The Freiburg Research Group in Saami Studies

Go to our Archive of previous projects and activities

Contact

Address

Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
Skandinavisches Seminar
Platz der Universität 3
D-79098 Freiburg

Office location

Belfortstr. 16, 3rd floor, room 3005

Telephone

+49(0)761/203-3219

E-mail

michael.riessler@skandinavistik.uni-freiburg.de
joshua.wilbur@skandinavistik.uni-freiburg.de

Members

• Dr. Michael Rießler (head of the research group)
• Dr. Joshua Wilbur (post-doc, DFG)
• Dr. Ruprecht von Waldenfels (guest researcher)
• Niko Partanen, M.A. (PhD student)
• Lena Terhart, M.A. (PhD student)
• Evgenia Zhivotova, M.A. (affiliated PhD student [University of Leipzig])
• Iris Perkmann (graduate student assistent)

Projects

• Language Documentation meets Language Technology: The Next Step in the Description of Komi (at the Department of Modern Languages, University of Uppsala)
• funded by: Koneen Säätiö / Kone Foundation
• Principal investigators: Michael Rießler [with Rogier Blokland (project administrator), Niko Partanen]
• Planned duration: 3/2017-2/2020
• Syntactic patterns in Pite Saami: A corpus-based exploration of 130 years of variation and change
• funded by: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation)
• Principal investigator: Joshua Wilbur
• Planned duration: 7/2016-6/2019
• The changing environment of the North: Cultural representations and uses of water (CEN) (at the University of Eastern Finland and the University of Tampere)
• funded by: Academy of Finland
• Affiliated researcher: Michael Rießler
• Planned duration: 9/2017–8/2021
• Grammatical Descriptions, Corpora, and Language Technology for Indigenous Northern Eurasian Languages (at the Department of Uralic Studies and HZSK, University of Hamburg)
• funded by: Academies' Programme at The Academy of Sciences and Humanities in Hamburg
• Second applicant: Michael Rießler [with Beáta Wagner-Nagy (first applicant and project administrator)]
• Planned duration: 1/2016-12/2033
• Book series Samica
• Editors: Michael Rießler and Joshua Wilbur together with Thomas Mohnike (Strasbourg)
• funded by:
• Finnish Literature Exchange (FILI) (first volume)
• Duoddara Ráfe Pite Saami Center and Arjeplog municipality (second volume)
• Østsamisk museum (third volume [in preparation])
• Duration: since 10/2014

Networks

• CLARIN-D F-AG 3
• Discipline-specific Working Group on "Linguistic Fieldwork, Anthropology, Language Typology" (member Michael Rießler)
• The ACL Special Interest Group on Uralic Languages
• Group of members of the Association for Computational Linguistics promoting interest in Uralistics, incl. the organization of regular meetings and workshops (board member Michael Rießler)
• poga - The Language Survival Network
• International network of researchers, coordinated from Freiburg and Helsinki (coordination Michael Rießler)
• Från kust til kyst - Áhpegáttest áhpegáddáj
• Interdisciplinary research project including anthropologists, geographers and linguists covering the Pite Saami region (external collaboration Joshua Wilbur)
• Biological Evolution and Diversification of Languages (BEDLAN) (University of Turku)
• Interdisciplinary research project including biologists and linguists (external collaboration Michael Rießler)
• Giellatekno (University of Tromsø)
• Language technology for Northern Eurasian languages (external collaboration Michael Rießler and Joshua Wilbur)
• Project Ob-Ugric Database (LM University of Munich)
• Project creating the OUDB Archive (external collaboration Michael Rießler)

Events

Workshops and Conferences

upcoming

• Michael Rießler [with Benjamin Fagard, Niko Partanen, Thierry Poibeau] Computational Methods for Endangered Language Documentation and Description, 1-2 February, Paris

2018

• Michael Rießler [with Jack Rueter, Tommi A. Pirinen, Trond Trosterud, Francis M. Tyers] Fourth International Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Uralic Languages, 8-9 January, Helsinki

2017

• Michael Rießler, Joshua Wilbur [with Tim Feist, Flore Picard] 3rd Saami Linguistics Symposium, 18-20 October 2017, Freiburg
• Michael Rießler [with Tommi A. Pirinen, Trond Trosterud, Francis M. Tyers] Third International Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Uralic Languages, 23-24 January, St. Petersburg

2016

• [Michael Rießler, with Olga Ivanisheva, Tjeerd de Graaf] Conference Documentation, Standardization and Teaching of Endangered Languages in Northern Eurasia, 25-26 November, Murmansk
• PhD Workshop on Language Documentation, Corpus Building and Corpus-Based Studies, 20-21 July 2016 (organized by the research group)

