The Eskaleut (), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan 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 h ...
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
Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...
); Canada (
Inuit Nunangat including
Nunavut,
Northwest Territories (principally in the
Inuvialuit Settlement Region),
northern Quebec Northern Quebec (french: le nord du Québec) is a geographic term denoting the northerly, more remote and less populated parts of the Canadian province of Quebec.Alexandre Robaey"Charity group works with Indigenous communities to feed Northern Queb ...
(
Nunavik), and northern
Labrador
, nickname = "The Big Land"
, etymology =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Canada
, subdivision_type1 = Province
, subdivision_name1 ...
(
Nunatsiavut
Nunatsiavut (; iu, italics=no, ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᕗᑦ) is an autonomous area claimed by the Inuit in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The settlement area includes territory in Labrador extending to the Quebec border. In 2002, the Labrador Inui ...
);
Greenland
Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...
; and the
Russian Far East
The Russian Far East (russian: Дальний Восток России, r=Dal'niy Vostok Rossii, p=ˈdalʲnʲɪj vɐˈstok rɐˈsʲiɪ) is a region in Northeast Asia. It is the easternmost part of Russia and the Asian continent; and is admin ...
(
Chukchi Peninsula
The Chukchi Peninsula (also Chukotka Peninsula or Chukotski Peninsula; russian: Чуко́тский полуо́стров, ''Chukotskiy poluostrov'', short form russian: Чуко́тка, ''Chukotka''), at about 66° N 172° W, is the eastern ...
). 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
The Aleutian Islands (; ; ale, Unangam Tanangin,”Land of the Aleuts", possibly from Chukchi ''aliat'', "island"), also called the Aleut Islands or Aleutic Islands and known before 1867 as the Catherine Archipelago, are a chain of 14 large v ...
and the
Pribilof Islands
The Pribilof Islands (formerly the Northern Fur Seal Islands; ale, Amiq, russian: Острова Прибылова, Ostrova Pribylova) are a group of four volcanic islands off the coast of mainland Alaska, in the Bering Sea, about north ...
. Aleut is divided into several
dialect
The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena:
One usage refers to a variety of a language that is a ...
s. The Eskimoan languages are divided into two branches: the
Yupik languages
The Yupik languages () are a family of languages spoken by the Yupik peoples of western and south-central Alaska and Chukotka. The Yupik languages differ enough from one another that they are not mutually intelligible, although speakers of one ...
, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska and in Chukotka, and the
Inuit languages
The Inuit languages are a closely related group of indigenous American languages traditionally spoken across the North American Arctic and adjacent subarctic, reaching farthest south in Labrador. The related Yupik languages (spoken in weste ...
, spoken in northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland. Inuit languages, which cover 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
The Diomede Islands (; russian: острова́ Диоми́да, translit=ostrová Diomída), also known in Russia as Gvozdev Islands (russian: острова́ Гво́здева, translit=ostrová Gvozdjeva), consist of two rocky, mesa-like i ...
and
East Greenland
Tunu, originally Østgrønland ("East Greenland"), was one of the three counties (''amter'') of Greenland until 31 December 2008. The county seat was at the main settlement, Tasiilaq. The county's population in 2005 was around 3,800.
The county ...
are quite divergent.
The proper place of one language,
Sirenik, within the Eskimoan family has not been settled. While some linguists list it as a branch of Yupik, others list it as a separate branch of the Eskimoan family, alongside the Yupik and Inuit languages.
History
The
Alaska Native Language Center believes that the common ancestral language of the Eskimoan languages and of Aleut divided into the Eskimoan and Aleut branches at least 4,000 years ago.
The Eskimoan language family split into the Yupik and Inuit branches around 1,000 years ago.
The Eskaleut languages are among the
native languages of the Americas. This is a geographical category, not a
genealogical
Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kin ...
one. The Eskaleut languages are not demonstrably related to the other language families of North America
and are believed to represent
a separate, and the last, prehistoric migration of people from Asia.
