MALAY DIALECT VARIANTS IN LANGKAWI: A DIACHRONIC PERSPECTIVE ANALYSIS

Background and Purpose: Dialectical studies scrutinised the closeness, kinship or genealogy of dialects derived from a language. Previous scholars divide Malay dialects in Peninsular Malaysia into four main clusters. The first cluster are the Johor-Melaka-Selangor and Central Perak. The second cluster is a group that spreads from the Patani region covering the Patani-Kelantan-Terengganu dialect. The third is the Negeri Sembilan cluster, and the fourth is the Kedah dialect. Generally, the Kedah dialect is divided into seven groups, covering Kedah (including Langkawi), Perlis, Penang and northern Perak Taiping. This study aims to investigate the Malay dialect variants in Langkawi Island via the Historical Linguistics approach and qualitative comparison research design. Methodology: This study utilised the qualitative research method. A total of 23 native speakers of Langkawi Malay dialect participated in this study. These informants were selected using NORM (an acronym for non-mobile, older, rural and males). Data collection mainly used several techniques such as interviews, recordings, and observations. The data were analysed based on the scope of comparative linguistics. Findings: The findings show that there are five characteristics of separated innovation between the Kuah and Air Hangat variants in one group and the Kedawang variant in other groups. Furthermore, there are nine innovations that separate the Langkawi Malay dialect from the Proto Malayik language. This study indicates that the Kedawang variant is an earlier variant apart from the Kuah and Air Hangat variants. Contributions: In addition to further strengthen the research on the various dialects spoken in Malaysia, this study attempts to highlight the complete description of the Kedah dialect varieties. This study also contributes to the science of Malay language variants and Malay Dialectology studies. Keywords: Historical linguistics, reconstruction, innovation, Langkawi Island, Malay dialect. Cite as: Ab. Hamid, N., Shahidi, A. H., Aman, R., Ramli, N., Zakaria, Z., & Iswary, E. (2022). Malay dialect variants in Langkawi: A diachronic perspective analysis. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 7(1), 142-167. http://dx.doi.org/10.24200/jonus.vol7iss1pp142-167

The Concept of Happiness and Its Language-Cultural Properties and Translation Problems in English and Uzbek Languages

The article discusses the means of verbalizing the concept 'happiness / baxt both as a universal and nationally specific mental structure in the English and Uzbek languages. Keywords: cognitive and comparative linguistics, concept, lexico-phraseological units, evaluativeness, national-cultural specificity.

