Eskimo–Aleut languages

Eskimo–Aleut or Eskaleut is a language family native to Alaska, the Canadian Arctic (Nunavut and Inuvialuit Settlement Region), Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Greenland, and the Chukchi Peninsula on the eastern tip of Siberia. It is also known as Eskaleutian, Eskaleutic,^[2] or Inuit–Yupik-Unangan.^[3]

The Eskimo–Aleut language family is divided into two branches, the Eskimo languages and the Aleut language.

The Aleut language family consists of a single language, Aleut, spoken in the Aleutian Islands and the Pribilof Islands. Aleut is divided into several dialects.

The Eskimo languages are divided into two branches, the Yupik languages, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska and in easternmost Siberia, and the Inuit languages, spoken in northern Alaska, in Canada, and in Greenland. Inuit, which covers a huge range of territory, is divided into several varieties. Neighbouring varieties are quite similar, although those at the farthest distances from the centre in the Diomede Islands and East Greenland are quite divergent.^[4]

The proper place of one language, Sirenik, within the Eskimo family has not been settled. Some linguists list it as a branch of Yupik,^[5] others as a separate branch of the Eskimo family, alongside Yupik and Inuit.^[6]

The Alaska Native Language Center believes that the common ancestral language of the Eskimo languages and of Aleut divided into the Eskimo and Aleut branches at least 4000 years ago.^[4][7] The Eskimo language family divided into the Yupik and Inuit branches around 1000 years ago.^[7]

The Eskimo–Aleut languages are among the native languages of the Americas. This is a geographical category, not a genealogical one. The Eskimo–Aleut languages are not demonstrably related to the other language families of North America^[7] and are believed to represent a separate, and the last, prehistoric migration of people from Asia.

Classification of the family

Eskimo–Aleut languages

Aleut

Western–Central dialects: Atkan, Attuan, Unangan, Bering (60–80 speakers)

Eastern dialects: Unalaskan, Pribilof (400 speakers)

Eskimo languages (or Yupik–Inuit languages)

Yupik (11,000 speakers)

Central Alaskan Yup'ik (10,000 speakers)

General Central Alaskan Yup’ik language (or Yugtun)

Chevak Cup’ik (or Cugtun)

Nunivak Cup'ig (or Cugtun)

Alutiiq or Pacific Gulf Yupik (400 speakers)

Koniag Alutiiq

Chugach Alutiiq

Central Siberian Yupik or Yuit (Chaplinon and St. Lawrence Island, 1,400 speakers)

Chaplinski

St. Lawrence Island Yupik (Sivuqaghmiistun)

Naukan (70 speakers)

Sirenik (extinct) (viewed as an independent branch by some)

Inuit (98,000 speakers)

Inupiaq or Inupiat (northern Alaska, 3,500 speakers)

Qawiaraq or Seward Peninsula Inupiaq

Inupiatun or Northern Alaska Inupiaq (including Uummarmiutun (Aklavik, Inuvik))

Inuvialuktun (western Canada, 765 speakers)

Siglitun (Paulatuk, Sachs Harbour, Tuktoyaktuk)

Inuinnaqtun (in Ulukhaktok also known as Kangiryuarmiutun)

Natsilingmiutut (Nattilik area, Nunavut)

Inuktitut (eastern Canada; together with Inuinnaqtun, 40,000 speakers)

Nunatsiavummiutut (Nunatsiavut, 550 speakers)

Nunavimmiutitut (Nunavik)

Qikiqtaaluk nigiani (South Baffin)

Qikiqtaaluk uannangani (North Baffin)

Aivilimmiutut (Eastcentral Nunavut)

Kivallirmiutut (Southeast Nunavut)

Greenlandic (Greenland, 54,000 speakers)

Kalaallisut (West Greenlandic, 50,000 speakers)

Tunumiisut (East Greenlandic, 3,500 speakers)

Inuktun or Avanersuaq (Polar Eskimo, approx 1,000 speakers)

Position among the world's language families

Eskimo–Aleut does not have any genetic relationship to any of the world's other language families that is generally accepted by linguists at the present time. There is general agreement that it is not closely related to the other language families of North America. The more credible proposals on the external relations of Eskimo–Aleut all concern one or more of the language families of northern Eurasia, such as Chukchi–Kamchatkan just across the Bering Strait. One of the first such proposals was made by the pioneering Danish linguist Rasmus Rask in 1818, upon noticing similarities between Greenlandic Eskimo and Finnish. Perhaps the most fully developed such proposal to date is Michael Fortescue's Uralo-Siberian hypothesis, published in 1998. More recently Joseph Greenberg (2000–2002) suggested grouping Eskimo–Aleut with all of the language families of northern Eurasia, with the exception of Yeniseian, in a proposed language family called Eurasiatic. Such proposals are not generally accepted.