Alexander Vovin
Alexander (Sasha) Vladimirovich Vovin (russian: Александр Владимирович Вовин; 27 January 1961 – 8 April 2022) was a Soviet-born Russian-American linguist and philologist, and director of studies at the School for Ad ...
(2015) notes that northern
Tungusic languages
The Tungusic languages (also known as Manchu-Tungus and Tungus) form a language family spoken in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria by Tungusic peoples. Many Tungusic languages are endangered. There are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the doz ...
, which are spoken in eastern
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive region, 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 ...
and northeastern China, have Eskaleut loanwords that are not found in Southern Tungusic, implying that Eskaleut was once much more widely spoken in eastern Siberia. Vovin (2015) estimates that the Eskaleut loanwords in Northern Tungusic had been borrowed no more than 2,000 years ago, which was when Tungusic was spreading northwards from its homeland in the middle reaches of the
Amur River. Vovin (2015) considers the homeland (''
Urheimat
In historical linguistics, the homeland or ''Urheimat'' (, from German '' ur-'' "original" and ''Heimat'', home) of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the r ...
'') of Proto-Eskaleut to be in Siberia rather than in Alaska.
Internal classification
;Eskaleut
:
Aleut
The Aleuts ( ; russian: Алеуты, Aleuty) are the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleut people and the islands are politically divided between the ...
(''Unangam Tunuu'') (40–80 speakers)
::Western–Central dialects:
Atkan
Aleut () or ''Unangam Tunuu'' is the language spoken by the Aleut living in the Aleutian Islands, Pribilof Islands, Commander Islands, and the Alaska Peninsula (in Aleut , the origin of the state name Alaska). Aleut is the sole language in the A ...
,
Attuan † (1997),
Bering † (2021),
Unangan
The Aleuts ( ; russian: Алеуты, Aleuty) are the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleut people and the islands are politically divided between the US ...
::Eastern dialects:
Unalaskan,
Pribilof
:Eskimoan
::
Sirenik (''Uqeghllistun'') † (1997)
::
Yupik Yupik may refer to:
* Yupik peoples, a group of indigenous peoples of Alaska and the Russian Far East
* Yupik languages, a group of Eskimo-Aleut languages
Yupꞌik (with the apostrophe) may refer to:
* Yup'ik people
The Yup'ik or Yupiaq (sg ...
or Western Eskimoan
:::
Alutiiq
The Alutiiq people (pronounced in English; from Promyshlenniki Russian Алеутъ, "Aleut"; plural often "Alutiit"), also called by their ancestral name ( or ; plural often "Sugpiat"), as well as Pacific Eskimo or Pacific Yupik, are a so ...
or Pacific Gulf Yupik (ca. 80 speakers)
::::
Koniag Alutiiq (''Alutiit’stun'')
::::
Chugach Alutiiq (''Sugt’stun'')
:::
Central Alaskan Yup'ik (5,000 speakers ±50%)
::::
General Central Alaskan Yup'ik (''Yugtun'')
::::
Chevak Cupꞌik (Cugtun)
::::
Nunivak Cupʼig (Cugtun) (5–25 speakers)
:::
Naukan (''Nuvuqaghmiistun'') (70 speakers)
:::
Central Siberian Yupik (''Yuit''/''Yupigestun'') ("Yuit" in Russia, "Yupigestun" in Alaska; Chaplino and
St. Lawrence Island
St. Lawrence Island ( ess, Sivuqaq, russian: Остров Святого Лаврентия, Ostrov Svyatogo Lavrentiya) is located west of mainland Alaska in the Bering Sea, just south of the Bering Strait. The village of Gambell, located on t ...