Fennougristiikan historiaa Virittäjän valossa

Artikkeli tarkastelee yhtäältä 125 vuotta täyttävän aikakauslehti Virittäjän historiaa fennougristiikan valossa, toisaalta fennougristiikan historiaa Virittäjän valossa. Päähuomio on erityisesti suomen etäsukukielten tutkimuksessa. Virittäjässäkin fennougristiikkaa ovat tyypillisimmin edustaneet konkreettiset pyrkimykset suomen ja sen sukukielten menneisyyden valaisemiseksi: keskiössä ovat olleet toisiinsa kietoutuneet etymologia ja äännehistoria sekä niiden kehyksiksi hahmotellut kantakielet eri vaiheineen ja kontaktikielineen. Tämän fennougristiikan kovan ytimen lisäksi Virittäjässä ovat kuitenkin aina olleet näkyvissä myös tieteenalan suuremmat kehykset: yhtäältä pohdinnat siitä, miksi ja miten tällaista tutkimusta harjoitetaan, toisaalta halu kertoa fennougristisen tutkimuksen tuloksista myös suurelle yleisölle. Erityisesti Suomi ja täällä etenkin Virittäjä ovat ympäristöjä, joissa suomalais-ugrilaisten kielten tutkijat ovat kerta toisensa jälkeen eksplisiittisesti pohtineet olemassaolonsa tarkoitusta. Vaikka ala mielletään usein kielihistorian tutkimukseksi, fennougristit ovat aina harjoittaneet myös synkronista kielentutkimusta; myös suomen sukukielten uhan­alaisuuteen ja vähemmistökielten puhujien oikeuksiin on kiinnitetty huomiota jo 1800-luvulta lähtien. Artikkeli keskittyy lähinnä Virittäjän ensimmäiselle vuosisadalle, mutta 2020-luvulle tultaessa fennougristiikka ja sen ilmenemismuodot Virittäjässä ovat muuttuneet lehden yleisilmeeseen verrattuna suhteellisen vähän. On the history of Uralic linguistics in Virittäjä The article provides an account of Virittäjä, the major journal of Finnish linguistics established in 1897, and its relation to the study of Uralic languages during the first 125 years of the journal’s history. At its most typical, the study of Uralic languages has been a branch of historical-comparative linguistics aiming to pursue the distant past of Finnish and other Uralic languages: etymology, historical phonology, questions of proto-languages and their chronology and geography as well as language contacts. Beyond this hard core of Uralic linguistics, Virittäjä has continuously provided a forum for discussing the larger frameworks of the discipline: questions of why and how Uralic linguistics is conducted in the first place. Virittäjä has also provided a forum for Uralicists to communicate the results of their research to scholars of Finnish and the wider general public. Moreover, Finland in general and Virittäjä in particular have traditionally been places where Uralicists have pondered and discussed the purpose of their own existence. In addition to historical linguistics, Uralicists have also engaged in synchronic linguistics, and from as early as the 19th century they have also paid attention to language endangerment and the linguistic rights of minorities. This article focuses mainly on the first century of Virittäjä’s history, though by the 2020s Uralistics and the manifestations of the discipline in the pages of Virittäjä have remained largely unchanged.

Stylistic Contrast in the Organization of Literary Texts in the Aspect of Translation (Based on the Material of the Lezghin and Russian Languages)

The topicality and novelty of this article, devoted to the device of stylistic contrast, are predetermined by its rather poor study, as well as by the approach to its investigation from the angle of translation theory and comparative linguistics. The material of the research includes the examples of stylistic contrast selected from literary texts in the Lezghin language and their translations into Russian, Russian-language literary texts and their translations into the Lezghin language. The work is based on the semantico-stylistic and comparative methods, the method of linguistic description of a literary text, elements of linguoculturological and conceptual analysis, as well as the specific methods of translation studies (comparison of the translation and the original, comparison of various translations, questionnaire of informants, educational translation, an experiment). The results of the research consist in clarifying the proceeding interpretation of stylistic contrast, as well as in identifying the difficulties that translators face when transmitting it in a literary text, and indicating the algorithm for overcoming them. They can be used in the courses of Stylistics, Text Linguistics, Translation Theory and Practice, etc., as well as in the development of the translation direction in the Dagestani linguistics, which needs practical developments and theoretical generalizations.

Marker der Nachzeitigkeit im deutsch-italienischen Vergleich

The goal of this contribution is the analysis of selected expressions of immediate posteriority in German and Italian from a comparative and translation-related perspective. In the present study, which was carried out as part of a joint research project (Nachzeitigkeit in Sprachvergleich und Übersetzung i. e. ‘Expression of Posteriority in Language Comparison and Translation’) at Heidelberg University and the University of Jena, these linguistic expressions are analysed using manual annotations of abstract semantic and pragmatic features on authentic instances using various statistical methods. Occurrences of the adverbs gleich, sofort, immediatamente or subito in the Europarl and OpenSubtitles corpora, in original or translated text material, serve as a source for the analysis. Typical use contexts of the four adverbs will be identified on a language-specific basis, possible influences of the text types/corpus sources on the use of the adverbs will be determined. Moreover, the use contexts of the adverbs will be analysed cross-linguistically as to correspondences and differences between the two languages, and typical translation options for the individual adverbs will be investigated as a result of various influencing parameters. At a general methodological level, the study intends to test rich semantic and pragmatic annotations and their statistical evaluation as approaches to comparative linguistics and translation studies as far as onomasiologically and functionally defined phenomena are concerned.

