Grammar of Shughni (Ph.D. Thesis)
My Ph.D. dissertation provides a comprehensive description of several aspects of the Shughni language (Eastern Iranian; Afghanistan and Tajikistan), from phonetics, phonology, and orthography, to nominal and verbal morphology, morphosyntactic alignment, clausal typology, information structure, and clause-level word order. This dissertation is the outcome of seven years of fieldwork with many native speakers of Shughni, to whom I am eternally grateful for their unwavering support and friendship.
Vestigial ergativity in Shughni
A significant portion of my research in linguistics has focused on the syntax of Shughni, including vestigial ergativity. In a 2020 paper in Glossa, I linked this phenomenon to the nature of the second-position clitics which exhibit agreement with subjects in the past tense. While I’m still interested in morphosyntactic alignment, my work has currently shifted toward language documentation and experimental approaches to exploring grammatical gender in the Pamir languages.
Translations of Soviet-era works on Shughni
One of the primary aims of my thesis on Shughni was to synthesize and build upon existing research on Shughni, the majority of which comes from the Soviet period and is available only in Russian or Tajik. As part of an ongoing effort to connect scholars of the Pamir languages from around the world, I am working to provide English translations of some of the major works on these languages. These translations not only make the work available in English, but also provide a searchable PDF format. The first several translations can be found below:
The Shughni verb in a historical light (Dodykhudoeva 1988) translation; original Russian
On clausal constructions in Iranian languages (Edelman 1974) translation; original Russian
On the substratal heritage of the Central Asian Sprachbund (Edelman 1980) translation; original Russian
The category of gender in the Pamir languages – Part I (Karamshoev 1978) translation; original Russian
The category of gender in the Pamir languages – Part II (Karamshoev 1986) translation; original Russian
Sketches of the phonetic systems of Iranian languages (Sokolova 1953) translation; original Russian
Genetic relations between Yazghulami and the Shughni Group (Sokolova 1967) translation; original Russian
McGill Symposium on the University’s Role in Supporting Indigenous Languages
This event brought together Indigenous language champions from all over Canada to share their knowledge and experiences with McGill. I was fortunate enough to be a member of the organizing team and to lead the process of writing our task force’s Vision Paper, which outlines the lessons we learned. I’m proud to say that the university, including the Department of Linguistics, has already taken important steps in implementing these lessons. You can read more about the Symposium here, and you can find a manuscript of my qualifying paper on this topic here.
Easy Miskito
While living in Nicaragua from 2013-2015, I worked with the Miskito-speaking community on the country’s Caribbean coast to produce a short YouTube series as part of the Easy Languages channel. The series provides a platform for Miskito speakers to discuss their language and its importance in the Miskito community.