To linguistics of 2070

I can’t say much about the science of “generally” in half a century, of course, I can’t say much: I’m not quite a philosopher anymore. But I have a clear opinion about the immediate tasks of practical linguistics - what, in my opinion, we need to strive for.

First of all, these are the documentation of “threatened languages”, Endangered Languages. Languages ​​on Earth are becoming less and less, the value of each of them is obvious to every person with a minimum philological instinct, and simply with the basic level of intellectual culture. That is, the case is about ambulance, about the salvation of what else can be saved. And these are unwilling languages ​​scattered across the planet.

What is this "documentation"? Firstly, we must collect texts in their natural environmental environment. For example, if it is a matter of an unwritten language, which for centuries mainly enjoyed the community of traditional farmers in a certain corner of the globe, then the specifics of this language is lexical, but not only - will be the deepest in the texts associated with the traditional culture of this community. Deeper than, say, in the missionary translations of the Bible into this language. It is important to preserve the originals of field recordings for eternity, preferably with the video.

Secondly, in the foreseeable future it is necessary to create text databases, with the lexical and morphological analysis of each word form-such as those databases that are already created for classic (dead) languages ​​for some of the modern literary languages. If we are talking about a unwritten language, which has to disappear in the next 50-100 years, then we must now strive to ensure that the electronic corps of such a language includes at least a million word forms.

Thirdly, such a case will serve as a material for creating a modern dictionary.

Fourth, on the basis of the case and the dictionary, it will be necessary to create a grammar of this language. This, perhaps, is the most difficult task, since work on a grammatical description implies “philosophy”, that is, the author of the grammar certainly has his own image of linguistics, albeit not completely thought out or even not at all reflected.

In this form - the case (with original records and translation), the dictionary, grammar - the fruits of our work on documentation will become quite accessible to users, in particular, theoretical linguists of all directions, historians, cultural studies ...

We cannot foresee who and when it can be useful. But one can foresee: the work in which the genuine intellectual energy of love is invested, the mind, talent and devotion to the cause. Such work will find a grateful consumer. Because this energy of a creative person does not go anywhere, it is always in what he came up with and created.

Sergey Lyozov,
Linguist, translator