[Lingtyp] Welcome to Transeurasian workshop in Jena!

[martine Robbeets]

Dear Ian, dear colleagues,
I apologize for my belated reply, I am a bit under stress in preparation of the upcoming Transeurasian workshop. I owe you some explanation.
Indeed, as Malcolm explains, the “Transeurasian” in the title of our workshop refers to a large group of geographically adjacent languages, stretching from the Pacific in the East to the Baltic and the Mediterranean in the West, that include up to five different linguistic families: Japonic, Koreanic, Tungusic, Mongolic, and Turkic. We distinguish it from the more traditional term “Altaic”, which we reserve for the linguistic grouping consisting of Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic languages only.  Contrary to the tradition to refer to the large grouping as “Altaic languages,” Johanson and Robbeets (2010: 1-2) coined the term “Transeurasian” to disambigue the different uses of the term. We  preferred the new term because it avoids confusion between the different uses of the term “Altaic”; because the suffix -ic in “Altaic” implies affinity while -an in "Transeurasian" leaves room for an areal interpretation; because it  attenuates the counterproductive polarization between “Pro-Altaists” and “Anti-Altaists” and because the reference to the Altai mountains as a homeland does not keep pace with developments in interdisciplinary research. As a result, the designation “Transeurasian” is used in the title of  some recent publications and —as I hope— gradually gaining  some acceptance in the field . Note for instance, “Transeurasian Verbal Morphology in a Comparative Perspective: Genealogy, Contact, Chance,” edited with Lars Johanson in 2010 (Harrassowitz); “Shared Grammaticalization,” edited with Hubert Cuyckens in 2013 (Benjamins) and “Paradigm Change: The Transeurasian Languages and Beyond,” edited with Walter Bisang in 2014 (Benjamins) in addition to my monograph “Diachrony of verb morphology. Japanese and the Transeurasian languages” (De Gruyter Mouton; Robbeets 2015) and a four-volume series “Transeurasian linguistics”, which appeared in Routledges Critical Concepts in Linguistics series in 2017. The current workshop should lead to the publication of an "Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian languages".
I hope this cleared up things a bit for you as well as for our colleagues.
Many thanks for your interest,
Martine


Martine Robbeets

Max-Planck-Institut f??r Menschheitsgeschichte

Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Kahlaische Strasse 10, room 022
07745 Jena
Germany

tel ++49(0)3641-686-750

robbeets at shh.mpg.de

http://www.shh.mpg.de/100886/eurasia3angle_group?seite=1



________________________________
From: Malcolm Ross <malcolmross42 at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 20, 2017 11:02 PM
To: Ian Maddieson
Cc: martine Robbeets; lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Welcome to Transeurasian workshop in Jena!

Altaic (i.e. Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic) plus Japonic and Korean.

—Malcolm


> On 20 Dec 2017, at 16:53, Ian Maddieson <ianm at berkeley.edu> wrote:
>
> What are Transeurasian languages? This is a term I’ve never heard before.
>
>
>> On Dec 19, 2017, at 04:00, martine Robbeets <martine_robbeets at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Colleagues,
>> It is my pleasure to inform you about our workshop on the historical comparison of the Transeurasian languages, which will take place at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena from 9 to 11 January 2018. For information about the program and practicalities, we refer to the URL below.
>> http://robbeets.wixsite.com/wstea
>> There are no registration fees.  However, as our seminar room has only very limited capacity, it is recommendable to contact Yanjun Liu (liu at shh.mpg.de) as soon as possible in case you would like to participate. Do not hesitate to contact Yanjun or me in case of further questions. You are warmly invited to attend.
>> Merry Christmas,
>> Martine
>>
>>
>> Martine Robbeets
>> Max-Planck-Institut f??r Menschheitsgeschichte
>> Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
>> Kahlaische Strasse 10, room 022
>> 07745 Jena
>> Germany
>> tel ++49(0)3641-686-750
>> robbeets at shh.mpg.de
>> http://www.shh.mpg.de/100886/eurasia3angle_group?seite=1
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lingtyp mailing list
>> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
>> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp
>
> Ian Maddieson
>
> Department of Linguistics
> University of New Mexico
> MSC03-2130
> Albuquerque NM 87131-0001
>
>
>
>
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> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
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