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History and Ecology of Language and languages

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Brigitte PAKENDORF

CNRS Senior Researcher

 04 72 72 64 26

brigitte.pakendorf@cnrs.fr

Teams :   DiLiS 


  Training and professional background
  Research interests
  Scientific activities
  Fieldwork
  Project management
  Awards and research grants
  Teaching
  Supervised theses and dissertation
  Main publications and conferences

My work focuses on the languages of Siberia, especially on the Northern Tungusic languages Even and Negidal, for which I have collected oral corpora in several field trips to different villages in Yakutia, on Kamchatka, and in the Lower Amur region of Russia. The major themes that interest me are language contact, the description of typologically interesting morphosyntactic features of the languages that I study, and the documentation of endangered languages.

I began my academic life as a molecular anthropologist, with a PhD thesis (defended in 2001 at the Faculty of Biology at Hamburg University, Germany) on the genetic prehistory of the Turkic-speaking Sakha (Yakuts). I then continued my work on the Sakha at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, trying to elucidate the role that language and population contact played in their (pre)history. For this, I analysed linguistic and genetic data that I had collected myself during fieldwork in the Republic Sakha (Yakutia), resulting in a thesis that I defended in 2007 at the Faculty of Letters, University of Leiden, Netherlands.

From 2007 through 2011 I had the opportunity to extend this interdisciplinary research beyond the rather narrow confines of my personal research in Siberia by leading the independent Max Planck Research Group on Comparative Population Linguistics at the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology. With this group, which comprised molecular anthropologists, linguists, and a social anthropologist, I undertook research projects – often in collaboration with scientists at other institutions – on population and language contact in Africa, Siberia, and Melanesia.

Since joining the CNRS as a “Directrice de Recherche” (Senior Scientist, equivalent to a research professorship) in 2012, where I work in the research unit Dynamique du Langage in Lyon, I have moved steadily away from molecular anthropology towards descriptive and documentary linguistics. However, I continue to be interested in what genetics can teach us about human prehistory, especially that of Southern Africa, for which I collaborate with other researchers.


My primary research focus lies in the genetic and linguistic effects of prehistoric population contact, with a particular interest in establishing correlations between the type of contact situation and the resulting changes in the language(s) concerned. From 2007 to 2011 I pursued this line of research as leader of the Max-Planck Research Group on Comparative Population Linguistics. My linguistic research focuses on the Siberian languages Sakha (Yakut; Turkic) and Ėven (Tungusic), for which I have collected narrative corpora during several periods of fieldwork; in addition, I am interested in the areal typology of Siberian languages. As a molecular anthropologist I have been active mainly in Africa, working in close collaboration with linguists on projects in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Burkina Faso.


TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND


 

  • from January 2012: Senior Researcher (Directeur de recherche) at CNRS Laboratory UMR5996 ‘Dynamique du Langage’, Lyon, France
  • July 2006 – December 2011: Leader of Max Planck Research Group on Comparative Population Linguistics at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
  • December 2007: Ph.D. at the Faculty of Letters, University of Leiden (thesis on: Contact in the prehistory of the Sakha (Yakuts): Linguistic and genetic perspectives) research done at Department of Linguistics and Department of Evolutionary Genetics, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany
  • May 2001: Ph.D. at the Faculty of Biology, University of Hamburg (thesis on: Genetic Archaeology in Siberia – Studying the Origins of the Sakha Using Molecular Genetic Markers (in German))
  • August 1996: Master’s degree in biological anthropology, University of Hamburg
  • 1990-1996: Studies of biological anthropology, social anthropology (ethnology) and Russian linguistics, University of Hamburg, Germany
 

RESEARCH INTERESTS


 

Documentation of endangered Tungusic languages

 

The impact of contact influence in language change: Even and beyond

 

Morphosyntactic features of Siberian languages (with a focus on Northern Tungusic)

 

SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITIES


 

Member of the “Comité opérationnel d’Ethique, CNRS-SHS” (from June 2024)

 

Member of the Editorial Board of Journal of Language Contact (from 01/2022)

 