)
::::
Chaplino (Chaplinski) Yupik (''Ungazighmiistun'') (ca. 200 speakers)
::::St. Lawrence Island Yupik (Sivuqaghmiistun) (400–750 speakers)
::
Inuit
Inuit (; iu, ᐃᓄᐃᑦ 'the people', singular: Inuk, , dual: Inuuk, ) are a group of culturally similar indigenous peoples inhabiting the Arctic and subarctic regions of Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories ...
or Eastern Eskimoan (ca. 100,000 speakers)
:::
Iñupiaq or Inupiat (northern Alaska, 5,000 speakers ±50%)
::::
Qawiaraq or
Seward Peninsula
The Seward Peninsula is a large peninsula on the western coast of the U.S. state of Alaska whose westernmost point is Cape Prince of Wales. The peninsula projects about into the Bering Sea between Norton Sound, the Bering Strait, the Chukchi ...
Inupiaq
::::
Inupiatun/Iñupiatun or Northern Alaska Inupiaq (including
Uummarmiutun
Uummarmiutun (), Uummaġmiutun or Canadian Iñupiaq is the variant of Iñupiaq (or Inuvialuktun) spoken by the Uummarmiut, part of the Inuvialuit, who live mainly in the communities of Inuvik and Aklavik in the Northwest Territories of Canada.
...
(
Aklavik
Aklavik (Inuvialuktun: ''Akłarvik'') (from the Inuvialuktun meaning '' barrenground grizzly place'') is a hamlet located in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. Until 1961, with a population over 1,500, the community serve ...
,
Inuvik))
:::
Inuvialuktun (western Canada; 1,020 speakers, 2016 census)
::::
Siglitun
''Sallirmiutun'' (formerly Siglitun) is the dialect of Inuvialuktun spoken by the Siglit, an Inuit group of the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is mainly used in the Inuvialuit communities of Paulatuk, Sachs Harbour and Tuktoyaktuk. Sallirm ...
(
Paulatuk
Paulatuk is a hamlet located in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is located adjacent to Darnley Bay, in the Amundsen Gulf. The town was named for the coal that was found in the area in the 1920s, and the Siglitun spelli ...
,
Sachs Harbour
Sachs Harbour (, ) is a hamlet located in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. Situated on the southwestern coast of Banks Island in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, the population according to the 2021 census count was 103 ...
,
Tuktoyaktuk
Tuktoyaktuk , or ''Tuktuyaaqtuuq'' (Inuvialuktun: ''it looks like a caribou''), is an Inuvialuit hamlet located in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada, at the northern terminus of the Inuvik–Tuktoyaktuk Highway.Montgomer ...
)
::::
Inuinnaqtun
Inuinnaqtun (; natively meaning ''like the real human beings/peoples''), is an indigenous Inuit language. It is spoken in the central Canadian Arctic. It is related very closely to Inuktitut, and some scholars, such as Richard Condon, believe ...
(in
Ulukhaktok
Ulukhaktok (Kangiryuarmiutun (Inuit languages, Inuit language) spelling ''Ulukhaqtuuq'' () and known until 1 April 2006 as ''Holman'' or ''Holman Island'') is a small Hamlet (place)#Canada, hamlet on the west coast of Victoria Island (Canada), Vi ...
also known as
Kangiryuarmiutun
''Kangiryuarmiutun'' (sometimes ''Kangirjuarmiut(un)''), is a dialect of Inuit language spoken in Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories, Canada by the Kangiryuarmiut, a Copper Inuit group. The dialect is part of the Inuvialuktun language. The peopl ...
)
::::
Natsilingmiutut
Netsilik , Natsilik, Nattilik, Netsilingmiut, Natsilingmiutut, Nattilingmiutut, or Nattiliŋmiutut is an Inuit language variety spoken in western Nunavut, Canada, by Netsilik Inuit.
''Natsilingmiut'' (ᓇᑦᓯᓕᖕᒥᐅᑦ "people from Natsil ...
(
Netsilik
The Netsilik (Netsilingmiut) are Inuit who live predominantly in Kugaaruk and Gjoa Haven of the Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut and to a smaller extent in Taloyoak and the north Qikiqtaaluk Region, in Canada. They were, in the early 20th century, a ...
area,
Nunavut)
:::
Inuktitut (eastern Canada; 36,000 speakers, 2016 census)
::::
Inuttitut
Inuttitut, Inuttut, or Nunatsiavummiutitut is a dialect of Inuktitut. It is spoken across northern Labrador by Inuit, whose traditional lands are known as Nunatsiavut.
