Details: Category: Linguistics

In 1980 a group gathered in Leiden to discuss a project to publish 50-page descriptions of all the languages of the Caucasus. This was meant to be a rough equivalent in English to Jazyki Narodov SSSR, Iberijsko-Kavkazskie Jazyki (Moscow, 1967), with the essential difference that information on syntax, neglected in that earlier volume, would be given due weight. Present at the meeting were: J.A.C. Greppin (series editor), R. Smeets, D.M. Job, M. Van Esbroeck, A.C. Harris, and myself. Seventeen years later publication, sadly, remains incomplete, largely because of the usual difficulties associated with any joint-undertaking involving colleagues from the former Soviet Union.

The first volume to appear was No. 2, edited by myself and devoted to the North West Caucasian languages; it was published by Caravan Books in 1989. The second to appear was No. 1, edited by Alice C. Harris and devoted to the Kartvelian languages; it appeared in 1991. Third to appear was No. 4 Part 2, edited by Rieks Smeets and devoted to the three Nakh languages and to six minor Lezgian tongues; it appeared in 1994. The only review of any of these tomes that I have seen was of this last; it was by Martin Haspelmath in Language 72.1 (1996).

I myself have several observations to make on the South Caucasian volume, but I begin with some corrections to my own.

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