Archeolinguistics

Archeolinguistcs is a field of linguistic studies, which creates an ancient picture of the world. For instance: let’s talk about the ancient cultures such as Kura–Araxes (Kur–Araz). Archeological excavations in Georgia with the amazing findings of Kura–Araxes (Kur–Araz) Culture, that existed from about 4000 BC until about 2000 BC, and Shulaveri-Shomu Tepe Culture which preceded the Kura–Araxes Culture in this region or Colchian Culture 3000 BCE to 600 BCE, Trialeti Culture late 3rd and early 2nd millennium BC, Bedeni-Martkopi or Early Kurgan Culture before 2550 BC, and many others. The excavations showed that Kura–Araxes Culture and Shulaveri-Shomu Tepe Culture are remarkably wealthy. The economy was based on farming and livestock-raising (especially of cattle and sheep). They grew grain and orchard crops, and are known to have used implements to make flour. They raised cattle, sheep, goats, dogs, and in later phases, horses. They worked with copper, arsenic, silver, gold, tin, and bronze. These archeological cultures how a precocious metallurgical development, which strongly influenced surrounding regions. Viticulture and wine-making were widely practiced in this area from the earliest times. The word ‘vine’ in many languages worldwide comes from Georgian (‘ghvino’). The earliest evidence of domesticated grapes in the world has been found at Gadachrili Gora, near the village of Imiri, southeastern of Georgia; carbon-dating points to the date of about 6000 BC. Grape pips dating back to the V-IVth millennia B.C. were found in Shulaveri; others dating back to the IVth millennium B.C. were found in 'Shulaveri area' in Georgia. Kura-Araxes and Shulaveri-Shomu cultures developed gradually through a synthesis of several cultural traditions, including the ancient cultures of the Caucasus and nearby territories.Following the archeological vectors we can research the linguistic lexical bases of the transported things and/or customs and traditions, following the archeological path and revealing the historical faces for the worlds reconstructing them with the well-known methods of historical-comparative linguistics, and creating the archeolinguistic dictionaries. Of course the historical linguistics has already used its methods to reconstruct the words, but archeolinguistics will systemically follow the vectors viewing the wide lexicosemantic and cultural backgrounds, considering the artifacts as the units of the entire system. On the other hand, archeologists give the names to the things they find, but they never get any linguistic consultations or advices. ‘A cult item’ usually is named a thing with unknown functions - by the archeologists. The archeological vectors had been spread from this region to the south, west and north, transporting the cultural and household appliances. The migrated things had their names and functions. Of course the names migrated with these things as well. These migrated things have been adopted functionally and linguistically for the each case at the each location. The proposed theory states that linguistic vectors followed archeological ones. The challenge is to study these combined vectors, and the field can be called as ‘Archeological linguistics’ or ‘Archeolinguistcs’. Archeological linguistics will study the ancient linguistic picture of the world. Actually this will be the interdisciplinary studies, which will request the high level professionals in history-archeology and linguistics. The ancient word-roots can be revealed and the full lingvoculutral portrait can be restored for the each region around the globe.