The language has a distinct writing system, created in Greenland in the 1760s ...
or Nunatsiavummiutut (
Nunatsiavut
Nunatsiavut (; iu, italics=no, ᓄᓇᑦᓯᐊᕗᑦ) is an autonomous area claimed by the Inuit in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. The settlement area includes territory in Labrador extending to the Quebec border. In 2002, the Labrador Inui ...
, 550 speakers)
::::
Nunavimmiutitut
Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces o ...
(
Nunavik)
::::
Qikiqtaaluk nigiani
Inuktitut (; , syllabics ; from , "person" + , "like", "in the manner of"), also Eastern Canadian Inuktitut, is one of the principal Inuit languages of Canada. It is spoken in all areas north of the tree line, including parts of the provinces o ...
(South Baffin)
::::
Qikiqtaaluk uannangani or Iglulingmiut (North Baffin)
::::
Aivilingmiutut
Aivilik, also known as ''Aivilingmiutut, Aivilimmiutut, Aivillirmiut,'' and ''Kangiqłniq,'' is a Canadian dialect of the Inuit language spoken along the northwestern shores of Hudson Bay in Nunavut. The governments of Nunavut and the Northwes ...
(east-central Nunavut)
::::
Kivallirmiutut (Southeast Nunavut)
::::
Inuktun or Avanersuaq (Polar Eskimo, Greenland, 800 speakers)
:::
Greenlandic (Greenland: 50,000 speakers Greenland, 7,000 Denmark)
::::
Kalaallisut Kalaallisut may refer to:
* Greenlandic language
* West Greenlandic
West Greenlandic ( da, vestgrønlandsk), also known as Kalaallisut, is the primary language of Greenland and constitutes the Greenlandic language, spoken by the vast majority of ...
(West Greenlandic, 44,000 speakers)
::::
Tunumiisut (East Greenlandic, 3,000 speakers)
Position among the world's language families
Eskaleut does not have any
genetic relationship to any of the world's other language families, this being 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 Eskaleut all concern one or more of the language families of northern
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelago ...
, such as
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 ...
just across the
Bering Strait. One of the first such proposals, the
Eskimo–Uralic hypothesis, was suggested by the pioneering Danish linguist
Rasmus Rask
Rasmus Kristian Rask (; born Rasmus Christian Nielsen Rasch; 22 November 1787 – 14 November 1832) was a Danish linguist and philologist. He wrote several grammars and worked on comparative phonology and morphology. Rask traveled extensively to ...
in 1818, upon noticing similarities between
Greenlandic and
Finnish
Finnish may refer to:
* Something or someone from, or related to Finland
* Culture of Finland
* Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland
* Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people
* Finnish cuisine
See also ...
. Perhaps the most fully developed such proposal to date is
Michael Fortescue's
Uralo–Siberian hypothesis, published in 1998 which links Eskaleut languages to
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 ...
and the
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 (w ...
.
More recently
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 ...
(2000–2002) suggested grouping Eskaleut with all of the language families of northern Eurasia (Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic, Korean, Japanese, Ainu, Nivkh/Gilayak, and Chukchi–Kamchatkan), with the exception of
Yeniseian
The Yeniseian languages (sometimes known as Yeniseic or Yenisei-Ostyak;"Ostyak" is a concept of areal rather than genetic linguistics. In addition to the Yeniseian languages it also includes the Uralic languages Khanty and Selkup. occasionally ...
, in a proposed language family called
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 ...
. Such proposals are not generally accepted. Criticisms have been made stating that Greenberg's hypothesis is
ahistorical, meaning that it lacks and sacrifices known historical elements of language in favour of external similarities.
