MRT as a Method of Fixation and Preservation of Disappearing Verbs

Urtegeshev N.S., Savel’ev A.A., Ganenko Yu.A.
(Novosibirsk, Russia)

(57th Annual Meeting of the PIAC Vladivostok, 2014)

MRT as a Method of Fixation and Preservation of Disappearing Verbs

According to UNESCO data, in the Russian Federation 110 languages are under the threat of disappearance. If grammar, syntax and vocabulary could be studied on written sources, but phonetics, above all, studying articulation is possible only as long as bearers of language are alive. Studying enunciation is necessary for it reflects all basic qualities of the language – social and individual nature of the language activity, its dependence on general laws of philology and psychology, anatomic and neuro-psychological peculiarities of speech-producing, high degree of organization system (systematic character) and hierarchy. That is why the interest to studying construction and work of sound section was originated and is active since the ancient times. While the society is developing, technical possibilities are expanded, there appeared new ways of study and fixation of the work of speech organs. Thanked to the active usage of instrumental methods since the middle of the 20th с. (radiography, palatography, sectrography) that liquidate the factor of subjectivity, knowledge of linguists about the system – structure. The organization of language phonetic systems and about the specificity of articulation-acoustic bases of ethnic communities have got considerable development. Nowadays there is the necessity to transfer investigation on studying biomechanics of sound section on qualitative new methodological and apparatus level.

The disappearance of any language, even the smallest ethnic community is an irreplaceable loss for all the mankind; and so the most important and urgent task for various specialists (especially linguists) is the task of systematic and successive fixation, study and description of sound systems of minoritarian languages and territorial dialects. The usage оf MRT data (Magnetic –Resonance Tomography) for creating language base of minotorian poorly studied and those being on verge of the complete disappearance of people, in particular, the peoples of Siberia, is intended on presenting and restoration of vanishing languages. Besides, the morpho-functional data could be used in lor – surgery, neurological practice and logopaedics aiming at estimate and correction of broken speech.

The MRT method gives new possibilities for getting information on the mechanism of forming voice and ethnographic value with a perspective of creation of  the scope-dynamic model for the realization of “artificial voice” (voice processor).