Public Relations

2017

• "По стопам иврита: есть ли шанс у саамского языка" (Interview about the endangered Saami languages with Michael Rießler for BBC Russia), 29 November 2017
• "7000 Sprachen – wie und warum Forscher die sprachliche Diversität erforschen und bewahren möchten" (Invited lecture by Michael Rießler at the Bremer Gesellschaft zu Freiburg), 13 June 2017
• "200 Videos for Memory's Sake" (press release with video feature about the Izhva-Komi Documentation Project), 15 March 2017
• "Am 6. Februar feiert die Urbevölkerung Nordeuropas den Tag der Samen" (The indigenous people of Northern Europe celebrate Saami National Day on February 6th), including excepts from an interview with Joshua Wilbur, in the newspaper Badische Zeitung 6 February 2017
• National Geographic February 2017 (scientific consultation for the German language edition of the journal by Michael Rießler)

2016

• Die Saamen: Das indigene Volk des hohen Nordens (The Saami: the indigenous people of the far north); presentation for the general public at the Stuttgarter Buchwochen, Joshua Wilbur, 27 November 2016
• Expert in the spotlight, Mercator webpage featuring Michael Rießler at the "ask the expert-section" for July/August 2016
• "Vilken framtid har pitesamiskan?" (What does the future hold for the Pite Saami language?), Interview with several Pite Saami speakers and with Joshua Wilbur (starting at 5m06s) Swedish Saami Radio 1 January 2016

Presentations

Upcoming

2018

• Michael Rießler, Niko Partanen [with KyungTae Lim, Thierry Poibeau]: "Dependency parsing of code-switching data with cross-lingual feature representations" (Poster), Fourth International Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Uralic languages, 8-9 January 2018, Helsinki

2017

• Michael Rießler: "Data management, corpus building, archiving in Freiburg-based language documentation projects", CLARIN-D F-AG 3 Workshop, 5 October 2017, Hamburg
• Michael Rießler: "NLP in endangered language documentation: Building and investigating corpora for under-resourced languages of the Barents Sea region", Workshop: OV to VO, VO to OV, 23-24 June 2017, Bielefeld
• Michael Rießler: "NLP in endangered language documentation: Building and investigating corpora for under-resourced languages of the Barents Sea region", HUMSS Colloquium, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, 12 June 2017, Freiburg
• Michael Rießler [with Nikolay Hakimov]: "Fusion outside the clause: The case of vernacular Kildin Saami", Conference: Contact-Driven Multilingual Practices, 1–2 June 2017, Helsinki
• Michael Rießler: "Technology in Endangered Language Documentation and Description", Conference: Travaux de terrains anthropologiques et linguistiques: expériences et difficultés, 18-20 May 2017, Paris
• Michael Rießler [with Mervi de Heer, Terhi Honkola, Unni-Päivä Leino, Kaj Syrjänen, Outi Vesakoski]: "Basic vocabulary and the phylogenetic approach to the study of Uralic language history", Conference: Contextualizing Historical Lexicology, 15-17 May 2017, Helsinki
• Niko Partanen: "OCR", International Scientific Conference Electronic Writing of RF Peoples: History, Issues, and Perspectives, 16-17 March 2017, Syktyvkar, Komi Republic, Russia
• Michael Rießler: "Language Documentation meets Language Technology", International Scientific Conference Electronic Writing of RF Peoples: History, Issues, and Perspectives, 16-17 March 2017, Syktyvkar, Komi Republic, Russia
• Joshua Wilbur: "The Pite Saami lexicographic backbone", International Scientific Conference Electronic Writing of RF Peoples: History, Issues, and Perspectives, 16-17 March 2017, Syktyvkar, Komi Republic, Russia
• Michael Rießler: "Kildin Saami: News from the documentation and description of a severely endangered Uralic language", Guest lecture, 30 January 2017, Munich
• Michael Rießler [with Nikolay Hakimov]: "Fusion outside the clause: The case of vernacular Kildin Saami", Conference: From Language Mixing to Fused Lects, 25-27 January 2017, Freiburg
• Michael Rießler, Niko Partanen [with Ciprian Gerstenberger]: "Instant annotations: Applying NLP methods to the annotation of spoken language documentation corpora" (Poster), Third International Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Uralic languages, 23 January 2017, St. Petersburg
• Michael Rießler: "From Lappology to Indigenous (Saami) Studies: History of ideas and history of research", Conference: Indigeneity in the Arctic: Local and Global Experiences, 19–20 January 2017, Helsinki