Member of the Editorial Board of Language Dynamics & Change (from January 2021)

 

Member of the Editorial Board of Linguistic Typology (from January 2014)

 

Co-organization (with Françoise Rose, DDL) of workshop on “Fillers and Placeholders” at 14th conference of the Association of Linguistic Typology, Austin, Texas (16 December, 2022; https://sites.google.com/view/alt2022/workshops)

 

Co-organization (with Nina Dobrushina, HSE Moscow, and Olesya Khanina, Institute of Linguistics Moscow) of the Conference on “Typology of small-scale multilingualism”, Lyon (15-17 April, 2019; https://ilcl.hse.ru/smallscale/)

 

Co-organization (with Katarzyna Janic and Denis Creissels, DDL) of the Transalpine Typology Meeting 2015, Lyon (8-9 October, 2015; http://www.ddl.ish-lyon.cnrs.fr/colloques/TTM2015/)

 

Member of the Association for Linguistic Typology (ALT)

 

Member of the Societas Linguistica Europeae (SLE)

 

FIELDWORK


 

Genetic fieldwork in: Yakutia (2002, 2003, 2008), Solomon Islands (2004), Kamchatka (2007), Zambia (2007), Botswana (2009), Namibia (2011), Botswana & Namibia (2015; view report)

 

Linguistic fieldwork on Negidal in Vladimirovka, Khabarovskij Kraj (Feb-March 2017, July-Aug 2017, Feb 2018, Feb 2020)

 

Linguistic fieldwork on Even in: Sebjan-Küöl, Yakutia (2008, 2009, 2010, 2012), Central Kamchatka (2007, 2009, 2016)

 

Linguistic fieldwork on Sakha (Yakut) in: Verkhoyansk, Suntar, Olenek, and Taatta districts (2002), Verkhoyansk district (2003, 2006)

 

PROJECT MANAGEMENT


 

December 2016 - November 2020: "Documentation of Negidal, a nearly extinct Northern Tungusic language of the Lower Amur" (Project funded by ELDP/ARCADIA)

 

July-August 2015: Giving Them Their Genetic History: Returning the Results of Molecular Anthropological Studies to Southern Africa (Project funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the LabEx ASLAN; view report)

 

April 2012 – June 2014: Investigating the prehistory of southern African hunter-gatherers with Y-chromosome sequences (Project funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation and the Leakey Foundation)

 

April 2009 – March 2013: Documentation of the dialectal and cultural diversity among Ėvens in Siberia (DoBeS project funded by the Volkswagen Foundation)

 

September 2009 – August 2012: The Central Kalahari area with a focus on ǂHoan (Ju-ǂHoan family): language contact and population genetics” within the Collaborative Research Project “The Kalahari Basin area: a ‘Sprachbund’ on the verge of extinction” (EUROCORES programme ‘EuroBABEL’)

 

January 2007 – December 2011: Leader of Max Planck Research Group on Comparative Population Linguistics with projects on:

  • Population history of Western Zambia
  • Population relationships and language change in Burkina Faso
  • Documentation of ǂHoan with a focus on contact influence
  • Population relationships among Khoisan of Botswana and Namibia
  • Contact influence in the dialects of Ėven
  • Contact influence in the Dolgan language
  • Population prehistory and population contact in Siberia
  • Language contact and history in southern Bougainville, Papua New Guinea
  • Language contact between the languages Gela and Savosavo, Central Solomon Islands

 

AWARDS AND RESEARCH GRANTS


 

2024: Grant from LabEx ASLAN for "CleanCorpus: Updating oral corpora of Lamunkhin and Bystraja Even for publication in the Open Text Collection"

 

2019: Elected member of the Academia Europaea

 

December 2016 - Mai 2021: Grant from the Endangered Languages Documentation Programme (ELDP), www.eldp.net, for "Documentation of Negidal, a nearly extinct Northern Tungusic language of the Lower Amur" (MDP0346)

 

November 2016: Silver Medal of the CNRS)

 

July-August 2015: Engaged Anthropology Grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for "Giving Them Their Genetic History: Returning the Results of Molecular Anthropological Studies to Southern Africa"

 

July-August 2015: Grant from LabEx ASLAN for "Giving Them Their Genetic History: Returning the Results of Molecular Anthropological Studies to Southern Africa"

 

May 2012 - May 2013: General grant from the Leakey Foundation for “Investigating the prehistory of southern African hunter-gatherers with Y-chromosome sequences”.

