Motoki Nomachi

Professor of Slavic linguistics, Slavic-Eurasian Research Center, Hokkaido University
mnomachi@slav.hokudai.ac.jp

Academic Bio

I have been analyzing grammatical structures in the Slavic languages from the viewpoints of language typology, language contact (areal linguistics), and historical linguistics. I began my scholarly career as a specialist in Russian, particularly its syntax. During M.A., I began examining two South Slavic languages, BCMS and Slovene, in the context of contrastive linguistic analysis of Russian and South Slavic. Since working on my Ph.D. thesis, I have been interested in and intensively studying grammatical changes in minority Slavic languages, focusing particularly on Kashubian, which is spoken mainly in Pomeranian Voivodeship in the northern part of Poland. In addition, I am a sociolinguist and specialize in language policy, language planning, and linguistic landscape from both synchronic and diachronic perspectives. I am specifically interested in the so-called Slavic literary microlanguages and until now, I have conducted numerous field studies on Kashubian and Podlachian (Poland), Burgenland Croatian (Austria), Banat Bulgarian (Serbia and Romania), Bunjevac (Serbia), West Polessian (Belarus and Ukraine), Gorani (Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania) and other areas. Furthermore, I have been an active organizer of various international conferences on Slavic linguistics which were held at SRC and other universities (2011201320152016, and 2018).