The Chukotko-Kamchatkan or Chukchi–Kamchatkan languages are a
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in hist ...
of extreme northeastern
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
. Its speakers traditionally were indigenous hunter-gatherers and reindeer-herders. Chukotko-Kamchatkan is
endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inva ...
. The Kamchatkan branch is
moribund
Moribund refers to a literal or figurative state near death.
Moribund may refer to:
* ''Moribund'' (album), a 2006 album by the Norwegian black metal band Koldbrann
* " Le Moribond", a song by Jacques Brel known in English as "Seasons in the Sun ...
, represented only by
Western Itelmen
Itelmen ( itl, script=latn, Itənmən) or Western Itelmen, formerly known as Western Kamchadal, is a language of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan family spoken on the western coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula. Fewer than a hundred native speakers, mostly ...
, 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
Paleosiberian (or Paleo-Siberian) languages or Paleoasian (Paleo-Asiatic) (from , "ancient") are several linguistic isolates and small families of languages spoken in parts of northeastern Siberia and the Russian Far East. They are not known ...
, no external genetic relationship has been widely accepted as proven. The most popular such proposals have been for links with
Eskimo–Aleut
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 w ...
, 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 sometimes used to refer specifically to the family's northern branch.
In addition, Luorawetlan (also spelled Luoravetlan) has been in wide use since 1775 as a name for the family, although it is properly the self-designation of one of its constituent languages,
Chukchi. The derivative Luorawetlanic may be preferable as a name for the family.
Languages
The Chukotko-Kamchatkan family consists of two distantly related
dialect cluster
A dialect continuum or dialect chain is a series of language varieties spoken across some geographical area such that neighboring varieties are mutually intelligible, but the differences accumulate over distance so that widely separated varie ...
s,
Chukotkan and
Kamchatkan. Chukotkan is considered anywhere from three to five languages, whereas there is only one surviving Kamchatkan language,
Itelmen
The Itelmens (Itelmen: Итәнмән, russian: Ительмены) are an indigenous ethnic group of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The Itelmen language is distantly related to Chukchi and Koryak, forming the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language ...
.
The relationship of the Chukotkan languages to Itelmen is at best distant, and has been met with only partial acceptance by scholars.
All the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages are under pressure from
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
. Almost all speakers are bilingual in Russian, and few members of the ethnic groups associated with the languages born after 1970 speak any language but Russian.
The accepted classification is this:
*
Kamchatkan
** Southern Kamchadal †
** Eastern Kamchadal †
**
Itelmen
The Itelmens (Itelmen: Итәнмән, russian: Ительмены) are an indigenous ethnic group of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The Itelmen language is distantly related to Chukchi and Koryak, forming the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language ...
(Western Kamchadal)
*
Chukotkan
**
Chukchi
**
Koryak
**
Alyutor
The Alyutors (russian: Алюторцы; self designation: Алутальу, or Alutal'u) are an ethnic group (formerly classified as a subgroup of Koryaks) who lived on the Kamchatka Peninsula and Chukchi Peninsula of the Russian Far East. Today ...
**
Kerek †
Relation to other language families
The Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages have no generally accepted relation to any other language family. There are several theories about possible relationships to existing or hypothetical language families.
Paleosiberian
The Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages are sometimes classified among the
Paleosiberian languages
Paleosiberian (or Paleo-Siberian) languages or Paleoasian (Paleo-Asiatic) (from , "ancient") are several linguistic isolates and small families of languages spoken in parts of northeastern Siberia and the Russian Far East. They are not know ...
, a catch-all term for language groups with no identified relationship to one another that are believed to represent remnants of the language map of Siberia prior to the advances of
Turkic and
Tungusic.
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 languag ...
(2011) suggests that Chukokto-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 ...
(Gilyak, Amuric) are related to each other on the basis of morphological, typological, and lexical evidence. Together, Chukokto-Kamchatkan and Nivkh could form a larger Chukokto-Kamchatkan-Amuric language family.
Eurasiatic
Joseph Greenberg
Joseph Harold Greenberg (May 28, 1915 – May 7, 2001) was an American linguist, known mainly for his work concerning linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.
