This paper provides a quantitative analysis of lexical copies in Khalaj, an endangered Turkic language spoken in a compact language ecology in Central Iran. Surveying lexical copies in a language allows one to trace historical linguistic contact between two or more speech communities. The more intense the language contact is, the more likely it is that lexical items are hierarchically code-copied from a Model Code, in Johanson’s terminology. This study thus focuses on the lexical copying (loanword) patterns of two Khalaj varieties, both of which are enclaves at the edges of the language ecology. The database for this study was constructed based on an adapted list of 1,353 items, titled Loanword Typology list (Haspelmath and Tadmor 2009). The Khalaj data was obtained through direct elicitations from four Khalaj-speaking language consultants in Iran. These elicitations were undertaken in July and August, 2021, in the villages of Shānegh, and Telkhāb. Since Khalaj lacks standardized orthography, the data was transcribed using IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) conventions. As for data analysis, Worterbuch des Chaladsch (Doerfer and Tezcan 1980) was used to verify the meanings of Khalaj lexical items and their meanings. A quantitative analysis was conducted to identify the extent of possible sources of lexical copying. The findings revealed that the number of copied lexical items varied between two speech communities, probably because the language ecology has had an impact on the source of items copied.

This paper deals with phraseological units containing a bird-name component. Although such phraseological units have been studied before, they have not yet been given adequate attention in Yakut and Kazakh linguistics. Using a comparative method, we have identified universal and culture-specific features of such phraseological units.

Information about the material and spiritual culture of the Yakuts is encoded in the names of wild edible plants. This article analyzes 42 phytonyms. Their morphological structure is discussed and attention is paid to their lexical-semantic features. Names can reflect some external similarity with objects or other plants, the place of growth, some peculiarities of the morphological structure, the plant’s color, the characteristics of its growth, ist nutritional properties, its surface, or its practical use. Copies from Russian are frequent, owing to the long-lasting cohabitation of Yakuts and Russians. Some non-derivative stems go back to Mongolian and Tungusic forms, which testifies to close linguistic contacts with these languages.

This report deals with the state of corpus linguistics in Turkic languages and discusses the nature of corpus linguistics as a discipline. Its aim is to call attention to existing online corpora in some Turkic languages and to reveal problems in corpus creation for these languages and for Natural Language Processing.

The local variety of Uyghur spoken in the Atush region has been considered a sub-dialect of the Central dialect together with the Kashgar variety of Uyghur. This paper questions this widely accepted opinion. Based on extensive data collected in Atush during three research trips between 2011 and 2014, it is argued that the vowel system of the Atush dialect is characterized by special features. Although the vowel ä exists, it does not have any distinctive function as in other Uyghur dialects. The paper deals with the vowel inventory of the Atush dialect compared to Standard Uyghur and other Uyghur dialects, and explanations are offered to account for the differences. The role of contact with Kirghiz is discussed.