Algonquian–Wakashan (also Almosan, Algonkian–Mosan, Algonkin–Wakashan) is a hypothetical
language family composed of several established language families that was proposed in 1929. The proposal consists of the following:
I.
Algic (Algonkin–Ritwan)
: A.
Algonquian (Algonkin)
: B.
Beothuk
: C.
Wiyot
The Wiyot ( Wiyot: Wíyot, Chetco-Tolowa: Wee-’at xee-she or Wee-yan’ Xee-she’, Euchre Creek Tututni: Wii-yat-dv-ne - "Mad River People“, Yurok: Weyet) are an indigenous people of California living near Humboldt Bay, California and a s ...
–
Yurok (Ritwan)
II.
Kutenai (also known as Kootenay; a
language isolate
Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The num ...
)
III.
Mosan
: A.
Wakashan
Wakashan is a family of languages spoken in British Columbia around and on Vancouver Island, and in the northwestern corner of the Olympic Peninsula of Washington (state), Washington state, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
As is ...
: B.
Chimakuan
The Chimakuan languages are a group of extinct languages that were spoken in northwestern Washington state, United States, on the Olympic Peninsula. They were spoken by Chimakum, Quileute and Hoh tribes. They are part of the Mosan sprachbund, a ...
: C.
Salishan
Kutenai may possibly be distantly related to the
Salishan family, but this link has not been demonstrated. The Mosan family proposal is also hypothetical and is currently considered undemonstrated, rather appearing to be a
Sprachbund
A sprachbund (, lit. "language federation"), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. The lang ...
.
External relationships
Joseph Greenberg renamed Sapir's proposal ''Almosan'' and grouped it in an even more inclusive ''Almosan–Keresiouan'' phylum with the
Caddoan
The Caddoan languages are a family of languages native to the Great Plains spoken by tribal groups of the central United States, from present-day North Dakota south to Oklahoma. All Caddoan languages are critically endangered, as the number of sp ...
,
Iroquoian,
Keresan, and
Siouan families. This proposal has been rejected by linguists specializing in Native American languages.
,
Ilia Peiros, and
Georgiy Starostin group
Chukotko-Kamchatkan
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 ...
and
Nivkh
Nivkh or Amuric or Gilyak may refer to:
* Nivkh people
The Nivkh, or Gilyak (also Nivkhs or Nivkhi, or Gilyaks; ethnonym: Нивхгу, ''Nʼivxgu'' (Amur) or Ниғвңгун, ''Nʼiɣvŋgun'' (E. Sakhalin) "the people"), are an indigenous et ...
with Almosan.
In the mid-2010s,
Sergei Nikolaev argued in two papers for a systematic relationship between the
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 b ...
of Sakhalin and the Amur basin and the
Algic languages
The Algic languages (also Algonquian–Wiyot–Yurok or Algonquian–Ritwan) are an indigenous language family of North America. Most Algic languages belong to the Algonquian subfamily, dispersed over a broad area from the Rocky Mountains to ...
. He also proposed a secondary relationship between these two together and the
Wakashan languages.
In 1998,
Vitaly V. Shevoroshkin rejected the
Amerind affinity of the Almosan (Algonquian-Wakashan) languages, suggesting instead that they had a relationship with
Dené–Caucasian.
[Shevoroshkin, Vitaliy V., 2003. "Salishan and North Caucasian.]
Mother Tongue 8
39–64. Several years later, he offered a number of lexical and phonological correspondences between the
North Caucasian,
Salishan, and
Wakashan languages, concluding that Salishan and Wakashan may represent a distinct branch of North Caucasian and that their separation from it must postdate the dissolution of the
Northeast Caucasian
The Northeast Caucasian languages, also called East Caucasian, Nakh-Daghestani or ''Vainakh-Daghestani'', is a family of languages spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya and Ingushetia and in Northern Azerbaijan as well as in ...
unity (Avar-Andi-Tsezian), which took place around the 2nd or 3rd millennium BC.
[Shevoroshkin, Vitaliy V., 2004. "Proto-Salishan and Proto-North-Caucasian Consonants: a few cognate sets." i]
Nostratic Centennial Conference: the Pécs Papers.
ed. by. I. Hegedűs & P. Sidwell, pp. 181–191. Pécs: Lingua Franca Group.
See also
*
Chukotko-Kamchatkan–Amuric
References
*
Bibliography
* Campbell, Lyle. (1997). ''American Indian languages: The historical linguistics of Native America''. New York: Oxford University Press. .
* Greenberg, Joseph H. (1987). ''Language in the Americas''. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
* Sapir, Edward. (1929). Central and North American languages. In ''The encyclopædia britannica: A new survey of universal knowledge'' (14 ed.) (Vol. 5, pp. 138–141). London: The Encyclopædia Britannica Company, Ltd.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Algonquian-Wakashan languages
Proposed language families