japanese and Ryukyuan). In fact, the Japonic languages exhibit a surprising typological diversity. For example, some varieties display a split-intransitive as opposed to nominative-accusative system. The present volume is thus a unique attempt to explore the typological diversity of Japonic by providing a collection of grammatical sketches of various local varieties, four from Japanese dialects and five from Ryukyuan. Each grammatical sketch follows the same descriptive format, addressing a wide range of typological topics.
Grammatical Sketches of Japanese Dialects and Ryukyuan Languages
Volume Editor:
Japanese is definitely one of the best-known languages in typological literature. For example, typologists often assume that Japanese is a nominative-accusative language. However, it is often overlooked that Japanese, or more precisely, Tokyo Japanese, is just one of various local varieties of the Japonic language family (Japanese and Ryukyuan). In fact, the Japonic languages exhibit a surprising typological diversity. For example, some varieties display a split-intransitive as opposed to nominative-accusative system. The present volume is thus a unique attempt to explore the typological diversity of Japonic by providing a collection of grammatical sketches of various local varieties, four from Japanese dialects and five from Ryukyuan. Each grammatical sketch follows the same descriptive format, addressing a wide range of typological topics.
During several decades, syntactic reconstruction has been more or less regarded as a bootless and an unsuccessful venture, not least due to the heavy criticism in the 1970s from scholars like Watkins, Jeffers, Lightfoot, etc. This fallacious view culminated in Lightfoot’s (2002: 625) conclusion: “[i]f somebody thinks that they can reconstruct grammars more successfully and in more widespread fashion, let them tell us their methods and show us their results. Then we’ll eat the pudding.” This volume provides methods for the identification of i) cognates in syntax, and ii) the directionality of syntactic change, showcasing the results in the introduction and eight articles. These examples are offered as both tastier and also more nourishing than the pudding Lightfoot had in mind when discarding the viability of reconstructing syntax.
During several decades, syntactic reconstruction has been more or less regarded as a bootless and an unsuccessful venture, not least due to the heavy criticism in the 1970s from scholars like Watkins, Jeffers, Lightfoot, etc. This fallacious view culminated in Lightfoot’s (2002: 625) conclusion: “[i]f somebody thinks that they can reconstruct grammars more successfully and in more widespread fashion, let them tell us their methods and show us their results. Then we’ll eat the pudding.” This volume provides methods for the identification of i) cognates in syntax, and ii) the directionality of syntactic change, showcasing the results in the introduction and eight articles. These examples are offered as both tastier and also more nourishing than the pudding Lightfoot had in mind when discarding the viability of reconstructing syntax.
A Language of South Sulawesi, Indonesia
Author:
Volume Editor:
The book is a grammar of the Makasar language, spoken by about 2 million people in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Makasarese is a head–marking language which marks arguments on the predicate with a system of pronominal clitics, following an ergative/absolutive pattern. Full noun phrases are relatively free in order, while pre-predicate focus position which is widely used. The phonology is notable for the large number of geminate and pre–glottalised consonant sequences, while the morphology is characterised by highly productive affixation and pervasive encliticisation of pronominal and aspectual elements. The work draws heavily on literary sources reaching back more than three centuries; this tradition includes two Indic based scripts, a system based on Arabic, and various Romanised conventions.
A Language of South Sulawesi, Indonesia
Volume Editor:
Author:
The book is a grammar of the Makasar language, spoken by about 2 million people in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. Makasarese is a head–marking language which marks arguments on the predicate with a system of pronominal clitics, following an ergative/absolutive pattern. Full noun phrases are relatively free in order, while pre-predicate focus position which is widely used. The phonology is notable for the large number of geminate and pre–glottalised consonant sequences, while the morphology is characterised by highly productive affixation and pervasive encliticisation of pronominal and aspectual elements. The work draws heavily on literary sources reaching back more than three centuries; this tradition includes two Indic based scripts, a system based on Arabic, and various Romanised conventions.