Adaptation of Anglicisms – complex words in the German and Russian languages (based on publicistic texts)

The goal of this article is to determine similarities and differences in the process of adaptation of Anglicisms in the German and Russian languages. The subject of this research is Anglicisms that are structurally represented by complex words. The topic of adaptation of Anglicisms – complex words – was selected due its poor coverage in the comparative linguistics. The article determines the derivational models of Anglicisms used in the German and Russian publicistic texts. The author traces the similarity in the presence of derivational models of Anglicisms, namely: word from the recipient language word + English word, English word + word of the recipient language, English word + English word, combinations of 3 or more English words. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that this article is first to determine the similarities and differences in adaptation of Anglicisms based on the German and Russian publicistic texts. The conclusion is made that unlike Russian language, German language features a wide variety of compounding models. The German language is characterized by the connecting consonant ‘s’ for linking several word roots; while the Russian language is characterizes by the connecting vowel ‘o’. The author also concludes on the similarities and differences of the compared languages in terms of the tendency of grammatical assimilation of the English borrowings. It is noted that in the Russian language they are often masculine, while in German there are almost as many masculine Anglicisms as neuter, as well as a number of feminine Anglicisms. The acquired results can be applied in reading the lectures on comparative lexicology of the German and Russian languages.

On the relation between the similarity of the acoustic distribution patterns of vowels and the language closeness

Based on the “Unified Platform for Speech Acoustic Parameters of Chinese Minority Languages”, this paper calculates and compares the acoustic distribution of vowels in Mongolian, Uyghur, and Ewenki and proposes a hypothesis that the relevance between the similarity of the acoustic distribution patterns of vowels and language closeness does exist. It indicates that the acoustic pattern implies clues of closeness and relevance among the three languages. The results demonstrate that, in terms of vowels, Mongolian and Ewenki are closely related. Both those languages and the Uyghur language are distant relatives, with only typological similarity. This paper provides a new perspective for the research methodology of language kindred. It proves that the comparison of acoustic pattern is of significance in studies in linguistics, linguistic typology, historical comparative linguistics, and anthropology.

COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PUNCTUATION IN AN ONLINE NEWSPAPER HEADLINE: STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

В статье поднимается проблема функционирования знаков препинания в русских, чувашских и английских медиатекстах на современном этапе. Автор утверждает, что анализ пунктуационного узуса необходимо проводить на материале сетевых газетных заголовков, поскольку в Интернете они являются главными речевыми единицами, формирующими информационную картину мира людей. Сетевые газетные заголовки концентрируют в себе языковые традиции и инновации, отражают тенденции пунктуационной практики цифрового общества, среди которых автор выделяет использование двоеточия в функции пояснения содержания, представленного в первой части бессоюзного сложного предложения, отсутствие вопросительного знака в конце вопросительного предложения, сочетание знаков препинания в предложении для усиления выразительности высказывания. Выявлено, что не все нормы и правила постановки знаков препинания рассматриваемых языков учитывают изменения в пунктуационном оформлении современных текстов. Автор приходит к выводу, что решение заявленной научной проблемы позволит уточнить новые функции и значения отдельных знаков препинания, переосмыслить их семантические и экспрессивные возможности, выявить национальные особенности и сформировать предложения для обновления свода правил пунктуации разноструктурных языков, а также внести существенный вклад в развитие теории медиа- и интернет-лингвистики, медиастилистики и, главным образом, сопоставительного языкознания. The article raises the problem of the functioning of punctuation marks in Russian, Chuvash and English media texts at the present stage. The author argues that punctuation usage should be analyzed on the material of online newspaper headlines since on the Internet they are the main speech units that form the information picture of the world. Online newspaper headlines concentrate language traditions and innovations, reflect the trends of punctuation practice of the developing digital society. Among them, the author highlights the use of the colon in the function of explaining the content presented in the first part of a non-union complex sentence, the absence of the question mark at the end of the question, the combination of punctuation marks in the sentence to enhance the expressiveness. It is revealed that not all the norms and rules of punctuation marks of the considered languages take into account changes in the punctuation design of modern texts. The author comes to the conclusion that the solution to the stated scientific problem will allow us to clarify the new functions and meanings of individual punctuation marks, to rethink their semantic and expressive possibilities, to identify the national features of their use, to form proposals for updating the punctuation rules of different structural languages and to make a significant contribution to the development of the theory of media and Internet linguistics, media stylistics and, mainly, comparative linguistics.