Eskaleut languages

The Eskaleut languages are a special group of languages spoken by people living in very cold places. These languages are found in parts of northern North America and a tiny bit of northeastern Asia. You can hear them in places like Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and the Russian Far East.

There are two main parts to this language family. One part includes many languages called Eskimoan languages, like the Inuit languages and Yupik languages. These are spoken in places such as northern Alaska, across Canada, and in Greenland. The other part has just one language, called Aleut, spoken in the Aleutian Islands and nearby islands.

Even within these languages, there are many smaller versions called dialects. For example, the Yupik languages have different ways of speaking in western and southwestern Alaska and in Chukotka. The Inuit languages also have many versions, and people living close to each other often speak very similarly, but those far apart may have quite different ways of talking.

History

The Eskaleut languages are some of the native languages of the Americas. They are not clearly connected to other language families in North America and are thought to belong to the Thule people, who were a group of people who moved from Asia long ago. Experts believe the original Eskaleut language split into two main groups, Eskimoan and Aleut, over 4,000 years ago. The Eskimoan languages later divided into the Yupik and Inuit groups about 1,000 years ago. Some newer studies suggest there was also a third smaller group called Sirenik.

A researcher named Alexander Vovin found that some languages spoken in Siberia and China have words that came from Eskaleut languages. This shows that Eskaleut languages were once spoken over a much larger area. Vovin thinks these words were borrowed around 2,000 years ago, as people moved northward. He believes the original home of the Eskaleut languages was in Siberia and not in Alaska.

Internal classification

The Eskaleut languages are a group of related languages spoken by people living in the far north. These languages are spoken in parts of Alaska in the United States, Canada, Greenland, and a small area in Russia. The main branches include the Aleut language and the Eskimoan languages.

The Eskimoan group includes several languages such as Sirenik, Yupik, and Inuit. The Yupik languages have many different dialects spoken in places like Alaska and Russia. The Inuit languages are spoken by many people in Canada and Greenland, with Greenlandic being one of the larger languages in this group.

Position among the world's language families

Eskaleut languages do not have any proven connection to other language families in the world. Most experts agree they are not closely related to the languages of North America. Some ideas suggest links to language families in northern Eurasia, like the Chukotko-Kamchatkan family across the Bering Strait.

One old idea from 1818 connects Eskaleut languages to Finnish, noticed by a Danish linguist. A more recent idea from 1998 links them to Yukaghir and Uralic languages, but this is still not proven. Another idea groups Eskaleut with many northern Eurasian languages, but this is not widely accepted because it lacks strong historical evidence. These ideas are still being studied but remain uncertain.

Notable features

In Eskaleut languages, every word starts with one main part called a root. After the root, there are special parts called postbases that add more meaning. For example, in Central Siberian Yupik, the word "angyagh-(gh)lla-ng(e)-yug-tuq-lu" means "also, he wants to acquire a big boat".

These languages have a few vowels—usually just a, i, and u. They also have special sounds like voiceless plosives in different positions, such as at the lips, teeth, and throat. Some dialects have unique sounds like voiceless nasals.

Phonology

Eskimoan

Main article: Proto-Eskaleut language

The Eskimoan language includes special sounds called vowels and consonants. These sounds were studied by experts in 2010.

Vowels

In Eskimoan, a special sound called ə matches a different sound, i, in Aleut.

Consonants

The Inuit language only allows one consonant sound at the start of a word and no more than two consonants together between vowel sounds.

The Yupik language does not change consonants in the same way that Inuit does.

Some consonant sounds in the tables below are not part of the original Eskimoan language.

Aleut

Main article: Aleut language

The Aleut language also has its own set of vowels and consonants, studied by a specialist in 1997.

Vowels

Aleut has six vowel sounds: three short ones (i, u, a) and three long ones (iː, uː, aː). In writing, the long vowels are shown as ii, uu, and aa. The length of a vowel depends on its stress, nearby consonants, and in some cases, nearby vowels. Short vowels appear at the start of a word if the next consonant is certain types, like uka, ika, and aka.

Long vowels sound lower than their short versions but change less if they are next to specific consonants. Examples include uuquchiing meaning 'blue fox', qiiqix̂ meaning 'storm-petrel', and qaaqaan meaning 'eat it!'

Consonants

Aleut consonants include single letters, pairs of letters, and one group of three letters. Some sounds only appear in words borrowed from Russian or English, one sound is special to Eastern Aleut, and some are standard in Aleut.

Aleut does not have certain consonant sounds and allows up to three consonants together, even at the start of a word.

Aleut has special sounds that are rare in many languages, like voiceless nasal sounds and no specific consonant sound.

Morphology

Language type

Polysynthetic language

The Eskaleut languages are polysynthetic, meaning one word can contain many smaller parts called morphemes. These languages mainly add endings to words, called suffixes, to create new words. These suffixes can add details like who is doing something, what is being done, and where it is happening. This lets one word share information that might need a whole sentence in other languages. For example, in Central Alaskan Yupik, a single word can mean "I asked him to make a big kayak, but he has not made it yet."

Morphosyntactic alignment

Eskimoan languages use an ergative–absolutive system. This means the way subjects and objects are shown in a sentence changes depending on whether the verb needs a subject and object or just a subject. In Aleut, subjects and objects are shown the same way, no matter what the verb is. If the object is clearly known, special markings are not used. If the object is not clear, then special markings are used.

Syntax

Eskaleut languages usually follow a word order where the subject comes first, then the object, and finally the verb, known as subject–object–verb (SOV).

The Eskaleut language family includes two main branches that have developed differently over time. One branch, Aleut, has changed quite a bit from the ancient language and now looks quite different. These changes include how words change their form to show relationships and the way sentences are structured.

Vocabulary comparison

This section compares basic words across the Eskaleut language family, showing words that share a common origin. There are about 122 words included.

There are two kinds of pronouns: independent pronouns and pronominal pronouns. In Eskaleut languages, nouns can show if they are singular, dual, or plural by adding special endings. If a noun is owned by someone, more endings are added to show who owns it. There are no genders, and pronouns show relationships like "my," "your," "his/her," and "his/her own." "His/her own" means the owner really belongs to that person, like saying "his house" versus "his very own house."

Aleut uses independent pronouns, while Eskimoan languages use special endings on verbs to show pronouns.