Exploring the historical linguistics of endangered languages

The decade 2022-2032 was declared by UNESCO International Decade of Indigenous Languages. In a world threatened by the loss of linguistic and cultural diversity, the documentation of endangered languages is one of the most urgent tasks. Language documentation also opens new diachronic perspectives on endangered and underdescribed languages. Historical linguistics helps reconstruct the history of many indigenous people and contributes to strengthening their identity and self-esteem.

Exploring the advances in historical linguistics that are made possible by language documentation is the goal of the a special issue of Studia Linguistica edited by Luca Ciucci, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Linguistics at the Language and Culture Research Centre, has published. Luca has done fieldwork on several indigenous languages, such as Ayoreo (Bolivia and Paraguay), Chamacoco (Paraguay) and Chiquitano/Bésiro (Bolivia), and investigates their historical development.

This special issue, From Fieldwork to Reconstruction: Historical Issues in Hotspots of Linguistic diversity, is the outcome of a workshop on historical linguistics Luca organized at the Cairns Institute in November 2018. Based on first-hand data collected by the authors, the volume brings together original papers which present new advances in the historical linguistics of a collection of languages from South America, and Mainland East and Southeast Asia.

Contents of the special issue: From fieldwork to reconstruction: historical issues in hotspots of linguistic diversity by Luca Ciucci; Removing the owner: Non-specified possessor marking in Arawak languages by Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald; Northern and southern Munya dialects: Towards a historical perspective by Junwei Bai; Zamucoan person marking as a perturbed system by Pier Marco Bertinetto; How historical data complement fieldwork: New diachronic perspectives on Zamucoan verb inflection by Luca Ciucci; Determiners and the development of grammatical nominalization in Nivaĉle by Manuel A. Otero, Doris L. Payne & Alejandra Vidal; Prehistory of verbal markers in Hmong: what can we say? by Nathan M. White.
Below is the link to the online edition
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14679582/2021/75/2