Although the Eurasiatic hypothesis is generally disregarded by linguists, one critique by
Stefan Georg and
Alexander Vovin
Alexander (Sasha) Vladimirovich Vovin (russian: Александр Владимирович Вовин; 27 January 1961 – 8 April 2022) was a Soviet-born Russian-American linguist and philologist, and director of studies at the School for Ad ...
stated that they were not willing to disregard the theory immediately although ultimately agreed that Greenberg's conclusion was dubious. Greenberg explicitly states that his developments were based on the previous macro-comparative work done by
Vladislav Illich-Svitych
Vladislav Markovich Illich-Svitych (russian: Владисла́в Ма́ркович И́ллич-Сви́тыч, also transliterated as Illič-Svityč; September 12, 1934 – August 22, 1966) was a Soviet linguist and accentologist. He was a fo ...
and Bomhard and Kerns.
By providing evidence of lexical comparison, Greenberg hoped that it would strengthen his hypothesis.
Despite all these efforts, the Eurasiatic language theory was overruled on the basis that mass comparison is not accurate enough an approach. In
comparative linguistics, the comparative method bases its validity on highly regular changes, not occasional semantic and phonological similarities, which is what the Eurasiatic hypothesis provides.
In the 1960s
Morris Swadesh suggested a connection with the
Wakashan languages
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, on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
As is typical of the Nor ...
. This was picked up and expanded by Jan Henrik Holst (2005).
Notable features
Every word must have only one
root
In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the su ...
(
free morpheme
In linguistics, a bound morpheme is a morpheme (the elementary unit of morphosyntax) that can appear only as part of a larger expression; a free morpheme (or unbound morpheme) is one that can stand alone. A bound morpheme is a type of bound form, ...
) always at the beginning. Eskaleut languages have a relatively small number of roots: in the case of Central Alaskan Yup'ik, around two thousand. Following the root are a number of ''
postbases In linguistics, a postbase is a special kind of grammatical suffixing morpheme that is suffixed to a base. It is mostly found in Eskimo–Aleut languages and Formosan Languages. Postbases differ from most other affixes in that they usually carry ...
'', 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.
The basic word schema is as follows: root-(affixes)-inflection-(enclitic). Below is an example from Central Siberian Yupik.
There are a total of three affixes internal to the word 'angyagh.' The root (or free morpheme) 'angyagh' and the inflection '-tuq' on the right consist of the indicative mood marker plus third person singular. The enclitic –lu ‘also’ follows the inflection.
[
Following the postbases are non-lexical suffixes that indicate case on nouns and ]person
A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...
and mood on verbs. The number of cases varies, with Aleut languages having a greatly reduced case system compared to Eskimoan. The Eskimoan languages are ergative–absolutive in nouns and in Yup'ik languages, also in verbal person marking. All Eskaleut 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 question
Polar may refer to:
Geography
Polar may refer to:
* Geographical pole, either of two fixed points on the surface of a rotating body or planet, at 90 degrees from the equator, based on the axis around which a body rotates
*Polar climate, the cli ...
.
Phonologically, the Eskaleut languages resemble other language families of northern North America (Na-Dene
Na-Dene (; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included, but is now considered ...
and Tsimshianic) and far-eastern Siberia (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 ...
). There are usually only three vowels—, , —though some Yup'ik dialects also have . All Eskaleut languages lack ejectives
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some l ...
, in which they resemble the Siberian languages more than the North American ones. Eskaleut languages possess voiceless
In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies ...
plosives at four positions (bilabial
In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.
Frequency
Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tli ...
, coronal, velar
Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth (known also as the velum).
Since the velar region of the roof of the mouth is relatively extensive a ...
and uvular
Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not prov ...
) in all languages except Aleut, which has lost the bilabial stops (though it has retained the nasal). There are usually contrasting voiced and voiceless fricative
A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
s at the same positions, and in the Eskimoan subfamily a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative
The voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents voiceless dental, alveolar, and postalveolar lateral fricatives is , ...
is also present. A rare feature of many dialects of Yup'ik and Aleut is contrasting voiceless nasal
In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast majorit ...
s.