The 'Head'
Editor:
Embodiment in Cross-Linguistic Studies: The ‘Head’ edited by Iwona Kraska-Szlenk adds to linguistic studies on embodied cognition and conceptualization while focusing on one body part term from a comparative perspective. The ‘head’ is investigated as a source domain for extending multiple concepts in various target domains accessed via metaphor or metonymy. The contributions in the volume provide comparative and case studies based on analyses of the first-hand data from languages representing all continents and diversified linguistic groups, including endangered languages of Africa, Australia and Americas. The book offers new reflections on the relationship between embodiment, cultural situatedness and universal tendencies of semantic change. The findings contribute to general research on metaphor, metonymy, and polysemy within a paradigm of cognitive linguistics.
The 'Head'
Editor:
Embodiment in Cross-Linguistic Studies: The ‘Head’ edited by Iwona Kraska-Szlenk adds to linguistic studies on embodied cognition and conceptualization while focusing on one body part term from a comparative perspective. The ‘head’ is investigated as a source domain for extending multiple concepts in various target domains accessed via metaphor or metonymy. The contributions in the volume provide comparative and case studies based on analyses of the first-hand data from languages representing all continents and diversified linguistic groups, including endangered languages of Africa, Australia and Americas. The book offers new reflections on the relationship between embodiment, cultural situatedness and universal tendencies of semantic change. The findings contribute to general research on metaphor, metonymy, and polysemy within a paradigm of cognitive linguistics.
Malay Language, Jawi Script, and Islamic Factionalism from the 19th Century to the Present
Author:
In this monograph Philipp Bruckmayr examines the development of Cambodia’s Muslim minority from the mid-19th to the 21st century. During this period Cambodia’s Cham and Chvea Muslims established strong relationships with Malay centers of Islamic learning in Patani, Kelantan and Mecca. During the 1970s to the early 1990s these longstanding relationships came to a sudden halt due to civil war and the systematic Khmer Rouge repression. Since the 1990s ties to the Malay world have been revived and new Islamic currents, including Salafism and Tablighism, have left their mark on contemporary Cambodian Islam. Bruckmayr traces how these dynamics resulted inter alia in a history of local Islamic factionalism, culminating in the eventual state recognition of two separate Islamic congregations in the late 1990s.
Malay Language, Jawi Script, and Islamic Factionalism from the 19th Century to the Present
Author:
In this monograph Philipp Bruckmayr examines the development of Cambodia’s Muslim minority from the mid-19th to the 21st century. During this period Cambodia’s Cham and Chvea Muslims established strong relationships with Malay centers of Islamic learning in Patani, Kelantan and Mecca. During the 1970s to the early 1990s these longstanding relationships came to a sudden halt due to civil war and the systematic Khmer Rouge repression. Since the 1990s ties to the Malay world have been revived and new Islamic currents, including Salafism and Tablighism, have left their mark on contemporary Cambodian Islam. Bruckmayr traces how these dynamics resulted inter alia in a history of local Islamic factionalism, culminating in the eventual state recognition of two separate Islamic congregations in the late 1990s.
A Papuan Language of Northeast New Guinea
Author:
A Grammar of Nungon is the most comprehensive modern reference grammar of a language of northeast Papua New Guinea. Nungon is a previously-undescribed Finisterre-Huon Papuan language spoken by about 1,000 people in the Saruwaged Mountains, Morobe Province. Hannah Sarvasy provides a rich description of the language in its cultural context, based on original immersion fieldwork. The exposition is extraordinarily thorough, covering phonetics, phonology, word classes, morphology, grammatical relations, switch-reference, valency, complex predicates, clause combining, possession, information structure, and the pragmatics of communication. Four complete interlinearized Nungon monologues and dialogues supplement the copious textual examples. A Grammar of Nungon sets a new standard of thoroughness for reference works on languages of this region.
