Journal of Language Relationship Memorandum

The Journal of Language Relationship, an international peer-reviewed journal supervised by the Center of Comparative Linguistics at Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH) and the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Science, focuses on issues of various types of historical relationship between the world’s languages, including problems of methodology, distinguishing genetic relationship from areal contacts, short-range versus long-range comparison, as well as practical problems of linguistic taxonomy and phylogeny (including contact edges). The Journal also considers papers in all areas of comparative-historical linguistics, with a preference for less studied language families. Our main aims are to stimulate additional interest in these fields and to provide the scientific community with a viable means of promoting dialogue and, hopefully, cooperation between specialists occupying different theoretical platforms.

The Journal appears twice a year (in two volumes containing two issues each), with an average issue of 70 to 80 pages. Besides original research papers, publications may include book reviews and chronicles of important events in comparative linguistics, such as reports from conferences or working groups. Occasionally we are publishing special thematic issues. The main working languages of the Journal are English and Russian (articles in French and German are also acceptable). All the papers published in the Journal are provided with English summaries and bibliographies in the Roman script.

Paper versions of the Journal are published in Russia by the Russian State University for the Humanities and in the United States by Gorgias Press. The two mirror versions are distributed within and outside the Commonwealth of Independent States respectively. In accordance with the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Journal of Language Relationship provides immediate open online access to its content in order to promote swifter and more efficient global exchange of knowledge. All papers are published in Platinum Open Access model (free for authors, free for readers). New papers are placed on the official website of the Journal as soon as they are published on paper.

Please remember that your article will generally have more chances to be accepted for publication if

it focuses on historical and / or areal comparison between languages or groups of languages, rather than individual issues in the history or internal reconstruction of just one particular language;
it discusses freshly observed problems or presents brand new solutions to the comparative issues under discussion based on sound methodological premises;
it is made as accessible as possible to the general audience of the Journal, which is intended to include everyone with an interest in historical linguistics and major parts of which will have little special knowledge about the particular languages and language families dealt with in many of the publications.

As a side note, the Editors strongly encourage publications on languages and language families that do not yet have a major tradition of comparative research conducted by hundreds of specialists attached to them, since one of our stated goals is to promote historical research on lesser known and studied languages, in order to bring more balance into the field.