S. Verhees. The role of multilingualism in Botlikh narratives // N. Sumbatova, I. Kapitonov, M. Khachaturyan, S. Oskolskaya, S. Verhees (eds.). Songs and Trees: Papers in Memory of Sasha Vydrina. St. Petersburg: Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2023. P. 425-450.

 Dagestan forms a complex multilingual society with high language density and diversity, where people traditionally spoke several neighboring languages alongside their mother tongue. The area is also characterized by intensive cultural exchange with cultures and languages of the Middle East, as well as other indigenous peoples of the Caucasus. This paper investigates how patterns of multilingualism manifest themselves in narratives in Botlikh, an East Caucasian language spoken in western Dagestan. I look at the choice of language, presence of overt code-switching and other means of incorporating linguistic identities into a story, as well as shared (and possibly borrowed) folkloric motifs, opening formulas and narrative strategies.
Songs and Trees: Papers in Memory of Sasha Vydrina / ed. by Nina Sumbatova, Ivan Kapitonov, Maria Khachaturyan, Sofia Oskolskaya, Samira Verhees. — St. Petersburg: Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2023. — 587 p. Песни и дерев