Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 expedition to research North peoples' languages
MOSCOW, October 19. /TASS/. One of the tasks the year-long expedition Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 is facing is to research and preserve rare Northern languages, the expedition's press service said.
"Nenets and its closest relative - Selkup, as well as Khanty, Evenk, Veps are the languages, dialects and writings of the North's indigenous peoples that the Clean Arctic - Vostok77 expedition will research. Experts of the Moscow Arctic Library will join a group that will search for rare books, audio recordings and video content "in languages of ancestors," the press service added.
Russia's first scientific department of publications in rare languages has been working at the Moscow Arctic Library No. 77 for about a year. Very soon the collection will receive new editions - books about the life, culture, and crafts of the North's indigenous peoples, the Arctic Library's leader Olesya Polunina told a news conference at TASS.
"Our library is a part of cultural centers in Moscow's Eastern Administrative District, and we are very involved in the upcoming work. We are happy to have close cooperation with the Russian Academy of Sciences and with the Clean Arctic experts. Thanks to the expedition, our collection is receiving books in rare languages," she said.
Further on, librarians and experts of the Russian Academy of Sciences will describe the new objects and make their digital copies. The library's ten scientists will be searching for rare literary texts, artifacts, audio and video content. Being a part of the expedition that travels from the Arctic's north-west to the Far East, they will be collecting ethnographic materials for the library's collection.
Clean Arctic - Vostok-77 is the biggest scientific expedition in terms of the number of participants in continental high-latitude scientific expeditions over the history of the North's studies. It will have 77 expedition teams. The route has been structured to meet the objectives, set by the Russian Academy of Sciences' research centers, and in accordance with due studies under university grants. Over a year-long term, 700 participants from more than 20 research centers and federal universities, as well as the Russian Geographical Society volunteers, will conduct 200 studies at routes that will be as long as 12,000 km. Such a comprehensive expedition has been organized for the first time in recent 40 years.