Phonology
Eskimoan
The following vowels and consonants were taken from Michael Fortescue et al., 2010
Vowels
Eskimoan /ə/ corresponds to Aleut /i/.
Consonants
Inuit allows only a single initial consonant and no more than two successive consonants between vowels.
Yupik lacks the consonant assimilation process so common to Inuit.
Consonants in parentheses are non-Proto-Eskimoan phonemes.
Aleut
The following vowels and consonants were taken from Knut Bergsland
Knut Bergsland (7 March 1914 – 9 July 1998) was a Norwegian linguist. Working as a professor at the University of Oslo from 1947 to 1981, he did groundbreaking research in Uralic (especially Sami) and Eskaleut languages.
Career
He was born in K ...
, (1997).
Vowels
The Aleut language has six vowels in total: three short vowels /i/, /u/, /a/, and three long vowels /iː/, /uː/, /aː/. Orthographically, they would be spelled ''ii'', ''uu'', and ''aa''. There are no diphthongs in Aleut vowels. The length of the vowel is dependent upon three characteristics: stress, surrounding consonants, and in particularly Eastern Aleut, surrounding vowels. Short vowels are in initial position if a following consonant is velar or labial. For example: the demonstratives ''uka'', ''ika'', and ''aka''.
Long vowels are lower than their short counterpart vowels, but are less retracted if they make contact with a uvular consonant. For example: ''uuquchiing'' 'blue fox,' ''qiiqix̂'' 'storm-petrel', and ''qaaqaan'' 'eat it!'
Consonants
The Aleut consonants featured below include single Roman letters, digraphs, and one trigraph. Phonemes in parenthesis are found only in Russian and English loanwords, the phoneme in italics is found only in Eastern Aleut, and the bold phonemes are a part of the standard Aleut inventory.
Aleut lacks labial stops and allows clusters of up to three consonants as well as consonant clusters in word initial position.
Noteworthy phonological features: lack of a and its voiceless nasals
Morphology
Language type
Polysynthetic language
Eskaleut is polysynthetic
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able t ...
, which features a process in which a single word is able to contain multiple post-bases or morphemes. The Eskaleut languages are exclusively suffixing (with the exception of one prefix in Inuktitut that appears in demonstratives). Suffixes are able to combine and ultimately create an unlimited number of words. Some of the morphemes that are able to attach contain features such as carrying nominal subjects and objects, adverbial information, direct objects, and spatial noun phrases. Polysynthetic languages are said to be a form of extreme agglutination
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative lang ...
, which allows single words to carry the same information that another language expresses in whole clauses. For example, in central Alaskan Yupik, one can say:
As a polysynthetic language, Eskaleut is concerned with what "each morpheme means, which categories it can attach to, whether there is any category change, etc. and what type of morphophonological effect occurs to the left as it attaches to the stem".[
]
Morphosyntactic alignment
''Ergative–absolutive language:''
Eskaleut follows the basic word order of subject–object–verb (SOV).
Eskimoan is an ergative–absolutive language. This means subjects of intransitive verbs and objects of transitive verbs are marked with the absolutive case, while subjects of transitive verbs are marked with the ergative case.
Aleut is not an ergative–absolutive language. It does not matter if the verb is transitive or intransitive—subjects and objects are not marked differently.
If a transitive object or an object of possession is openly communicated, ergative case marking will not be expressed. If a transitive object or object of possession is not openly communicated, then ergative case marking will be expressed.
Example of case marking in Aleut:
Syntax
The syntax of Eskaleut is concerned with the functional use of its morphological structure. The two language branches, although part of the same family, have separated and detached themselves in relation to grammatical similarities. Bergsland states that Aleut, which was once a language more similar to Proto-Eskimoan than the current Eskimoan languages themselves, has distanced itself from the ancient language.
The case inflections, "relative *-m, instrumental *-mEk/meN, and locative *-mi have undergone phonological merger and led to a completely different explanation of ergative morphology in Proto-Eskimoan.
