Back then, in summer 2017, returning from four weeks of fieldwork in Dudinka and sailing upstream on the Yenisei river, I started to prepare a grammar sketch of Dolgan. Initially, this grammar sketch was intended for an introductory course to Dolgan to be taught in the winter term 2017/2018, which did not take place in the end. Since then, much time has passed, accompanied by phases of intensive grammar writing and phases of doing nothing at all. Within the last two years, dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, there was much time that I otherwise might have spent on football pitches, in theatres or bars, or simply doing nonsense with friends. Instead, there were many lonesome but still inspiring hours of running, walking and cycling, followed by likewise lonesome hours of writing the gotten ideas down. Nonetheless, the grammar at hand would never have seen the light of the day if several people and organizations had not supported me the way they did.

First, the grammar would lack its empirical base without the INEL Dolgan Corpus, which was compiled within the long-term research project INEL (Grammatical Descriptions, Corpora and Language Technology for Indigenous Northern Eurasian Languages), conducted at the Institute for Finno-Ugric/Uralic Studies of the Universität Hamburg. Besides the organizational support, the INEL project provided a perfect research infrastructure for undertaking the task of grammar writing, including the possibility to conduct fieldwork. The latter leads me to express my deepest gratitude to the Dolgan native speaker community, who warmheartedly accepted me in 2017, and who patiently answered my probably odd questions. Especially noteworthy is the involvement of Nina S. Kudrjakova and Anna A. Barbolina, with whom I could discuss several essential issues afterwards remotely via e-mail, even in times of a pandemic.

Regarding the content of this volume, I am thankful to many persons who shared their knowledge, experiences and insights with me, which significantly put the project forward. Without Beáta Wagner-Nagy, the grammar would probably not exist in this shape since she proposed to include it in the series Indigenous Languages of Russia; besides that, she read the whole manuscript and commented on it. Valentin Gusev, as the second editor of the series, also provided valuable advice on several topics. The same holds for the three reviewers, who gave me helpful feedback and comments, which certainly improved the grammar at hand. In this context, I also wish to thank the publishing house Brill for accepting the manuscript, as well as for the smooth cooperation.

Apart from the many colleagues in and outside Hamburg, as well as commenters on various conferences, the following persons deserve special mention. On several occasions and in profound but still hearty discussions, Éva Csató and Lars Johanson evaluated my ideas against the backdrop of traditional turcology, which often made me re-think things and patterns. Not being an expert in phonetics, I could always bother Alexandre Arkhipov with sometimes stupid questions on this topic, as well as on terminological issues in typology. Together with Elena Skribnik, I discussed the chapter on verbal morphology, especially concerning mood/modality and evidentiality, which opened new perspectives for me. Coming to semantics and the lexicon, Josefina Budzisch urged me to be precise when talking about definiteness; moreover, she applied the section on kinship terminology to her family to prevent errors in reasoning and contradictions. The students of an introductory course to Dolgan in winter 2020/2021 had to cope with the manuscript, and I am thankful to those who not only participated in the class but also commented on the manuscript. Finally, there is Eugénie Stapert, with whom I had the pleasure to visit the Dolgans, and whom I can always ask anything about Dolgan and the Dolgans.

Outside the scientific community, there are myriads of people I owe thanks for nearly everything. Especially, my closest friends never complain when I talk about weird things such as existential predications, though constantly showing me that there is a beautiful world outside linguistics. The same holds for my parents, who always encourage(d) me to go my own way, which is admittedly not always the easiest, nor the most understandable and straightforward. Finally, there is Florian, who is always there when I need him—be it on walks in the endless landscape around Agger, in identity crises or simply when coming home. And, as if this was not enough, I owe thanks to him for patiently discussing linguistic issues, reading my manuscripts and even collecting Dolgan reindeer terminology.

Pasiːbaŋ!

Lüneburg, 22 March 2022