The 29th International Conference of Altaic Studies
by Zi Qun
(tr.: Oliver Corff)
The 29th International Conference on Altaic Studies was held in Tashkent, USSR, from 15 to 21 September 1986. The conference was attended by about 270 scholars from one country, including about 200 from the Soviet side and a total of 69 scholars from other countries. It was the first time that our country participated in the conference. Three people, including Rinchendorji [仁钦道尔吉], Deputy Director of the Institute of Minority Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Chen Wei [陈伟], Deputy Translator of the Institute of Ethnic Studies, and Comrade Jiang Miza [江米扎] of the Xinjiang Folk Literature Committee, were warmly welcomed and received by scholars from the host country, the Soviet Union, and other countries when they attended the conference.
The [Permanent] International Altaistics Conference is very influential in the international academic community. Altaic Studies are an integral part of Oriental Studies.
The conference was divided into four groups: 1) History and Ethnology; 2) Literature and Art; 3) Altaic Linguistics; 4) Turkic Mongolian, Manchu Tungus and Far Eastern Linguistics. The conference was a very intense and lively event, with a wide range of contacts and exchanges between the participants. The day before the closing ceremony, the conference organised a visit to the historical city of Samarkand.
The congress was concluded with a presentation on “On Typology in Linguistic Communities” by Corresponding Academician Sontsev, a presentation on “The Ritual Language of Turkic Peoples” by A. T. Kedarov, Director of the Institute of Linguistics of the Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan, and a summary of the panel discussions and presentations by the various groups.