Some Peculiarities of Data Сollection in Field Study of Isolating Languages in Vietnam

This chapter is based on the fieldwork experience of the Russian–Vietnamese Linguistic Expedition (1979–2019) of which the author was a member. The Expedition was dedicated to the study of languages spoken by ethnic minorities in Vietnam. The languages of Vietnam are part of the Mainland Southeast Asia (MSEA) linguistic area (See Enfield. Annual review of Anthropology 34:181–206, 2005) that includes five language macrofamilies. Almost all representatives of the MSEA linguistic area are isolating languages. Some typological features of isolating languages and consequences of the global monosyllabization of MSEA languages affecting the process of language documentation are considered.