LANGUAGES OF ASIA AND AFRICA (NAUKA)
Series Note: "A remarkable and wide ranging series of descriptive grammars on the languages of Asia and Africa." -- Marijana Dworski Books, Presteigne, Powys, U.K.

This series comprised at least 131 volumes in the Russian language and at least 31 volumes in English, many or all of which were translations of the Russian-language volumes in the same series.

The series was published by the Nauka Publishing House, Central Dept. of Oriental Literature, of Moscow, U.S.S.R. The word "nauka" is Russian for "science". That publishing firm was closely associated with the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences [Akademiia nauk SSSR] and it was previously known as the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences Publishing House .

The Languages of Asia and Africa series was founded by Professor G. P. Serdyuchenko who was the General Editor during the publication of at least the first 75 volumes. Thereafter the series continued under an Editorial Board.

Certain of the distinguished authors in this series appear in Wikipedia (for example, I. M. Diakonoff, V. V. Ivanov and V. N. Toporov).

Credit: Mr. John Mellman, of Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States contributed information and suggested analyses for the above series note and supplied scans of pages of Russian-language listings from The Modern Assyrian Language by K. G. Tsereteli, Moscow, Nauka, 1978 (Languages of Africa and Asia series).

* * *

Description of this series as it was in 1965 (source: Editor's Note in opening pages of Semito-Hamitic Languages: An Essay In Classification by I. M. Diakonoff, Moscow, Nauka, 1965 (Languages of Asia and Africa series):

"Since 1958 the Language Department of the Institute of the Peoples of Asia, USSR Academy of Sciences, has been publishing the "Languages of Asia and Africa" Series in Russian. By the end of 1964 more than 60 booklets, presenting brief outlines of the languages in question, had appeared.

Some of the booklets are devoted to language groups, e. g. Iranian Languages, Languages of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, Mongolian Languages and Dialects of China, Dard Languages, Dravidian Languages.

Most of the booklets, however, describe either individual living languages of the different peoples of Asia and Africa — Arabic, Amharic, Uigur, Modern and Old Written Mongol, Persian, Pashto (Afghan), Farsi-Kabuh, Baluchi, Kurd, Hindi, Urdu, Marathi, Assamese, Telugu, Tamil, Malayalam, Chinese, Tibetan, Chuang, Thai (Siamese), Laotian, Burmese, Vietnamese, Khmer, Indonesian, Tagalog (in the Philippines), Korean, Japanese, Swahili, Hausa, Yoruba, Luganda, Malinke a. o. [and others], or individual languages of the past which have played a considerable historical and cultural role in Asia and Africa: Egyptian, Phoenician, Akkadian, language of the Avesta, Old Persian, Middle Persian, Sanskrit, Pali, Hittite, Old Uigur, Old Chinese, Old Javanese (Kavi), Manchu, etc.

Although most of the essays follow more or less the same plan, there obviously are in each some deviations from the common scheme and other particularities due to the specific features of each language or the degree of elaboration of its problems in preceding studies. The essays on language groups differ somewhat from those on individual languages both in composition and in the scope of the linguistic material used.

The series is intended for a broad circle of linguists and historians — research workers and post-graduate students as well as lecturers and undergraduates of the history and philology departments of the Universities.

The keen interest in the "Languages of the Asia and Africa" Series both in and outside the USSR has led to the publication of English translations of the Series, in order to make it more accessible to readers abroad.

The Editors beg readers to address their wishes and criticisms to:

Editorial Board of the "Languages of Asia and Africa" Series,
Central Department of Oriental Literature,
"Nauka" Publishing House,
Armyansky pereulok 2,
Moscow,
USSR,

for use in case of republication of the essays in English, or an eventual widening of the subject-matter of the Series."


