Russian Old Settlers’ dialects from a Creolist perspective

Abstract This article addresses the contact-linguistic side of a set of Siberian Russian dialects, that are commonly known as Old Settlers’ dialects ( starožil’českie govory ). As these dialects are closely linked to the colonial expansion of the Russian Empire, especially to its early informal penetration into Siberia and Northern Asia, a contact-linguistic classification as Creole languages should be given due consideration. This article is the first attempt to elucidate the status of Russian Old Settlers’ dialects from a Creolist perspective. As most of these dialects are presently on the brink of extinction, we have to rely for our investigation on the few extant records that have been made available in print in order to assess the contact-linguistic properties of these dialects. As our inquiry concerns the origins of Old Settlers’ dialects, this will mean to uncover deep historical layers from linguistic material that was largely recorded at a time when the dialects in question had already undergone a process of levelling out marked dialect features under the impact of Standard Russian. The task at hand will consist in identifying elements of grammatical restructuring that would point to a so-called radical break of transmission as the key feature of linguistic creolization. In a contrary move we will at the same time look out for features that would potentially contradict claims to this effect, such as non-standard structural features that predate Soviet times and are indicative of only moderate levels of restructuring for the founder period of Old Settlers’ dialects. Due consideration will also be given to historical, especially sociohistorical issues.