Eskimo–Uralic Languages

The Eskimo–Uralic hypothesis posits that the Uralic and Eskimo–Aleut language families belong to a common macrofamily. It is not generally accepted by linguists because the similarities can also be merely areal features, common to unrelated language families. In 1818, the Danish linguist Rasmus Rask grouped together the languages of Greenlandic and Finnish. The Eskimo–Uralic hypothesis was put forward by Knut Bergsland in 1959. Ante Aikio has stated that it is possible that there is some connection between the two families, but exact conclusions cannot be drawn.

A similar theory was suggested in 1998 by Michael Fortescue, in his book ''Language Relations across Bering Strait'' where he proposed the Uralo-Siberian theory, which, unlike the Eskimo-Uralic hypothesis includes the Yukaghir languages, argues that Uralo-Siberian influenced Chukotko-Kamchatkan and some have included Nivkh as a part of the family.

At present the arguments used to defend the Eskimo-Uralic theory are insufficient to even suspect a relationship between the languages, let alone to make an affirmative case for their relationship.

History

Comparisons between Uralic and Eskimo–Aleut languages were made 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 1871, H. Rink made a similar proposal. 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 1998, Michael Fortescue presented more detailed arguments in his book, ''Language Relations across Bering Strait''. His title evokes Morris Swadesh's 1962 article, "Linguistic relations across the Bering Strait". Besides new proposed linguistic evidence, Fortescue (2016) presents several genetic studies that he argued to support a common origin of the included groups, with a suggested homeland in Northeast Asia.

Proposed evidence

A few potential lexical cognates between Proto-Uralic and Eskimo–Aleut are pointed out in Aikio (2019: 53–54). These are:

A possible regular sound correspondence with Uralic *-l- and Proto-Eskimo-Aleut *-t can be argued to exist.

According to Ante Aikio, the words and appear to be completely unrelated, which means there is an instance of coincidental homonymy, which very rarely happens by accident. Aikio thus states that he believes it to be likely that there is some connection between the two families, however exact conclusions cannot be drawn.

See also

* Paleosiberian languages
* Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan language
* Proto-Uralic language
* Classification of indigenous languages of the Americas
* Linguistic areas of the Americas
* Macrofamily

References

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* Künnap, A. 1999. ''Indo-European-Uralic-Siberian Linguistic and Cultural Contacts''. Tartu, Estonia: University of Tartu, Division of Uralic Languages.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eskimo-Uralic languages

Proposed language families
Eskaleut languages