Sibirica

It is generally believed that if the languages of indigenous peoples of Siberia are preserved anywhere, it would be within the spheres of traditional environmental management: reindeer husbandry, hunting, fishing, etc. However, among Yupik communities in coastal Chukotka, another domain where the Yupik language remains in use is the religious (ritual) sphere—in particular, in various practices for communicating with the spirits of ancestors. This article focuses on Yupik spells, and, more broadly, the Yupik language in a modern ritual context. This allows us to identify and reflect on some characteristic features of the indigenous ritual space that are often insufficiently discussed in ethnographic literature: secrecy and indeterminacy. In addition, the article raises key issues surrounding family memory and heritage as well as the (dis)continuity of ritual knowledge.

Most languages spoken by the “small-numbered indigenous peoples of the North” are currently highly endangered or extinct, yet there are big differences in vitality between languages and even dialects. I here discuss the factors that have shaped the current levels of endangerment of three Northern Tungusic lects: the Lamunkhin dialect of Even, the Bystraia dialect of Even, and Negidal. All three communities have lived through the sociopolitical changes associated with the Soviet era, and yet Negidal is nearly extinct, Bystraia Even is spoken only by adults, and Lamunkhin Even is still being passed on to children. The factors favoring language vitality that emerge from this study are the maintenance of cohesive and compact speech communities without forced resettlements and a relative minority of newcomers.

This article examines the local history of the Northern Sea Route using the Yamal settlement of Novy Port as a case study. Shifting the focus of research from the capital-based decision-making centers to the anchor points of the Transpolar Route makes it possible to see complex collisions, alternative options, deviations from plans, and other failures, without which it is impossible to implement such large-scale projects as the Northern Sea Route. Novy Port was assigned the role of one of the outposts of the Soviet colonization of the Arctic. At each of the identified stages of the history of Novy Port, its modus vivendi was formulated anew, which reflected a change in paradigms in the development of the Northern Sea Route.

This research considers issues of interaction between language and culture; it studies the phenomenon of lacunarity in general, as well as identifying lexical gaps in olonkho texts and ways of eliminating them in translation. Here, we investigate the need for more in-depth study of the translation of works of art in which a culture-specific component has a high degree of presence; the importance of studying the lacuna phenomenon as one of the main factors influencing translation, and, in turn, the need to study to the misunderstanding of a text by a foreign reader. The problem of translating culturally related phenomena necessitates a description of their origins and development, and attention to notions of linguistic worldview and linguistic universals regarding culture-specific vocabulary, including lexical gaps.