Introduction: JSL Silver Anniversary Issue

Abstract

This issue of Journal of Slavic Linguistics celebrates its Silver Anniversary. Yes, though you may not have noticed (time flies when you are having fun), JSL has now been appearing uninterrupted for 25 years. When it gets down to it, for an academic journal the cliché is truth—survival is success. And for a new journal to have survived for the past 25 years is no small feat. The time of JSL’s existence since volume 1, issue 1, in 1993 has spanned many changes, including that from a fairly pre-digital age to our hyper-digital one (here I would point out that early on one article by a respected Slavist was submitted in handwritten form), as well as the transition from the academic (and Slavistic) structures of the Cold-War era to a new age, and numerous changes in the field of linguistics (such as the ascendance of usage-based and sociological approaches to language and quantitative methods alongside formal approaches). These changes, in one way or another, are reflected in the pages of JSL. JSL was established by George Fowler and Steven Franks at Indiana University in 1992 to fill a gap—there was no journal dedicated to Slavic linguistics as a whole in North America. Since its inception, JSL has assumed a prominent position in the international Slavic linguistics community, and in 2006 became the flagship publication of the Slavic Linguistics Society. Beyond the changes in the world at large mentioned above, the inevitable impermanency of organization also complicates the continuity of any journal, and in this regard JSL has shown the necessary flexibility, responding to the need for personnel changes along the way. The editorial team of George Fowler and Steven Franks was changed in 1994; George Fowler became Editor-in-Chief with a team of three associate editors, and then in 1997 Steven Franks took over and has remained Editor-in-Chief to date. The first three volumes of JSL were published by the Indiana University Linguistics Club, then it was published independently until being adopted by Slavica Publishers starting with volume 5, issue 2. It would take too much space to acknowledge all those who have otherwise assisted and aided in the publication of JSL; however, we should gratefully acknowledge Rosemarie Connolly’s service as Managing Editor over the past ten years. Anyone who has been