(A) SELECTED ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF ORIGINAL RUSSIAN-LANGUAGE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES

Title / Author / Translator / Year of Publication

Afrasian Languages
by I.M. Diakonoff. Translated from the Russian by A.A. Korolev and V.Ya. Porkhomovsky
1968; 1988

The Akkadian Language
by Lev Aleksandrovich Lipin. Translated from the Russian by D.M. Segal.
1973

The Ancient Japanese Language
by N. A. Syromiatnikov. Translated from the Russian by Y.N. Filippov.
1981

The Avestan Language
by S. N. Sokolov. Translated from the Russian by L. Navrozov.
1967

The Bengali Language
by E. M. Bykova
1981

The Brahui Language
by M. S. Andronov. Translated from the Russian by V. Korotky.
1980

The Buginese Language [The Buginese language of traditional literature]
by U. Sirk. Translated from the Russian by E.H. Tsipan. Edited by L.I. Shkarban.
1983

The Dardic and Nuristani Languages
by D. I. Edelman. Translated from the Russian by E.H. Tsipan. Edited by N.A. Dvoryankov.
1983

Dravidian Languages
by M. S. Andronov. Translated from the Russian by D. M. Segal.
1970

The Gypsy Language
by T. V. Ventzel. Translated from the Russian by S. S. Gitman.
1983

The Kannada Language
by M. S. Andronov. Translated from Russian by V. Korotky.
1969; 1982

The Khmer Language
by Y. A. Gorgoniyev. Translated from the Russian by V. Korotky.
1966

The Language of Yin Inscriptions
by M. V. Kryukov. Translated from the Russian by E. H. Tsipan.
1980

The Lahndi Language
by U. A. Smirnov. Translated from the Russian by E. H. Tsipan.
1975

The Lao Language
by L. N. Morev, A. A. Moskalev, Y. Y. Plam.
1979

The Maghrib Arabic Dialects
by Y. N. Zawadowski. Translated from the Russian by S. S. Gitman and A. Y. Militaryov.
1978

The Maori Language
by Victor Krupa
1968

The Modern Amharic Language
by E. G. Titov. Translated from the Russian by E. H. Tsipan.
1976

The Modern Assyrian Language
by K. G. Tsereteli.
1978

The Modern Mongolian Language
by G. D. Sanzheyev.
1973

The Modern Persian Language
by Yu. A. Rubinchik.
1971

Modern Uigur
by E. N. Nadzhip. Translated from the Russian by D. M. Segal.
1969

The Pali Language
by T. Y. Elizarenkova, V. N. Toporov.
1976

The Rwanda Language
by Ye. Z. Dubnova. Translated from Russian by S. S. Gitman.
1984

Sanskrit
by V. V. Ivanov and V. N. Toporov. Translated from the Russian by D. M. Segal.
1968

Semito-Hamitic Languages: An Essay in Classification
by I. M. Diakonoff.
1965

The Sindhi Language
by R. P. Yegorova.
1971

The Swahili Language: A Descriptive Grammar
by E. N. Mjachina
1971

The Tamil Language
by M. S. Andronov. Translated from the Russian by V. Korotky.
1965

The Written Tibetan language
by Y. M. Parfionovich. Translated from the Russian by S. S. Gitman.
1982

Yazik Braui
by Mikhail Sergeevich Andronov
1971

(B) ORIGINAL RUSSIAN-LANGUAGE VOLUMES IN THIS SERIES

Semito-khamitskie yazyki: opyt klassifikatsii [transcription of the Russian title]
[= On the Semito-Hamitic Languages: An Essay in Classification].
by I. M. D'yakonov [Diakonoff]
Moscow, Nauka, 1965
Series: Iaziki narodov Azii i Afriki [transliteration of Russian-language series title]
(that is, in English, Languages of Asia and Africa).
Paperback. Russian-language text.

The following is a full list of the Russian-language titles that were published in this series from 1959 until 1975.

The list is reproduced from the English version of The Modern Assyrian Language by K. G. Tsereteli, Moscow, Nauka, 1978 (Languages of Africa and Asia series), pages 5-11.























Further Russian-language volumes for the period 1976-1987 are listed in I. M. Diakonoff's Afrasian Languages, Moscow, Nauka, revised edition 1988, pp. 5-12 (click here to view).



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