In today’s post, we introduce another member of the FEL Executive Committee.
Tjeerd de Graaf
I live in the Netherlands and am associated with the Mercator Centre of the Fryske Akademy in Ljouwert (Leeuwarden). My current interest is the digitisation and description of analogue sound recordings and their use for scientific and educational purposes. Some of my own material is related to the language of the Siberian Mennonites who spoke Plautdietsch, a variety of Low German, which is related to dialects in the North of the Netherlands.
In 2019 we finished the publication of a volume with articles on historical data for several languages in Eurasia, including Uralic languages in a book on North and East Tartary by the Amsterdam scholar Nicolaas Witsen. My work is also related to the Foundation for Siberian Cultures and the publication of Regional Dossiers on the teaching of minority languages by the Mercator Centre of the Frisian Academy. We prepared several issues in this series, such as one on the teaching of Hungarian in Slovakia, Romania, Slovenia and Ukraine, as well as of some endangered languages of Russia (Nenets, Khanty, Selkup, Udmurt). More information is available on my website at the Mercator Centre.