 

April 2012 - June 2014: Post-PhD research grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for “Investigating the prehistory of ‘Khoisan’-speaking hunter-gatherers from southern Africa with large-scale Y-chromosome sequences”.

 

April 2009 – April 2013: DoBeS grant from the Volkswagen Stiftung for “Documentation of the dialectal and cultural diversity among Ėvens in Siberia” (together with Dejan Matić, Katharina Gernet, and Vasilij Robbek).

 

September 2009 – August 2012: DFG grant for “The Central Kalahari area with a focus on ǂHoan (Ju-ǂHoan family): language contact and population genetics” within the Collaborative Research Project “The Kalahari Basin area: a ‘Sprachbund’ on the verge of extinction” (EUROCORES programme ‘EuroBABEL’).

 

TEACHING


 

July 2018: Course 'Introduction to Molecular Anthropology for Historical Linguists', Leiden Summerschool on Language and Linguistics, Leiden University, Netherlands (20 hours)

 

September 2016 'Typology of Siberian Languages', European Summer School on Linguistic Typology, Porquerolles, France (6 hours)

 

May 2016: Course 'Typology of Siberian Languages', North-Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk (8 hours; in Russian)

 

September 2015: Course 'Molecular Anthropology and Prehistoric Social Practises', Faculty of Anthropology, European University in Saint Petersburg, Russia (8 hours)

 

September 2015: Course 'Historical Linguistics and Molecular Anthropology', Third Pavia International Summer School for Indo-European Linguistics, Italy (8 hours)

 

November 2014: Course on 'Language Contact', University of Sonora, Hermosillo, Mexico (20 hrs)

 

June 2010: Course on ‘Language Contact’, LOT summer school in Nijmegen (10 hours)

 

October – December 2008: Advanced level seminar ‘The languages of Siberia – a typological overview’ at the Institute of Linguistics, University of Leipzig (30 hours)

 

October – November 2007: Advanced level seminar ‘The structure of Sakha (Yakut)’ at the Institute of Linguistics, University of Leipzig (30 hours)

 

October 2006 – February 2007: Advanced level seminar ‘Linguistic and genetic perspectives on language contact’ at the Institute of Linguistics, University of Leipzig (28 hours)

 

March 2006: ‘Genetic and linguistic diversity - a comparison’ at the Leipzig Spring School on Linguistic Diversity (8 hours)

 

February 2001: Practical course “Molecular genetics” at the Institute of Human Biology, University of Hamburg (36 hours)

 

February 2000: Practical course “Molecular genetics” at the Institute of Human Biology, University of Hamburg (36 hours)

 

SUPERVISED THESES AND DISSERTATION


 

