The Department was founded in May 2011 and consists of two sections: Department of typology (headed by full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vladimir Plungian) and Department of Areal Linguistics (headed by PhD Andrej Kibrik).
The main direction of the Department is the areal-typological study of the languages of the world at all levels, especially on grammatical and lexical. The material of Indo-European languages (Slavic, Germanic, Romance, Iranian languages), Uralic languages, Tungusic languages, Nakh-Daghestanian languages, Abkhazo-Adyghean languages, Austronesian languages, Australian Aboriginal languages, Austroasiatic languages, Niger–Congo languages, Sino-Tibetan languages, Semitic languages and other languages is used.
Department head is PhD Andrej Kibrik.
Ongoing projects of the Department
- Encyclopedia "Languages of the World"
- Grammar description and dictionary of Indo-Aryan languages Kullui (2016-2018, RFBR No. 16-34-01040, supervisor Elena Knyazeva)
- Moscow languages (2016-2018, RFBR No. 16-04-00474, supervisor Julia Mazurova)
- Languages as it is: Russian multimodal discourse (2014-2018, Russian Science Foundation No. 14-18-03819, supervisor Andrej Kibrik)
- Dynamics of linguistic contacts in the circumpolar region (2017-2019, RSF No. 17-18-01649, supervisor Olga Khanina)
- The syntax of the Entsy language in typological coverage (2017-2019, RFBR No. 17-34-01068, supervisor Olga Khanina)