In order to further explain the profound changes that have occurred in Aleutian syntax, Bergsland proposed the Domino Effect, which is ultimately the chronological order of Aleut’s unique features. Below is a step by step list of the 'domino effect':
''The Domino Effect:''
# The phonological reduction of final syllables and the ensuing syncretism of locative, relative, and instrumental case markers;
# The collapse of the ergative system and of the distinction between relative and locative case in postpositional constructions;
# The development of the unusual Aleut anaphoric reference system from the debris of this collapse, going hand in hand with a strict fixation of SOV word order;
# The simple 3rd person forms when the original morphemes began to refer to any anaphoric (non-overt) referent, and;
# The spread of such a referent's own number (including that of a possessor of some overt argument) to the final verb of the (complex) sentence, overriding agreement with the subject.
Vocabulary comparison
The following is a comparison of cognates among the basic vocabulary across the Eskaleut language family (about 122 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.
Cognates of the Eskimoan languages can be found in Michael Fortescue et al., 2010.
Cognates of the Aleut language can be found in Knut Bergsland, 1997.
; Persons
; Pronouns
There are two types of pronouns: independent pronouns and pronominal pronouns.
;; Pronouns in relation to nouns
In Eskaleut languages, singular, dual, and plural nouns are marked by inflectional suffixes, and if they are possessed, the number marker is followed by pronominal suffixes that specify the (human) possessor. There are no genders, and this can be seen in the four persons: ''my, your, his/her, his/her own''.
"His/her own" specifies ownership, in contrast with "his/her", which does not. E.g., ''his'' house vs. ''his own'' house. (See Possessive determiner § Semantics.)
;; Pronouns in relation to verbs
Aleut uses independent pronouns, instead of pronominal marking on verbs. On the other hand, Eskimoan languages have four persons and three numbers marked by pronominal suffixes.
; Independent pronouns
; Pronominal suffixes
; Interrogative words
; Body parts
; Animals
; Other nouns
; Adjectives
;
See also
* Proto-Eskimoan language
* Proto-Eskaleut language
*Eskimology
Eskimology or Inuitology is a complex of humanities and sciences studying the languages, history, literature, folklore, culture, and ethnology of the speakers of Eskimo–Aleut languages and Inuit, Yupik and Aleut (or Unangam), sometimes collect ...
* Uralo-Siberian
* Eskimo-Uralic
Notes
Bibliography
* Bergsland, Knut (1997). ''Aleut Grammar: Unangam Tunuganaan Achixaasix̂''. United States of America: Alaska Native Language Center.
* Bernet, John W. 1974. ''An Anthology of Aleut, Eskimo, and Indian Literature of Alaska in English Translation.'' Fairbanks, Alaska.
* Booij, Geert; Lehmann, Christian; Mugdan, Joachim; Skopeteas, Stavros (2004). ''Morphologie / Morphology''. Walter de Gruyter.
* Conference on Eskimo Linguistics, and Eric P. Hamp. 1976. ''Papers on Eskimo and Aleut Linguistics.'' Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
* Crowley, Terry; Bowern, Claire (2010). ''An Introduction to Historical Linguistics''. New York: Oxford University Press.
* 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.
* 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.
* Fortescue, Michael. 1998. ''Language Relations across Bering Strait: Reappraising the Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence.'' London and New York: Cassell.
* 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.
* Gutman, Alejandro; Avanzati, Beatriz (2013). "Eskimo–Aleut Languages"
* Holst, Jan Henrik 2005. ''Einführung in die eskimo-aleutischen Sprachen.'' Hamburg: Buske.
*
* Marsh, Gordon H. 1956. ''The Linguistic Divisions of the Eskimo–Aleut Stock.''
* Miyaoka, Osahito (2012). ''A grammar of Central Alaskan Yupik (cay)''. Mouton Grammar Library.
* 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.
External links
Alaska Native Language Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eskaleut Languages
Agglutinative languages
Language families
Aleut culture
Indigenous languages of Alaska
Languages of Russia