In the 1960s Swadesh suggested a connection with the Wakashan languages. This was picked up and expanded by Holst (2005).^[8]

Notable features

The Eskimo–Aleut languages are affixally polysynthetic^[9] and exclusively suffixing (with the exception of one prefix in Inuktitut which appears in demonstratives).

Every word must have only one root (free morpheme) always at the beginning.^[10] Eskimo–Aleut languages have a relatively small number of roots: in the case of Central Alaskan Yup'ik, around two thousand.^[11] Following the root are a number of postbases, which are bound morphemes that add to the basic meaning of the root. If the meaning of the postbase is to be expressed alone, a special neutral root (in the case of Central Alaskan Yup'ik and Inuktitut pi) is used.

Following the postbases are non-lexical suffixes that indicate case on nouns and person and mood on verbs. The number of cases varies, with Aleut languages having a greatly reduced case system compared to Eskimo. The Eskimo languages are ergative–absolutive in nouns and in Yup'ik languages, also in verbal person marking. All Eskimo–Aleut languages have obligatory verbal agreement with agent and patient in transitive clauses, and there are special suffixes used for this purpose in subordinate clauses, which makes these languages, like most in the North Pacific, highly complement deranking.

At the end of a word there can be one of a small number of clitics with meanings such as "but" or indicating a polar interrogative.

Phonologically, the Eskimo–Aleut languages resemble other languages of northern North America and far eastern Siberia. There are usually only three vowels, a, i and u, though some Yup'ik dialects also have ə. All Eskimo–Aleut languages lack ejectives, which makes them areally akin to Northern Chukotko-Kamchatkan rather than such “Amerind” families as Na-Dene or Tsimshianic. Eskimo–Aleut languages possess voiceless plosives at the bilabial, coronal, velar and uvular positions in all languages except Aleut, which has lost the bilabial stops but retained the nasal. There are contrasting voiced and voiceless fricatives at the same positions, and in the Eskimo subfamily a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is also present. A rare feature of many dialects of Yup'ik and Aleut is contrasting voiceless nasals.

Vocabulary comparison

The following is a comparison of cognates among the basic vocabulary across the Eskimo–Aleut language family (about 60 words). Note that empty cells do not imply that a particular language is lacking a word to describe the concept, but rather that the word for the concept in that language is formed from another stem and is not a cognate with the other words in the row. Also, there may be shifts in the meaning from one language to another, and so the "common meaning" given is only approximate. In some cases the form given is found only in some dialects of the language. Forms are given in native Latin orthographies unless otherwise noted.

See also

• Proto-Eskimo language
• Proto-Eskimo–Aleut language
• Eskimology

Notes

Bibliography

• Bernet, John W. 1974. An Anthology of Aleut, Eskimo, and Indian Literature of Alaska in English Translation. Fairbanks, Alaska.
• Conference on Eskimo Linguistics, and Eric P. Hamp. 1976. Papers on Eskimo and Aleut Linguistics. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
• Dumond, Don E. 1965. On Eskaleutian Linguistics, Archaeology, and Prehistory.
• Fleming, Harold C. 1987. "Towards a definitive classification of the world's languages." Diachronica 4.1/2:159-223.
• Fortescue, Michael D. 1984. Some Problems Concerning the Correlation and Reconstruction of Eskimo and Aleut Mood Markers. København: Institut for Eskimologi, Københavns Universitet. ISBN 87-87874-10-5
• Fortescue, Michael D., Steven A. Jacobson, and Lawrence D. Kaplan. 1994. Comparative Eskimo Dictionary with Aleut Cognates. Fairbanks, Alaska: Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. ISBN 1-55500-051-7
• Fortescue, Michael. 1998. Language Relations across Bering Strait: Reappraising the Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence. London and New York: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-70330-3
• Greenberg, Joseph H. 2000. Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 1: Grammar. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
• Greenberg, Joseph H. 2002. Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 2: Lexicon. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
• Holst, Jan Henrik 2005. Einführung in die eskimo-aleutischen Sprachen. Hamburg: Buske.
• Marsh, Gordon H. 1956. The Linguistic Divisions of the Eskimo–Aleut Stock.
• Swift, Mary D. 2004. Time in Child Inuktitut: A Developmental Study of an Eskimo–Aleut Language. Studies on Language Acquisition 24. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ISBN 3-11-018120-7

External links

• Alaska Native Language Center