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Диалект села Старошведское: проблема структурных изменений в исчезающем языке
Due to the ongoing process of rapid decrease in the number of spoken languages, one of the most urgent
tasks of linguistics today is to document endangered languages. The data from insufficiently studied languages
(which is often the case with endangered languages) allows linguists to enrich factual material of linguistics. This is
particularly important for the development of linguistic typology. Among the issues associated with endangered
languages, one of the most linguistically significant is the structural changes taking place within them. An
obsolescing language is in a sense a laboratory where processes of linguistic change can be studied at the very
moment of their operation. The paper examines data from the dialect of Staroshvedskoye (Gammalsvenskby), which
is the only surviving Scandinavian dialect in the territory of the former Soviet Union. Its current state has not been
described in linguistic literature. The main types of speakers of endangered languages, distinguished on the basis of
language competence, are fluent speakers, semi-speakers and terminal speakers; all three of these types are present
in Staroshvedskoye. With imperative forms serving as an example, the variety of the dialect spoken by the fluent
speakers is compared with the variety spoken by the semi-speakers. It is demonstrated that the main characteristic
features of the semi-speakers are a significant increase in the number of forms, high frequency of free variation and
the prevalence of analytic and descriptive patterns over synthetic ones. An attempt to explain the latter phenomenon
is made as well.