‘We Describe Unwritten Languages’
Chiara Naccarato, Research Fellow at the HSE Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, graduated from university in Italy and came to Russia to study the languages of Dahgestan and the speech patterns of bilingual speakers. She notes the friendly atmosphere of the laboratory and the hospitality of the people of Daghestan.
— What brought you to Russia?
— While I was doing my PhD at the University of Pavia, I mainly focused on Russian linguistics. My academic supervisor thought it would be useful for me to come to Russia to meet with local colleagues, exchange ideas, and improve my Russian.
She knew several members of the lab, including its founder Nina Dobrushina. From 2015, I started coming to Moscow regularly—for three months or half a year—and during those visits I got to know colleagues from HSE, attended their classes and seminars.
After completing my PhD in 2017, I had the idea to return to Moscow. That same year, I decided to apply for HSE’s international postdoctoral fellowship programme. I passed the competitive selection and spent three years working under the programme. At first, I did not know how long I would stay, but after just a few months I realised I appreciated the people, the atmosphere of mutual support, and I genuinely enjoyed the work I was doing.
— What exactly did you research?
— Initially, I was invited to study the Russian spoken by bilingual speakers, especially the variety spoken in Daghestan, as well as the unwritten Botlikh language. I should mention that there are quite a few unwritten languages in the republic.
As part of the Typological Atlas of the Languages of Daghestan project, we study several dozen unwritten languages. More recently, we have prepared a linguistic profile of the Godoberi language, continuing our research on its close relative, Botlikh.
— How open are local residents to engaging with you?
— Older people are sometimes hesitant, but not because of distrust—it is more often due to limited knowledge of Russian, which makes communication with us difficult. Those who do speak Russian have been very warm and welcoming, treating us like family. They still invite us to visit.
— How do you find life in Russia, and where did you spend the pandemic?
— I stayed in Moscow during the pandemic and did not go home for nearly a year and a half. I did not see my loved ones—it was a difficult time, but even then, I never considered leaving.
In everyday life and in terms of integrating into society, I have not faced any difficulties at all. On the contrary, when people learn that I am Italian, they become curious about Italian customs and how my family lives.
— Have your research interests changed?
— Not at all—I am still working on bilingual Russian and the languages of Daghestan.
The Linguistic Convergence Laboratory was established in 2017. Its main research focus is the role of convergence processes in language history—that is, situations where contact between speakers of different languages leads to the emergence of shared features. The lab models language convergence processes and develops tools for their study based on electronic corpora of spoken language.
In July 2025, the laboratory released the second version of the Typological Atlas of the Languages of Daghestan. The resource provides information on linguistic phenomena characteristic of Daghestan and offers a variety of visual map-based tools to illustrate their geographic and genealogical distribution. Compared to the previous edition, Version 2.0.0 includes major updates—more than 30 new chapters have been added, and the classification of languages has been revised.
Nina Dobrushina
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