Vershina, a Polish village in Siberia, as a language (dialect) island

Abstract

The problems of language island situation have been present in humanities for over 160 years. However, in spite of the changing world, this question remains valid. The Polish community near Irkutsk – the village of Vershina is a 100-year-old language island. With the flow of time its social, economic, political and language situation has been evolving. The article is an attempt to analyse changes in Vershina’s dialect against the criteria of language island description. The present analysis is based on the results of research so far as well as on the material gathered during field research