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Uralo-Siberian
Uralo-Siberian is a hypothetical language family consisting of Uralic, Yukaghir, Eskaleut, possibly Nivkh, and formerly Chukotko-Kamchatkan. It was proposed in 1998 by Michael Fortescue, an expert in Eskaleut and Chukotko-Kamchatkan, in his book ''Language Relations across Bering Strait''. In 2011, Fortescue removed Chukotko-Kamchatkan from the proposal. History Structural similarities between Uralic and Eskaleut languages were observed early. In 1746, the Danish theologian compared Greenlandic to Hungarian. In 1818, Rasmus Rask considered Greenlandic to be related to the Uralic languages, Finnish in particular, and presented a list of lexical correspondences (Rask also considered Uralic and Altaic to be related to each other). In 1959, Knut Bergsland published the paper ''The Eskimo–Uralic Hypothesis'', in which he, like other authors before him, presented a number of grammatical similarities and a small number of lexical correspondences. In 1962, Morris Swadesh proposed a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uralo-Siberian Language Family
Uralo-Siberian is a hypothetical language family consisting of Uralic, Yukaghir, Eskaleut, possibly Nivkh, and formerly Chukotko-Kamchatkan. It was proposed in 1998 by Michael Fortescue, an expert in Eskaleut and Chukotko-Kamchatkan, in his book ''Language Relations across Bering Strait''. In 2011, Fortescue removed Chukotko-Kamchatkan from the proposal. History Structural similarities between Uralic and Eskaleut languages were observed early. In 1746, the Danish theologian compared Greenlandic to Hungarian. In 1818, Rasmus Rask considered Greenlandic to be related to the Uralic languages, Finnish in particular, and presented a list of lexical correspondences (Rask also considered Uralic and Altaic to be related to each other). In 1959, Knut Bergsland published the paper ''The Eskimo–Uralic Hypothesis'', in which he, like other authors before him, presented a number of grammatical similarities and a small number of lexical correspondences. In 1962, Morris Swadesh proposed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Uralic Languages
The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian (which alone accounts for more than half of the family's speakers), Finnish, and Estonian. Other significant languages with fewer speakers are Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt, Sami, Komi, and Vepsian, all of which are spoken in northern regions of Scandinavia and the Russian Federation. The name "Uralic" derives from the family's original homeland (''Urheimat'') commonly hypothesized to have been somewhere in the vicinity of the Ural Mountains. Finno-Ugric is sometimes used as a synonym for Uralic, though Finno-Ugric is widely understood to exclude the Samoyedic languages. Scholars who do not accept the traditional notion that Samoyedic split first from the rest of the Uralic family may treat the terms as synonymous. History Homeland ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chukotko-Kamchatkan Languages
The Chukotko-Kamchatkan or Chukchi–Kamchatkan languages are a language family of extreme northeastern Siberia. Its speakers traditionally were indigenous hunter-gatherers and reindeer-herders. Chukotko-Kamchatkan is endangered. The Kamchatkan branch is moribund, represented only by Western Itelmen, with only 4 or 5 elderly speakers left. The Chukotkan branch had close to 7,000 speakers left (as of 2010, the majority being speakers of Chukchi), with a reported total ethnic population of 25,000. While the family is sometimes grouped typologically and geographically as Paleosiberian, no external genetic relationship has been widely accepted as proven. The most popular such proposals have been for links with Eskimo–Aleut, either alone or in the context of a wider grouping. Alternative names Less commonly encountered names for the family are Chukchian, Chukotian, Chukotan, Kamchukchee and Kamchukotic. Of these, ''Chukchian'' and ''Chukotian'' are ambiguous, since both terms are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yukaghir Languages
The Yukaghir languages (; also ''Yukagir, Jukagir'') are a small family of two closely related languages—Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir—spoken by the Yukaghir in the Russian Far East living in the basin of the Kolyma River. At the 2002 Russian census, both Yukaghir languages taken together had 604 speakers. More recent reports from the field reveal that this number is far too high: Southern Yukaghir had maximum 60 fluent speakers in 2009, while the Tundra Yukaghir language had around 60–70. The entire family is thus to be regarded as moribund. The Yukaghir have experienced a politically imposed language shift in recent times, and a majority also speak Russian and Yakut. Classification and grammatical features The relationship of the Yukaghir languages with other language families is uncertain, though it has been suggested that they are distantly related to the Uralic languages, thus forming the putative Uralic–Yukaghir language family. Michael Fortescue argued that Yukag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eskimo–Aleut Languages
The Eskaleut (), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of what are now the United States (Alaska); Canada ( Inuit Nunangat including Nunavut, Northwest Territories (principally in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region), northern Quebec ( Nunavik), and northern Labrador (Nunatsiavut); Greenland; and the Russian Far East (Chukchi Peninsula). The language family is also known as ''Eskaleutian'', ''Eskaleutic'' or ''Inuit–Yupik–Unangan''. The Eskaleut language family is divided into two branches: the Eskimoan languages and the Aleut language. The Aleut branch consists of a single language, Aleut, spoken in the Aleutian Islands and the Pribilof Islands. Aleut is divided into several dialects. The Eskimoan languages are divided into two branches: the Yupik languages, spoken in western and southwestern A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nivkh Language