PhD students

  • Laurène Barbier (The expression of spatial events and the spatial (a)symmetries in Negidal (Tungusic); co-supervision with Anetta Kopecka, DDL); from October 2022
  • Nargil (aka Rigele Na) (The syntax of Solon (Northern Tungusic) in an areal and typological perspective); from October 2021
  • Evgeniya Zhivotova (Coordinating and subordinating conjunctions in Bystraya Even, Kildin Sámi and Izhva Komi under the influence of Russian; co-supervision with Michael Riessler, University of Eastern Finland); from October 2020
  • Falko Berthold (ǂHoan morpho-syntax and selected aspects of the historical development of the language; co-supervision with Tom Güldemann, Humboldt Universität Berlin); from May 2009, thesis abandoned 10/2016
  • Mark Whitten (A novel approach for elucidating the complex maternal prehistories of Siberian ethnolinguistic groups using complete mitochondrial genomes); from August 2007, thesis defended at the University of Leipzig on 18.11.2016
  • Linda Gerlach (Phonetic and phonological description of the N!aqriaxe variety of ǂ’Amkoe and the impact of language contact; co-supervision with Tom Güldemann, Humboldt Universität Berlin); from April 2009, thesis defended at the Humboldt University on 25.11.2015
  • Natalia Aralova (Vowel harmony in two Even dialects: Production and perception; co-supervision with Sven Grawunder, MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, and Silke Hamann and Paul Boersma, University of Amsterdam); from April 2009, thesis defended at the University of Amsterdam on 04.09.2015
  • Eugénie Stapert (Contact-induced change in Dolgan: An investigation into the role of linguistic data for the reconstruction of a people's (pre)history; official supervisor Maarten Mous, University of Leiden); from February 2008, thesis defended at the University of Leiden on 26.09.2013
  • Chiara Barbieri (Comparing genetic and linguistic diversity in African populations with a focus on the Khoisan of southern Africa; official supervisor Donata Luiselli, University of Bologna); from September 2009, thesis defended at the University of Bologna on 29.04.2013
  • Cesare de Filippo (Molecular Anthropological Perspectives on the Prehistory of Sub-Saharan Africa; official head of thesis committee Svante Pääbo, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology); from January 2007; thesis defended at the University of Leipzig on 08.04.2011

 

Master’s students

  • Laurène Barbier (M2 thesis, INALCO, Paris: L’influence du russe sur la syntaxe des subordonnées circonstancielles en haut-negidal; September 2020 - June 2021)
  • Laurène Barbier (M1 thesis, INALCO, Paris: L’impact des langues russe et japonaise sur les langues de Sakhaline et du Bas-Amour, un état de la recherche sur l’influence des langues colonisatrices; September 2019 - June 2020)
  • Penelope Wee (M1 thesis: La catégorisation sémantique et les langues et parlers issus de contact en situation de contact: notes en vue d’un travail ultérieur sur le papiá kristang et/ou le singlish); February 2015 - July 2016 (joint supervision with Anetta Kopecka)
  • Luise Zippel (Finiteness in Ėven: An investigation of verbal (non-)finiteness with a focus on a dialectal comparison of the perfect participle –čE [in German]); October 2011 – July 2012

 

Bachelor’s students

  • Jana Neuwirt (The educational system of the minority peoples of the north of Russia [in German]); January - July 2010

 

MAIN PUBLICATIONS THROUGH 2011


MAIN PUBLICATIONS AND CONFERENCES
SHOW LONG VERSION / SHORT VERSION


Edited books
 

Dobrushina, N., Khanina, O. & Pakendorf, B. (eds), 2021, "Typology of Small-Scale Multilingualism", 25/4, International Journal of Bilingualism, 835-1157 p.  (couverture)


Chapters in books
 

Pakendorf, B., 2024, "Language contact in northern Asia", in The languages and linguistics of Northern Asia. Volume 2: Typology, Morphosyntax and Socio-historical Perspectives, Vajda, E. (ed), De Gruyter Mouton, pp. 1175-1210


 

Aralova, N. & Pakendorf, B., 2022, "The causal-noncausal alternation in the Northern Tungusic languages of Russia", in Tungusic languages: Past and present, Hölzl, A. & Payne, T. (eds), Language Science Press, pp. 21-62 (Acces the volume)


 

Pakendorf, B. & Stoynova, N., 2021, "Associated motion in Tungusic languages: a case of mixed argument structure", in Associated Motion, Guillaume, A. & Koch, H. (eds), de Gruyter Mouton, pp. 855-897


 

Pakendorf, B. & Aralova, N., 2020, "Even and the Northern Tungusic languages", in The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages, Robbeets, M. & Savelyev, A. (eds), Oxford University Press, pp. 288-304


 

Pakendorf, B. & Stapert, E., 2020, "Sakha and Dolgan, the North Siberian Turkic languages", in The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages, Robbeets, M. & Savelyev, A. (eds), Oxford University Press, pp. 430-445


 

Pakendorf, B., 2020, "Contact and Siberian Languages", in The Handbook of Language Contact, 2nd edition, Hickey, R. (ed), Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 669-688


