News

Monday 10 January 2022

Folklore-Linguistic Expedition to Socotra Island

 
From the 4th of December 2021 to the 12th of December 2021 the regular folklore-linguistic expedition to Socotra Island (Yemen) took place under the leadership of the Academician V.Naumkin. The expedition was also attended by L.Kogan and M.Bulakh, the researchers of the Arab and Islamic Studies Center of the Institute of Oriental Studies (Russian Academy of Sciences).

V.Naumkin began researching the folklore, language, history, and culture of Socotra Island in the 1970s and the 80s, and his work in this area has become a classic. In the year 2010 he resumed the field research and involved both Russian scientists and several residents of the Socotra island: Ahmed Issa al-Daarhi, Issa Gumaan al-Daarhi, Maysun Mohammed Amer. The "Russian-Yemeni Working Group" formed in this way successfully continues to collect, analyze, and publish the folklore and linguistic material of Socotra, despite the extremely difficult political situation in the region.

The most important achievement is the publication of the first two volumes of the Corpus of Soqotri Oral Literature (https://brill.com/view/title/26374; https://brill.com/view/title/38120). No less important is the development and implementation of the Socotrian script, created by L.Kogan, D.Cherkashin, Ahmed Issa al-Daarhi and Issa Gumaan al-Daarhi, the members of the "Russian-Yemeni Working Group". 

The Socotri script is successfully used in the Corpus of Oral Socotri Literature publications. This year the first collection of Socotri texts (with translations into Arabic) written in the Socotri script was published. The texts were prepared by the Socotrian members of the "Russian-Yemeni Working Group". This publication was carried out under the general editorship of V.Naumkin.

During a trip to Socotra in December 2021, the expedition members brought 1,000 copies of this book to the island, the appearance of which was enthusiastically welcomed by representatives of the local administration and educators. During the field work in December 2021, research was carried out in the four main areas:

• The completion of work on the third volume of the Corpus of Oral Socotri Literature, the publication of which is scheduled for 2022;
• Collection and primary processing of new folklore material; 
• Collection of material on the verbal system of the Socotri language; 
• Photography of natural objects and artifacts to illustrate the relevant Socotri language terms in the third volume of the Corpus of Oral Socotri Literature. 

The work was mainly carried out in the capital of Socotra, Hadibo. To take photographs, a three-day trip was made to the village of Daarho in the central part of the island. The extensive folklore and linguistic material collected during the expedition will be used in new publications of the “Russian-Yemeni Working Group”.