Nivkh (; occasionally also Nivkhic; self-designation: Нивхгу диф, ''Nivxgu dif'', ), or Gilyak (), or Amuric, is a small language family, often portrayed as a language isolate, of two or three mutually unintelligible languages spoken by the Nivkh people in Outer Manchuria, in the basin of the Amgun (a tributary of the Amur), along the lower reaches of the Amur itself, and on the northern half of Sakhalin. "Gilyak" is the Russian rendering of terms derived from the Tungusic "Gileke" and Manchu-Chinese "Gilemi" (Gilimi, Gilyami) for culturally similar peoples of the Amur River region, and was applied principally to the Nivkh in Western literature. The population of ethnic Nivkhs has been reasonably stable over the past century, with 4,549 Nivkhs counted in 1897 and 4,673 in 1989. However, the number of native speakers of the Nivkh language among these dropped from 100% to 23.3% in the same period, so by the 1989 census there were only 1,079 first-language speakers left. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nivkh Languages
Nivkh (; occasionally also Nivkhic; self-designation: Нивхгу диф, ''Nivxgu dif'', ), or Gilyak (), or Amuric, is a small language family, often portrayed as a language isolate, of two or three mutually unintelligible languages spoken by the Nivkh people in Outer Manchuria, in the basin of the Amgun (a tributary of the Amur), along the lower reaches of the Amur itself, and on the northern half of Sakhalin. "Gilyak" is the Russian rendering of terms derived from the Tungusic "Gileke" and Manchu-Chinese "Gilemi" (Gilimi, Gilyami) for culturally similar peoples of the Amur River region, and was applied principally to the Nivkh in Western literature. The population of ethnic Nivkhs has been reasonably stable over the past century, with 4,549 Nivkhs counted in 1897 and 4,673 in 1989. However, the number of native speakers of the Nivkh language among these dropped from 100% to 23.3% in the same period, so by the 1989 census there were only 1,079 first-language speakers left. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michael Fortescue
Michael David Fortescue (born 8 August 1946) is a British-born linguistics, linguist specializing in Arctic and native North American languages, including Greenlandic language, Kalaallisut, Inuktun, Chukchi language, Chukchi and Nitinaht language, Nitinaht. He gained his PhD in Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh in 1978. Fortescue is known for his reconstructions of the Eskimo–Aleut languages, Eskimo–Aleut, Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Nivkh language, Nivkh, and Wakashan languages, Wakashan proto-languages. Education He was educated at Abingdon School. Career He is professor emeritus of General Linguistics at the University of Copenhagen and chairman of the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen. His ''Comparative Eskimo Dictionary'', co-authored with Steven Jacobson and Lawrence Kaplan, is the standard work in its area, as is his ''Comparative Chukotko-Kamchatkan Dictionary''. In his book ''Whiteheadian Linguistics'', Fortescue explores the possib ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Altaic Languages
Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic and Tungusic languages, Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic languages, Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are currently scattered over most of Asia north of 35th parallel north, 35° N and in some eastern parts of Europe, extending in longitude from Turkey to Japan. The group is named after the Altai Mountains, Altai mountain range in the center of Asia. The hypothetical language family has long been rejected by most Comparative linguistics, comparative linguists, although it continues to be supported by a small but stable scholarly minority. The research on their supposedly common linguistics origin has inspired various comparative studies on the folklore and mythology among the Turkic people, Turks, Proto-Mongols and Tungus people, Tungus people. The Altaic family was first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japonic Languages
Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan, sometimes also Japanic, is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and significant progress has been made in reconstructing the proto-language. The reconstruction implies a split between all dialects of Japanese and all Ryukyuan varieties, probably before the 7th century. The Hachijō language, spoken on the Izu Islands, is also included, but its position within the family is unclear. Most scholars believe that Japonic was brought to the Japanese archipelago from the Korean peninsula with the Yayoi culture during the 1st millennium BC. There is some fragmentary evidence suggesting that Japonic languages may still have been spoken in central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula (see Peninsular Japonic) in the early centuries AD. Possible genetic relationships with many other language families have been ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turkic Languages
The Turkic languages are a language family of over 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and Western Asia. The Turkic languages originated in a region of East Asia spanning from Mongolia to Northwest China, where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken, from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium. They are characterized as a dialect continuum. Turkic languages are spoken by some 200 million people. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish language, Turkish, spoken mainly in Anatolia and the Balkans; its native speakers account for about 38% of all Turkic speakers. Characteristic features such as vowel harmony, agglutination, subject-object-verb order, and lack of grammatical gender, are almost universal within the Turkic family. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility, upon mode ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mongolian Languages
The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian language, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia and the Mongols, Mongol residents of Inner Mongolia, with an estimated 5.7+ million speakers. Classification The Mongolic languages have no convincingly established living relatives. The closest relatives of the Mongolic languages appear to be the para-Mongolic languages, which include the extinct Khitan language, Khitan, Tuyuhun language, Tuyuhun, and possibly also Tuoba language, Tuoba languages. A few linguists have grouped Mongolic with Turkic languages, Turkic, Tungusic languages, Tungusic and possibly Koreanic languages, Koreanic and Japonic languages, Japonic as part of the widely discredited Altaic languages, Altaic family. Histo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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