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Language plays a critical role in society. In the Soviet Union, Russian language was leveraged as a key strategy to unify the fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics, while also minimizing the function and significance of the titular and indigenous languages. This interdisciplinary study explores changes to the role of Russian language over time in the Kazakh context. Semi-structured interviews with interviewees (N = 9) were conducted investigating three periods: the Soviet era (1940s–1980s), newly-independent (1990s–2000s), present day (2010–2021). Interview data was analysed using qualitative content analysis in the light of Post-Colonial Studies and the notion of Linguistic Imperialism. The results highlight intensive policy measures to enforce Russian during the Soviet Union, resulting in its dominant use and status across society. The interviewees shared views regarding challenges to embed Kazakh language in society in the early post-independence period, citing intentionally passive policies, low-quality pedagogy and perpetuating Russian culture as hindrances to the use of Kazakh, characteristic of post-colonial scenarios. At present (2021), in parallel to the introduction of Kazakhstan’s trilingual (Kazakh, Russian and English) policy, the attitudes towards Kazakh are more favourable. This current trend reflects greater national pride in being Kazakh. Kazakhstan is facing a new era of language use: colonial ties are giving way to globalization which brings increasing emphasis on English. The extent to which Kazakh may claim the status of lingua franca relies on the effective implementation of the trilingual policy and improvements in the education system.

This design-based study focuses on a fully immersive Virtual Reality (VR) language learning game developed for Nordic higher-education students of Finnish and Swedish. The study was conducted in collaboration with language teachers, researchers from three universities, and a software engineering laboratory. The study complements existing research, e.g., by focusing on a fully immersive VR game, the higher-education context, and languages other than English. Our objectives are to explore the four steps in designing a VR language learning game: 1) identify the audience, 2) design the linguistic content, 3) design the audio-visual content and game world, 4) reflect on the pedagogical aspects of the game. Our study identifies speaking and listening practice as one of the key skills needed by the target audience, university students of Finnish in Sweden and Swedish in Finland. We reflect on our thematic and linguistic choices when developing the game scripts. We also detail the types of multiple-choice and gap-filling exercises that the real-life-resembling scenarios contain. We discuss the audio-visual aspects of the game, including software, audio recordings, motion capture, speech-to-text, and summer cottage environment. Our game supports developing speaking and listening skills through pedagogical guided independent learning and contextualized multimodal learning. Our data comes from the game itself as well as user surveys.

The purpose of this chapter is to explain how the study of language and heavy metal are connected, and exemplify how linguistic methods can be used to analyse metal music thus establishing a set of ‘linguistic laws’ that govern heavy metal. Section 1 focuses on the theoretical approach and outlines linguistics as a subject. Two practical approaches are identified in section 2: the sociolinguistic factors behind the choice of language, and linguistic data in the metal scene from the perspective of select other sub-disciplines of linguistics. Section 3 sums up the results and includes a final discussion on the laws of linguistics in heavy metal. Like the other contributions in this volume, this chapter aims to advance our understanding of the social conventions that define the music scene and subculture that is metal, and further interdisciplinary research into metal.

This article explores the lyrics of the Finnish folk duo Kalevauva.fi. The duo uses extracts from online forums and other social media. We argue that this method of song-writing is a prime example of modern folklore as it reflects the collective, anonymous creativity of people and is reminiscent of the compilation of the Finnish national epic Kalevala. The humour in the lyrics is used to create a sense of community and discuss taboos. It rises from incongruity, for example by mismatch between melodies and lyrical content. We relate the lyrics to internet memes, and examine stereotypical and alternative representations of Finnish men. We place Kalevauva.fi in the context of the Kalevala process as well as contemporary music making.

This chapter introduces the rest of the book by rapidly surveying the names of the Uralic languages and their speakers’ numbers, as well as discussing the relative size and age of the family and its nine branches. It outlines the prehistory of these branches and then goes on to sketch in outline the phonological and lexicogrammatical features that the editors think most interesting, problematic, suggestive, and instructive. The reader should come away from reading this chapter with an understanding of the four kinds of information contained in the rest of the book. These are (i) how and which speech sounds are used (vowels and vowel harmony, stress, consonants, and consonant gradation); (ii) how nouns and verbs change their shapes in sentences—case, number, and predestination (in nouns) and tense, mood, and object indexing (in verbs); (iii) how words are put together to make clauses and complex sentences; and (iv) how new words are made (derivation and compounding). The chapter also introduces the more important theoretical conventions that the editors have found most useful in characterizing Uralic languages. To make the chapter accessible to as wide as possible a readership, most of the terminology used is cast in a basic linguistic theory framework. 

The development of teaching and learning materials is an essential component of endangered language revitalisation, yet there is very little academic research on this crucial topic. Our volume seeks to address this imbalance by examining endangered language pedagogical materials from around the world including traditional resources such as grammars, dictionaries, and textbooks, as well as new media such as online courses, apps, video games, etc. Chapters provide theoretical and applied perspectives, and consider Indigenous and other threatened languages from various regions of the world including the Americas, Australia, Europe, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia. This volume is the first in the FEL Yearbook Series.

The Uralic Languages, second edition, is a reference book which brings together detailed discussions of the historical development and specialized linguistic structures and features of the languages in the Uralic family.

The Uralic languages are spoken today in a vast geographical area stretching from Dalarna County in Sweden to Dudinka, Taimyr, Russia. There are currently approximately 50 languages in the group, the largest one among them being the state languages Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian; other Uralic languages covered in the book are South Saami, Skolt Saami, Võro, Moksha Mordvin, Mari, Udmurt, Zyrian Komi, Mansi, Khanty, Nganasan, Forest and Tundra Enets, Nenets, and Selkup. The book also contains a chapter on Finnic languages, the reconstruction of Uralic, the history of Uralic studies, connections of Uralic to other language families, and language names, demographics, and degrees of endangerment. This second and thoroughly revised edition updates and augments the authoritative accounts of the first edition and reflects recent and ongoing developments in linguistics and the languages themselves, as well as our further enhanced understanding of the relations and patterns of influence between them. Each chapter combines modern linguistic analysis and documentary linguistics; a relatively uniform structure allows for easy typological comparison between the individual languages.

Written by an international team of experts, The Uralic Languages will be invaluable to students and researchers within linguistics, folklore, and Siberian studies.