 

Pakendorf, B., 2012, "Patterns of relativization in North Asia: towards a refined typology of prenominal participial relative clauses", in Complex clauses in Cross-linguistic perspective, Diessel, H. & Gast, V. (eds), de Gruyter Mouton, pp. 253-283


Journals
 

Fortes-Lima, C., Burgarella, C., Hammarén, R., Eriksson, A., Vicente, M., Jolly, C., Semo, A., Gunnink, H., Pacchiarotti, S., Mundeke, L., Matonda, I., Koni Muluwa, J., Coutros, P., Nyambe, T., Cirhuza Cikomola, J., Coetzee, V., de Castro, M., Ebbesen, P., Delanghe, J., Stoneking, M., Barham, L., Lombard, M., Meyer, A., Steyn, M., Malmström, H., Rocha, J., Soodyall, H., Pakendorf, B., Bostoen, K. & Schlebusch, C., 2024, "The genetic legacy of the expansion of Bantu-speaking peoples in Africa", Nature, 625:7995, pp. 540-547 (Access article)


 

Thao, D., Dinh, T., Mitsunaga, S., Duy, L., Phuong, N., Anh, N., Anh, N., Duc, B., Hue, H., Ha, N., Ton, N., Hübner, A., Pakendorf, B., Stoneking, M., Inoue, I., Duong, N. & Hai, N., 2024, "Investigating demic versus cultural diffusion and sex bias in the spread of Austronesian languages in Vietnam", PLoS ONE, 19:6, pp.  e0304964 (Access article)


 

Aralova, N. & Pakendorf, B., 2023, "Non-canonical possessive constructions in Negidal and other Tungusic languages: a new analysis of the so-called “alienable possession” suffix", Linguistics, 61:6, pp. 1563–1592 (Access article)


 

Pakendorf, B., 2022, "Copying form without content. Relexification in ordinary contact-induced change ", Diachronica, 39:4, pp. 525-564  (Access article)


 

Pakendorf, B., Dobrushina, N. & Khanina, O., 2021, "A typology of small-scale multilingualism", International Journal of Bilingualism, 25:4 (Special issue on "Typology of Small-Scale Multilingualism" edited by Nina Dobrushina, Olesya Khanina & Brigitte Pakendorf), pp. 835– 859 (Access article)


 

Oliveira, S., Hübner, A., Fehn, A.M., Aço, T., Lages, F., Pakendorf, B., Stoneking, M. & Rocha, J., 2019, "The role of matrilineality in shaping patterns of Y chromosome and mtDNA sequence variation in southwestern Angola", European Journal of Human Genetics, 27:3, pp. 475-483 (full-text view-only version)


 

Pakendorf, B., 2019, "Direct copying of inflectional paradigms: Evidence from Lamunkhin Even", Language, 95:3, pp. e364-e380 (Access article)


 

Pakendorf, B., 2019, "Expressing equality, similarity, and pretense in Even (Northern Tungusic, Siberia)", Faits de Langues (special issue on "Comparaisons d’égalité et de similitude et expression de la simulation" edited by Yvonne Treis & Claudine Chamoureau), 50:1, pp. 91-109


 

Arias, L., Barbieri, C., Barreto, G., Stoneking, M. & Pakendorf, B., 2018, "High resolution mitochondrial DNA analysis sheds light on human diversity, cultural interactions and population mobility in Northwestern Amazonia", American Journal of Physical Anthropology , 165:2, pp. 238-255


 

Oliveira, S., Fehn, A.M., Aço, T., Lages, F., Gayà-Vidal, M., Pakendorf, B., Stoneking, M. & Rocha, J., 2018, "Matriclans shape populations: Insights from the Angolan Namib Desert into the maternal genetic history of southern Africa", American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 165:3, pp. 518-535


 

Pakendorf, B. & Aralova, N., 2018, "The endangered state of Negidal: A field report", Language Documentation and Conservation , 12, pp. 1-14 (Access article)


 