A Papuan Language of Northeast New Guinea
Author:
A Grammar of Nungon is the most comprehensive modern reference grammar of a language of northeast Papua New Guinea. Nungon is a previously-undescribed Finisterre-Huon Papuan language spoken by about 1,000 people in the Saruwaged Mountains, Morobe Province. Hannah Sarvasy provides a rich description of the language in its cultural context, based on original immersion fieldwork. The exposition is extraordinarily thorough, covering phonetics, phonology, word classes, morphology, grammatical relations, switch-reference, valency, complex predicates, clause combining, possession, information structure, and the pragmatics of communication. Four complete interlinearized Nungon monologues and dialogues supplement the copious textual examples. A Grammar of Nungon sets a new standard of thoroughness for reference works on languages of this region.
Current Use and Status
English in Malaysia: Current Use and Status offers an account of the English language used in present-day West and East Malaysia and its status anchored in different linguistic, social and educational domains. After an Introduction giving a bird’s eye view of the status of English in Malaysia, the eight main chapters offer case studies revolving around four themes:
i. linguistic features, with special focus on pronunciation and language contact;
ii. language attitudes;
iii. English in on-line discourse; and
iv. English and language policies.
The chapters cover original data and topics, seeking to draw an accurate portrait of Malaysian English, a non-native variety of postcolonial English that is currently developing its pronunciation, grammar, lexis and distinct identity.
i. linguistic features, with special focus on pronunciation and language contact;
ii. language attitudes;
iii. English in on-line discourse; and
iv. English and language policies.
The chapters cover original data and topics, seeking to draw an accurate portrait of Malaysian English, a non-native variety of postcolonial English that is currently developing its pronunciation, grammar, lexis and distinct identity.
Current Use and Status
English in Malaysia: Current Use and Status offers an account of the English language used in present-day West and East Malaysia and its status anchored in different linguistic, social and educational domains. After an Introduction giving a bird’s eye view of the status of English in Malaysia, the eight main chapters offer case studies revolving around four themes:
i. linguistic features, with special focus on pronunciation and language contact;
ii. language attitudes;
iii. English in on-line discourse; and
iv. English and language policies.
The chapters cover original data and topics, seeking to draw an accurate portrait of Malaysian English, a non-native variety of postcolonial English that is currently developing its pronunciation, grammar, lexis and distinct identity.
i. linguistic features, with special focus on pronunciation and language contact;
ii. language attitudes;
iii. English in on-line discourse; and
iv. English and language policies.
The chapters cover original data and topics, seeking to draw an accurate portrait of Malaysian English, a non-native variety of postcolonial English that is currently developing its pronunciation, grammar, lexis and distinct identity.
A Storytelling Tradition from the North Sumatran Rainforest
Author:
This study of traditional literature in Pakpak-Dairi, an endangered North Sumatran language, is based on written and oral versions of stories. Discussing the views of well-known scholars of Sumatran languages, the book includes the texts of seven stories which were collected in North Sumatra by the well-known linguist Herman Neubronner van der Tuuk (1824-1894) and are kept in Leiden University Library.
The book also contains a story performed in the village of Sukarame by Sonang Sitakar, who may well have been one of the last Pakpak-Dairi storytellers. Presenting unique information on an endangered literary genre from North Sumatra.
The book also contains a story performed in the village of Sukarame by Sonang Sitakar, who may well have been one of the last Pakpak-Dairi storytellers. Presenting unique information on an endangered literary genre from North Sumatra.
A Storytelling Tradition from the North Sumatran Rainforest
Author:
This study of traditional literature in Pakpak-Dairi, an endangered North Sumatran language, is based on written and oral versions of stories. Discussing the views of well-known scholars of Sumatran languages, the book includes the texts of seven stories which were collected in North Sumatra by the well-known linguist Herman Neubronner van der Tuuk (1824-1894) and are kept in Leiden University Library.
The book also contains a story performed in the village of Sukarame by Sonang Sitakar, who may well have been one of the last Pakpak-Dairi storytellers. Presenting unique information on an endangered literary genre from North Sumatra.
The book also contains a story performed in the village of Sukarame by Sonang Sitakar, who may well have been one of the last Pakpak-Dairi storytellers. Presenting unique information on an endangered literary genre from North Sumatra.