Jump to content

The Last of the Vostiaks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from The Last of the Vostyachs)

2002 Italian edition (publ. Bompiani)

The Last of the Vostiaks (Italian: L'ultimo dei Vostiachi; also published as The Last of the Vostyachs) is a 2001 novel by the Italian writer Diego Marani. It is a satire of bias and prejudice in academic and philological research. It raises questions about language as an identity symbol and the solitude of the last speaker of a language about to disappear.

Plot

[edit]

The central character is a Siberian native, who has been prisoner in a Gulag and who speaks a language that has almost disappeared, one that keeps the last vestige of a vanished sound, the lateral fricative with labiovelar appendix. A Russian student comes to understand him and wants to show him to a congress on Uralic languages in Helsinki. However, a purist Finnish professor attempts to prevent the innocent Siberian appearance there as a living proof of the philological connection between the Finnish language and the American natives. The plot includes a Lapp pimp, country cottages with saunas, vacation boats in the Baltic Sea, and sometimes the narration takes a rowdy tone with reminiscences of Wilt by Tom Sharpe.

Language Itself

[edit]

The language itself is said by some readers to be a descendant of Proto-Uralo-Siberian.[1]

Reception

[edit]

The novel was longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (2013).[2]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Clongify Vostyach, retrieved 2022-12-18
  2. ^ Boyd Tonkin: From Syria to Colombia, and Albanian to Afrikaans, enjoy a global feast, Independent, March 2, 2013.