Arias, L., Schröder, R., Hübner, A., Barreto, G., Stoneking, M. & Pakendorf, B., 2018, "Cultural innovations influence patterns of genetic diversity in Northwestern Amazonia", Molecular Biology and Evolution, 35:11, pp. 2719–2735 (Access article)


 

Bajić, V., Barbieri, C., Hübner, A., Güldemann, T., Naumann, C., Gerlach, L., Berthold, F., Nakagawa, H., Mpoloka, S., Roewer, L., Purps, J., Stoneking, M. & Pakendorf, B., 2018, "Genetic structure and sex-biased gene flow in the history of southern African populations", American Journal of Physical Anthropology , 167:3, pp. 656-671 (Access article)


 

Pakendorf, B., 2017, "Lamunkhin Even evaluative morphology in cross-linguistic comparison", Morphology, 27, pp. 123–158 (full-text view-only version)


 

Pakendorf, B., Gunnink, H., Sands, B. & Bostoen, K., 2017, "Prehistoric Bantu-Khoisan language contact: A cross-disciplinary approach", Language Dynamics and Change, 7:1, pp. 1-46


 

Pugach, I., Matveev, R., Spitsyn, V., Makarov, S., Novgorodov, I., Osakovsky, V., Stoneking, M. & Pakendorf, B., 2016, "The complex admixture history and recent southern origins of Siberian populations", Molecular Biology and Evolution, 33:7, pp. 1777-1795 (Access article)


 

Barbieri, C., Hübner, A., Macholdt, E., Ni, S., Lippold, S., Schröder, R., Mpoloka, S., Purps, J., Roewer, L., Stoneking, M. & Pakendorf, B., 2016, "Refining the Y chromosome phylogeny with southern African sequences", Human Genetics, 135:5, pp. 541-553 (Access article)


 

Gunnink, H., Sands, B., Pakendorf, B. & Bostoen, K., 2015, "Prehistoric language contact in the Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier area: Khoisan influence on southwestern Bantu languages", Journal of African Languages and Linguistics, 36:2, pp. 193-232


 

Pickrell, J., Patterson, N., Loh, P.R., Lipson, M., Berger, B., Stoneking, M., Pakendorf, B. & Reich, D., 2014, "Ancient west Eurasian ancestry in southern and eastern Africa", Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of the United States, 111:7, pp. 2632-2637 (Access article)  (pdf of article and SI)


 

Macholdt, E., Lede, V., Barbieri, C., Mpoloka, S., Chen, H., Slatkin, M., Pakendorf, B. & Stoneking, M., 2014, "Tracing Pastoralist Migrations to Southern Africa with Lactase Persistence Alleles", Current Biology, 24:8, pp. 875-879


 

Pakendorf, B. & Krivoshapkina, I., 2014, "Ėven nominal evaluatives and the marking of definiteness", Linguistic Typology, 18:2, pp. 289–331 (Access article)  (pdf of article)


 

Barbieri, C., Vicente, M., Rocha, J., Mpoloka, S., Stoneking, M. & Pakendorf, B., 2013, "Ancient Substructure in Early mtDNA Lineages of Southern Africa", American Journal of Human Genetics , 92:2, pp. 285–292 (article online)


 

Matić, D. & Pakendorf, B., 2013, "Non-canonical SAY in Siberia: Areal and genealogical patterns", Studies in Language, 37:2, pp. 356-412


 

de Filippo, C., Bostoen, K., Stoneking, M. & Pakendorf, B., 2012, "Bringing together linguistic and genetic evidence to test the Bantu expansion", Proceedings of the Royal Society. Biological Sciences, 279:1741, pp. 3256-3263


 

Pickrell, J., Patterson, N., Barbieri, C., Berthold, F., Gerlach, L., Lipson, M., Loh, P.R., Güldemann, T., Kure, B., Mpoloka, S., Nakagawa, H., Naumann, C., Mountain, J., Bustamante, C., Berger, B., Henn, B., Stoneking, M., Reich, D. & Pakendorf, B., 2012, "The genetic prehistory of southern Africa", Nature Communications, 3:1143, pp. doi:10.1038/ncomms2140 (article online)  (pdf of article, pdf of Supplementary Information)


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