Kamchatkan (Kamchatic) is a former
dialect cluster
A dialect is a variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standardized varieties as well as vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardized varieties, such as those used in developing countries or iso ...
spoken on the
Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula (, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and western coastlines, respectively.
Immediately offshore along the Pacific ...
. It now consists of a single language,
Western Itelmen (also called Western Kamchadal). It had 100 or fewer speakers in 1991, mostly of the older generation. The Russian census of 2010 still reported 80 speakers.
There are incomplete records attesting of at least two other divergent varieties,
Eastern (also: Northern) Kamchadal and
Southern Kamchadal, both extinct in the late 18th century.
Kamchadal languages, though traditionally considered dialects, were apparently distinct enough to be classified as separate languages.
The three varieties were spoken in western, eastern, and southern Kamchatka. The degree of difference can be illustrated with the pronoun 'we', which is
Western
Western may refer to:
Places
*Western, Nebraska, a village in the US
*Western, New York, a town in the US
*Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
*Western world, countries that id ...
''muza, muza'n'',
Southern ''muš, burin'',
Eastern ''buze''.
Kamchatkan is not closely related to the
Chukotkan languages. Although distant enough for doubts about its relationship to have been raised (as in Volodin 1976), cognate
morphology
Morphology, from the Greek and meaning "study of shape", may refer to:
Disciplines
*Morphology (archaeology), study of the shapes or forms of artifacts
*Morphology (astronomy), study of the shape of astronomical objects such as nebulae, galaxies, ...
clearly demonstrates that it forms a family with Chukotkan,
though it also has some striking contrasts, especially in the area of
phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
. The Chukotko-Kamchatkan proto-language has been partially reconstructed.
Michael Fortescue
Michael David Fortescue (born 8 August 1946, Thornbury) is a British-born linguist specializing in Arctic and native North American languages, including Kalaallisut, Inuktun, Chukchi and Nitinaht.
Fortescue is known for his reconstructions ...
believes that Kamchatkan may have a substratum of a language formerly spoken by a remnant Beringian population.
For instance, Kamchatkan has
ejectives, which are common among languages of the Pacific Northwest, but rare in languages of Northeast Asia.
Footnotes
References
* Comrie, Bernard. 1981,
The Languages of the Soviet Union'. Cambridge University Press.
* 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.
{{Paleosiberian languages
Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
Endangered languages of Asia