Tofa language change and terminal generation speakers

Variation and Change in Sark Norman French1

“…Thus, although the study’s main aim is to examine aspects of linguistic change in Sercquais, the variation recorded also contributes to the documentation of this dialect, while it is still extant. The high degree of variation present within such a small speech community is reminiscent of the ‘unusually high incidence of variation both across and within speakers’ found in Harrison & Anderson’s (2008: 43) investigation of Tofa, a language of south‐central Siberia, with some 40–50 remaining speakers. The fact that, in Tofa, variation could not be correlated to social or demographic factors led Harrison & Anderson (2008: 266) to link it, in part, to language obsolescence.…”

“…The high degree of variation present within such a small speech community is reminiscent of the ‘unusually high incidence of variation both across and within speakers’ found in Harrison & Anderson’s (2008: 43) investigation of Tofa, a language of south‐central Siberia, with some 40–50 remaining speakers. The fact that, in Tofa, variation could not be correlated to social or demographic factors led Harrison & Anderson (2008: 266) to link it, in part, to language obsolescence. In Sercquais, however, anecdotal evidence suggests that variation is relatively well established and devoid of any stigmatisation.…”

“…Gaelic may have been dying in East Sutherland, but it certainly was not dying in [his] mouth’ (1994: 682) and ‘Such variation is simply an option in ESG and [he] made use of it’ (1994: 684). Dorian’s analysis of variation in fluent speakers that cannot be explained by factors relating to either age, proficiency, social class or social network leads her to suggest that, in contrast to Harrison & Anderson (2008)‘it may be preferable to resort to obsolescence as an explanation for variability later rather than sooner’ (Dorian 1994: 687). Although, clearly, if proficiency is limited, this becomes a different matter.…”

People of the Deer Living near Lake Baikal: Dynamics of Ethno-Cultural Identity of Modern Tofalars (Northern Asia, Eastern Siberia)

“…Traditional and modern forms of the Tofalars' social organization were studied by K.D. Harrison, G.D. Anderson (2008), S.A. Bakhtin (2010), S.A. Weinstein ( , 1970. The Tofalar folklore was recorded and examined in the works of R.A. Sherkhunaev (1975) .…”

A Historical Dictionary of Yukaghir

“…The neutralization of a front round vowel with its back counterpart phonetically (p. 63), but maintaining the frontness of the vowel morphophonologically in harmony processes is found in terminal generation speakers of Siberian Turkic Tofa as well (Harrison & Anderson 2008): There are stems in Tofa for all speakers that have phonetically front vowels (e.g. between palatal consonants) that are harmonically back.…”