Current Issues in Eurasian Scholarship

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Abduvalieva provides a personal account of Chingiz Aitmatov's oeuvre, including his role as a screenwriter and how his stories can be seen as continuing the Kirghiz oral tradition. She also
discusses his international fame and examines the role of Friedrich Hitzer and Louis Aragon in translating and promoting Aitmatov's work in Germany and France. Makharoblidze elucidates the origin of the Georgian sign language (GESL) in spite of the paucity of materials, historical sources and textual records of its early development. GESL developed when it became clear that Russian Sign Language could not correctly render Georgian language categories. Makharoblidze also lists the specific linguistic systemic differences between these languages. Lobzhanidze describes the Universal Dependencies Scheme for Georgian, which ensures the compatibility of annotation schemes cross-linguistically and enriches the universal dependencies with Georgian data. It also assists in compiling the Test Treebank for Georgian. Beynen analyzes the Lion-Leopard Fight in Shota Rustaveli's “The Man in the Panther Skin;” a puzzling episode that seems to contradict the message of Rustaveli's poem that love, and friendship, conquer all, and discusses Konrad Lorenz's view on love and friendship.

Sub Unit

• Anthropology, Cultural Studies

Chair

• Bert Beynen, Temple U

Papers

• The Origin of Georgian Sign Language (GESL) - Tamar Makharoblidze, Ilia State U (Georgia)

• The UD Scheme and the Test Treebank of Georgian - Irina Lobzhanidze, Ilia State U (Georgia)

• The Lion-Leopard Fight in Shota Rustaveli's 'The Man in the Panther Skin' - Bert Beynen, Temple U

Session Manager

• Liladhar R. Pendse, UC Berkeley