Article

Name: The Mari language in the monuments of writing: new interpretations and reconstructions The book review: Sergeev O. A. The language of written monuments of the Mari language (late 17th – 18th centuries). Yoshkar-Ola, MarNIIYALI, 2021, 422 p.

Authors: Alevtina V. Kamitova

Udmurt Federal Research Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Izhevsk, Russian Federation

In the section Review

Abstract:

The paper presents a review of one of the latest monographs of O. A. Sergeev. The work under consideration describes a wide range of linguistic phenomena reflected in the monuments of the written Mari language of the late 17th and 18th centuries. Special attention is paid to identifying all existing monuments of writing of that period, in which the Mari words and coherent texts are recorded. A detailed and holistic description of the chronologically earliest written monuments is presented, supplemented by a historical-linguistic and paleographic interpretation of lexical materials that are of particular interest for linguistic typology and objective reconstruction of the history of the Mari language. Every description of the phenomenon is followed by an extensive illustrative material. This review provides a brief summary of every chapter, highlighting the dominant topics that are of special significance not only for Mari linguistics but also for Finno-Ugric linguistics.

Keywords: Mari language, written monument, lexical units, handwritten materials, language features, the first Mari grammar

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