2016

• Michael Rießler: "News from the documentation and description of a severely endangered Uralic language", Conference: Documentation, Standardization and Teaching of Endangered Languages in Northern Eurasia, 25-26 November 2016, Murmansk
• Michael Rießler: "Kildin Saami: News from the documentation and description of a severely endangered Uralic language", Guest lecture, 16 December 2016, Helsinki
• Michael Rießler: "Saami languages and literatures in Russia", Conference: Journées Sames, 18–19 November 2016, Paris
• Michael Rießler: "Language documentation meets language technology (Building Saamic and Permic speech corpora)", Guest lecture, 11 November 2016, Tartu
• Michael Rießler: "Kildin Saami: News from the documentation and description of a severely endangered Uralic language", Guest lecture, 10 November 2016, Tartu
• Michael Rießler: "Utilizing open FST technology for the documentation and description of endangered northern Eurasian languages (Language documentation meets NLP)", INEL Kickoff-Workshop, 3-4 November 2016, Hamburg
• Michael Rießler: "Kildin Saami: News from the documentation and description of a severely endangered Uralic language", Guest lecture, 24 October 2016, Paris
• Michael Rießler: "Language documentation meets language technology", Guest lecture, 19 October 2016, Paris
• Joshua Wilbur: "Pitesamiskt ordboksarbete: på papper och på skärm", Samisk språk - fortid og nåtid, 29 October 2016, The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Oslo, Norway
• Joshua Wilbur: "Pitesamisk ordbok samt stavningsregler", Samiska kulturveckan, 3 October 2016, Arjepog, Sweden
• Michael Rießler [with Rogier Blokland]: "Typology and evolution of palatal and palatalised consonants in the languages of northeastern European Russia", 49th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, 31 August-3 September 2016, University of Naples Federico II, Naples
• Michael Rießler [with Anja Harder]: "Towards a universal ontology of noun phrase types in Uralic and other languages", Workshop on Typology of Uralic Languages: Towards Better Comparability, 49th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea, 31 August-3 September 2016, University of Naples Federico II, Naples
• Michael Rießler [with Mervi de Heer, Terhi Honkola, Jenni Leppänen, Timo Rantanen, Outi Vesakoski]: "BEDLAN: Language data revealing human (pre)history", Workshop 'Archeogenetics in the Archipelago', 1-5 August 2016, Archipelago Research Institute of the University of Turku, Seili
• Michael Rießler: A survey of Kildin Saami literacy practices, Workshop on Endangered Languages and Endangered Literatures, 11 July 2016, Universität Bielefeld
• Joshua Wilbur: "Towards a Pite Saami lexicography: Creating a dictionary from a community-driven wordlist", Dictionary Journal Workshop, 9 April 2016, Institute for Linguistics, Universität Leipzig, Germany
• Joshua Wilbur: "Bidumsáme Báhkogirrje: Challenges and Opportunities in Producing Pite Saami Lexicographic Materials" Aktasne - Together: New concepts, theories and methodologies on Sami studies II 9-11 March 2016, Umeå universitet
• Michael Rießler [with Julia Reitze]: "Methods of Saami Language Documentation in Theory and Practice (Work with Legacy Data from the Extinct Neiden Dialect of Skolt Saami)" Aktasne - Together: New concepts, theories and methodologies on Sami studies II 9-11 March 2016, Umeå universitet
• Michael Rießler [with Rogier Blokland]: "Population contacts in the light of loanwords in easternmost and southernmost Saami". The Fennoscandian and Finno-Ugric past in the light of genes, languages and cultures, 10-11 February 2016, University of Turku

Publications

Databases

2009+

• Komi-Iźva
• The Language Archive (TLA) at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen

2008+

• Pite Saami
• Endangered Languages Archiveat the School of Oriental and African Studies, London

2005+

• Kola Saami (Kildin, Ter, Akkala und Skolt)
• The Language Archive (TLA) at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen

Print

In Preparation

• Michael Rießler: Kildin Saami. Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages, ed. by Marianne Bakró-Nagy, Johanna Laakso and Elena Skribnik. Oxford: OUP.
• Michael Rießler [with Felix Ameka, Jonathan Blumtritt, Lissant Bolton, Vera Szöllösi Brenig, Irmgarda Kasinskaite Buddeberg, Brian Carpenter, Hilaria Cruz, Sebastian Drude, Patience L. Epps, Vera Ferreira, Colleen Fitzgerald, Ana Vilacy Galucio, Lauren Gawne, Brigit Hellwig, Oliver Hinte, Gary Holton, Maja Kominko, Manfred Krifka, Susan Kung, Miyuki Monroig, Bhanu Neupane, Ayu’nwi Ngwabe Neba, Sebastian Nordhoff, Brigitte Pakendorf, Kilu von Prinz, Felix Rau, Keren Rice, Mandana Seyfeddinipur, Nick Thieberger, Paul Trilsbeek, Hein van der Voort, and Tony Woodbury]. "Public access to research data in language research and documentation. White paper." In: Language Documentation & Conservation.

