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Ainu grammars

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 2:01 pm
by Frislander
Can anyone find any decent grammars of Ainu on the Internet. I've been searching a long time and the only one I seem to come up with is a very old one by John Batchelor from the turn of the 20th century, which is not the best, as you will understand. Can anyone find anything more up-to-date and usable?

Re: Ainu grammars

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 2:42 pm
by Vijay
There's this grammar in Russian, but I don't remember whether you speak Russian, and I have no idea how useful it actually is anyway.

Re: Ainu grammars

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 2:44 pm
by Frislander
No I don't speak Russian, sorry.

Re: Ainu grammars

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 2:58 pm
by Vijay
Yeah, apparently, there's really very little online for Ainu! There are some lessons in Japanese from Radio Sapporo, though, with a translation into English on the site whose forum I migrated here from. :P Unfortunately there just doesn't seem to be that much else.

Re: Ainu grammars

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 8:08 pm
by zompist
There's a short grammatical sketch of Ainu in Shibatani's The Languages of Japan. (Not electronic, sorry, but your local university might have it.)

Re: Ainu grammars

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 9:42 pm
by vokzhen
The Grammar Pile has a couple, though they're still a bit dated and none are in the form or with the density of a modern grammar, clocking in in the 100-page range rather than the 400-500+ with a lot of juicy details like a modern-format grammar will give you.

Re: Ainu grammars

Posted: Mon Mar 21, 2016 9:55 pm
by clawgrip
I tried a quick search on Google in Japanese, and most results seem to point to this book. The publisher's website lists it at 416 pages, and it looks like it's fairly in-depth. Unfortunately, it's very expensive and, of course, written in Japanese.

Re: Ainu grammars

Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 1:57 am
by Cedh
vokzhen wrote:The Grammar Pile has a couple, though they're still a bit dated and none are in the form or with the density of a modern grammar, clocking in in the 100-page range rather than the 400-500+ with a lot of juicy details like a modern-format grammar will give you.
Shibatani 1990
Refsing 1986
Simeon 1968

Re: Ainu grammars

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 5:31 am
by kuroda
Cedh wrote:
vokzhen wrote:The Grammar Pile has a couple, though they're still a bit dated and none are in the form or with the density of a modern grammar, clocking in in the 100-page range rather than the 400-500+ with a lot of juicy details like a modern-format grammar will give you.
Shibatani 1990
Refsing 1986
Simeon 1968
Yeah, actually, as far as I know[*], even knowing Japanese, I think those are still among the least dated and most linguistically meaty pieces you're going to find ;(

[*Not a serious student of Ainu, or even a mad fan, but I do try to keep an eye out for new publications on it.]

Re: Ainu grammars

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2016 6:18 am
by Frislander
Cedh wrote:
vokzhen wrote:The Grammar Pile has a couple, though they're still a bit dated and none are in the form or with the density of a modern grammar, clocking in in the 100-page range rather than the 400-500+ with a lot of juicy details like a modern-format grammar will give you.
Shibatani 1990
Refsing 1986
Simeon 1968
Thank you very much.