Life Early life and education
Joseph Greenberg was born on ...
identifies Chukotko-Kamchatkan (which he names Chukotian) as a member of
Eurasiatic
Eurasiatic is a proposed language macrofamily that would include many language families historically spoken in northern, western, and southern Eurasia.
The idea of a Eurasiatic superfamily dates back more than 100 years. Joseph Greenberg's prop ...
, a proposed
macrofamily
In historical linguistics, a macrofamily, also called a superfamily or phylum, is a proposed genetic relationship grouping together language families (also isolates) in a larger scale classification. Campbell, Lyle and Mixco, Mauricio J. (2007), ' ...
that includes
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
,
Altaic
Altaic (; also called Transeurasian) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. Speakers of these languages are ...
, and
Eskimo–Aleut
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 w ...
, among others. Greenberg also assigns
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 ...
and
Yukaghir
The Yukaghirs, or Yukagirs ( (), russian: юкаги́ры) are a Siberian ethnic group people in the Russian Far East, living in the basin of the Kolyma River.
Geographic distribution
The Tundra Yukaghirs live in the Lower Kolyma region ...
, sometimes classed as "Paleosiberian" languages, to the Eurasiatic family.
While the Eurasiatic hypothesis has been well received by
Nostraticists and some
Indo-Europeanists
Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical pro ...
, it remains very controversial. Part of the reason is that the Eurasiatic hypothesis rests on
mass comparison
Mass comparison is a method developed by Joseph Greenberg to determine the level of genetic relatedness between languages. It is now usually called multilateral comparison. The method is rejected by most linguists , though not all.
Some of the to ...
of lexemes, grammatical formatives, and vowel systems (see Greenberg 2000–2002), rather than on the prevailing view that regular sound correspondences that are linked to a wide array of lexemes and grammatical formatives are the only valid means to establish
genetic relationship (see for instance Baldi 2002:2–19).
Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He was the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical ...
,
Ilia Peiros
Ilia Peiros (full name: Ilia Iosifovich Peiros, Илья Иосифович Пейрос; born 1948) is a Russian linguist who specializes in the historical linguistics of East Asia. Peiros is a well-known scholar in the Moscow School of Compara ...
, and
Georgiy Starostin
Georgiy Sergeevich "George" Starostin (russian: Гео́ргий Серге́евич Ста́ростин; born 4 July 1976) is a Russian linguist. He is the son of the late historical linguist Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (1953–2005), and his ...
group Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages 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 instead of Eurasiatic.
Uralo-Siberian
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 languag ...
, a specialist in
Eskimo–Aleut
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 w ...
as well as in Chukotko-Kamchatkan, argued for a link between
Uralic
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 (w ...
, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskimo–Aleut calling this proposed grouping
Uralo-Siberian. Later, he has argued for
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 ...
as the closest relative of Chukotko-Kamchatkan and suggests interpreting the similarities to Uralo-Siberian through language contact.
Chukotko-Kamchatkan–Amuric
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 languag ...
argued that Nivkh and Chukotko-Kamchatkan are related, and that their common ancestor might have been spoken 4000 years ago.
See also
*
Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan
Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages. It is purported to have broken up into the Northern ( Chukotian) and Southern (Itelmen) branches around 2000 BCE, when western reindeer herders mo ...
*
Kamchadal
The Kamchadals (russian: камчадалы) inhabit Kamchatka, Russia. The name "Kamchadal" was applied to the descendants of the local Siberians and aboriginal peoples (the Itelmens, Ainu, Koryaks and Chuvans) who assimilated with the Russ ...
References
*
Baldi, Philip. 2002. ''The Foundations of Latin''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
* Fortescue, Michael. 1998. ''Language Relations Across Bering Strait''. London: Cassell & Co.
* Fortescue, Michael. 2005. ''Comparative Chukotko–Kamchatkan Dictionary''. ''Trends in Linguistics'' 23. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
*
* Greenberg, Joseph H. 2000. ''Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family. Volume 1, Grammar''. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
* Greenberg, Joseph H. 2002. ''Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family. Volume 2, Lexicon''. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
Agglutinative languages
Languages of Russia
Language families
History of Northeast Asia
Paleosiberian languages