Forthcoming

• Michael Rießler [with Ciprian Gerstenberger, Niko Partanen]: "Instant annotations in ELAN corpora of spoken and written Komi, an endangered language of the Barents Sea region." In: Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on the Use of Computational Methods in the Study of Endangered Languages. (ACL Anthology).
• Joshua Wilbur [with Erich Kasten, Katja Roller (eds.)]: Oral History Meets Linguistics. Fürstenberg: Verlag der Kulturstiftung Sibirien.
• Michael Rießler, Joshua Wilbur: "Documenting endangered oral histories of the Arctic. A proposed symbiosis for language documentation, language technology, and oral history research" In: E. Kasten, K. Roller, J. Wilbur (eds), Oral History Meets Linguistics. Fürstenberg: Verlag der Kulturstiftung Sibirien.

2017

• Michael Rießler [with Tommi A. Pirinen, Trond Trosterud, Francis M. Tyers (eds.)]: Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Uralic languages. (ACL Anthology).
• Niko Partanen, Michael Rießler, Joshua Wilbur [with Ciprian Gerstenberger]: "Instant annotations. Applying NLP methods to the annotation of spoken language documentation corpora." In: Tommi A. Pirinen, Michael Rießler, Trond Trosterud, and Francis M. Tyers (eds.) Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Computational Linguistics for Uralic languages. 25-36.

2016

• Michael Rießler, Joshua Wilbur, Niko Partanen [with Ciprian Gerstenberger]. "Utilizing language technology in the documentation of endangered Uralic languages>." In: <em>Northern European Journal of Language Technology.<em> 4: 29-47.
• Michael Rießler [with Kristina Kotcheva]: Complementizers in Kildin, North and Skolt Saami. Semantic functions of complementizers in European languages (Empirical Approaches to Language Typology [EALT]), ed. by Kaspar Boye and Petar Kehayov. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. (in print)
• Niko Partanen [with Janne Saarikivi]: Fragmentation of Karelian language and its community: growing variation at the threshold of the language shift. New and Old Language Diversities, ed. by Reetta Toivanen and Janne Saarikivi. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
• Michael Rießler: Adjective attribution. (Studies in Diversity Linguistics 2). Berlin: Language Science Press. 2016.
• Joshua Wilbur (editor). Pitesamisk ordbok samt stavningsregler, Samica 2. Freiburg: Department of Scandinavian Studies, University Freiburg. 2016.
• Joshua Wilbur. "Stavningsregler." In: J. Wilbur (ed.), Pitesamisk ordbok samt stavningsregler, Samica 2. Freiburg: Department of Scandinavian Studies, University Freiburg. 2016.
• Joshua Wilbur [with N. Bengtsson, M. Eriksson, I. Fjällås, E. Rosenberg, G. Sivertsen, V. Sjaggo, D. Skaile, P. Steggo]. "Pitesamisk ordbok." In: J. Wilbur (ed.), Pitesamisk ordbok samt stavningsregler, Samica 2. Freiburg: Department of Scandinavian Studies, University Freiburg. 2016.

Teaching

SoSe 2016

• PROSEMINAR (Joshua Wilbur): Morphologie der nordeuropäischen Sprachen

WiSe 2015/16

6-11 July 2016

• LECTURE and TUTORIALS (Michael Rießler): The practice of documentation (tools, techniques, software), Kone Summer School on the Documentation and Description of Uralic languages

Supervision of students

PhD Theses

2014+

• Niko Partanen: Dissertation project (working title) "Documentary Sociolinguistics of Izhva-Komi diaspora varieties" (supervised by Michael Rießler)
• Hanna Thiele: Dissertation project (working title) "A Corpus-based microtypology of word order in varieties of Saami and Kurdish" (supervised by Michael Rießler)
• Evgenia Zhivotova: Dissertation project (working title) "Variation and change in function words in Kildin Saami" (supervised by Michael Rießler)

Masters Theses

2015

• Nadia Dobrodeyeva: M.A. thesis on discourse particles in Komi-Russian language contact (supervised by Michael Rießler)
• Miriam Hecker: M.A. thesis on relative constructions in Pite Saami (supervised by Joshua Wilbur)

Bachelor Theses

2015

• Lisa Bölzner: B.A. thesis on contrastive German-Swedish phraseology (supervised by Michael Rießler)
• Hanna Burkhardt: B.A. thesis on the morphology of recent English loan words in Swedish (supervised by Joshua Wilbur)
• Lilli Oksanen: B.A. thesis on the status and future of Swedish in Finland (supervised by Michael Rießler)

Internships

2015

• Nadia Dobrodeyeva: Building a speech corpus for the investigation of code-switching between Russian and native languages of the Barents area (supervised by Michael Rießler)