Ilaria Nardotto
Professor Cynthia L. Hallen
Linguistics 450, Section 1
July 29, 1999

According to The Concise Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Eskimo-Aleut is a non-Indo-European language family "consisting of Aleut (spoken on the Aleutian Islands) and Eskimo (spoken in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Siberia)." In this paper I will describe both the Eskimo and the Aleut languages and people in their origins, locations, migrations, sub-groupings, characteristics, and language contacts. I will also mention possible connections to other language families.

To help the reader picture the whole language family that I will discuss, following is a chart found on the Internet of the Eskimo-Aleut language family with all its sub-groupings:

The Eskimos believed that the official name of a people had to be based on their self-designation, and not on someone else’s way of calling them. For example, in the 17^th century the Eskimos living in northeastern Siberia were called "the sedentary Chukchi," since they were not yet distinguished from the coastal Chukchis, and the name referred to their settled way of life. However, the self-designation of these Eskimos was yuhut "people" or yupikhyt "real people." The Asiatic Eskimo, on the other hand, chose their name to be yuity which, according to my sources, was based on the Russian form inuit "people," and was also used as the self-designation for the American Eskimo. However, in the early 20^th century the name Eskimo spread and was adopted by the Eskimo people themselves and has been current ever since. This name was probably borrowed from US researchers who had used the Algonkin name eskimatsik, which derives from askimeg "eating raw meat" (Kolga, et al).

In order to understand the origins, locations, migrations, sub-groupings, and language contacts of the Eskimos and their languages, let us look at some history. The Eskimos are the native people of Northeast Asia. About 2,000--3,000 years ago the Eskimos populated the whole eastern part of the Chukotka peninsula and in its northern part up to the Kolyma river. Because of this, many Eskimos have been Chukchianized and displaced to the American territories in the East. In 1649 Russia tried to conquer the Eskimo and Chukchi lands with no success. However, trade relations starting in 1867 finally helped Eskimos have contacts not only with Russians, but also with Americans and Koryaks. Later, in 1923, Chukotka fell under the Soviet jurisdiction. This fact, after bringing certain advantages such as co-operatives, schools, and political enlightenment, also brought colonialism in economic and ethnic relations, monopolized trades, mines, prison camps, new settlements, pollution, no suitable jobs, and even deportation inland. Because of all this, Eskimos became tired of being Eskimos, they gave up old customs, the young people passed over to Russian, and they found consolation in alcohol. Adding to the new problem of alcoholism, nuclear tests carried out in the region caused the propagation of chronic ailments such as hypertension, parasitic illnesses, tuberculosis, cancer, etc. The consequence was an average life expectancy of only 45 years, which means that the Eskimo language and culture are disappearing from the Asian mainland, and even the physical existence of the people is endangered (Kolga, et al.).

Because of the main Russian influence which is still today continuous and growing, the Eskimo language was quickly infiltrated by unadapted Russian loanwords. Bilinguism developed and the transition to Russian began. The influx of loanwords has topped the operation of the flexible derivational system of Eskimo. The schooling, working and living environment is prevalently Russian now. Because of many mixed marriages between Eskimos and Russians since the 1960's, the contact with the Russian language has become direct and personal. In order to save the Eskimo language from complete extinction, close and personal contacts with this language are now necessary (Kolga, et al.).

Following is an overview of the divisions of Eskimo-Aleut languages, which are almost all becoming extinct. The order of the overview is based on the chart on page 1.

The first part of the Eskimo-Aleut language family is Aleut. Aleuts, just like Eskimos, believed in self-designation for an official name. Their name comes from the Aleut word allithuh "community; host." The eastern Aleuts used to call themselves Unangan "coastal people," but the Russians who reached the Aleutian Islands in 1741 have adopted and used the first name, which is now official.

In order to understand the origins, locations, migrations, sub-groupings, and language contacts of the Aleuts and their languages, let us look at their history. The Aleut people are believed to have first arrived on the Aleutian Islands in association with the time when there was still a land connection between America and Asia, no later than 10-12 thousand years ago. Their first contacts with Europeans were in the middle of the 18^th century, when Russians sailors, tradesmen, and businessmen first explored the place. The invaders doomed the local Aleut to cultural and physical extinction. In fact, they deported some families on islands, they forced others to work for their companies from ages 18 to 50, they were converted to Russian Orthodoxy, and so on. When Alaska was sold to the USA, the Commander Islands remained under Russian jurisdiction. On those islands life was extremely isolated. Soon the Aleuts became the inferior population, as non-Aleut people moved on the islands. In 1871 the Europeanization of the traditional Aleut life-style began. In fact, people on the islands started to buy clothes unsuitable for the local conditions, they moved into American houses that were too cold for them, and they were payed by Russian merchants with trifles and alcohol. In 1899, because of these conditions, aggravated by famine brought by the Civil War period, 12% of the islanders died. In 1928, when things seemed to settle as the Aleut National District was established on the Commander Islands, serious diseases such as tuberculosis and chronic alcoholism infected 20% of the population. In 1930 things started to get better, but the Aleut people began to leave their native islands for non-Aleut environments. In 1969 all the remaining Aleuts were forced to move to Nikolskoye. Today there are more new settlers than Aleuts on the islands (Kolga, et al.).

Because of the Russian influence on the Aleut population in history, the language has also been influenced. In fact, by the beginning of the 19^th century, almost all Aleuts living on Russian territories had been converted to Russia Orthodoxy, which was an efficient means of checking the local culture and language. On Bering Island the Russian influence has not penetrated to grammar yet, but some of it has been noticed in the vocabulary. Nowadays the ordinary means of communication of the inhabitants of Mednyi Island is Russian. Aleut has been preserved fragmentarily by the older members of a few families but in general Aleut has receded before Russian (Kolga, et al.).

Evidence of this language contact and take over is, for example, the fact that in Siberia, in a population of 500 there are only about 10 vigorous speakers, all over 50 years old. Other semi-speakers are all over 40 years old. Further proof of the strong influence of Russian is the existence of a mixed Aleut-Russian language, or pidgin, called "Copper Island Aleut," which is spoken on Medny Island. This pidgin is formed with finite verb morphology, kinship terms, acculturational words, and some adverbs from Russian, while the non-finite verb morphology, most of the lexicon and the structure come from Aleut ("Ethnologue").

The other part of the Eskimo-Aleut language family is Eskimo. The language of the Siberian Eskimo belongs to the Eskimo-Aleut group of the paleo-Asiatic languages. When the Eskimos separated 2,000-3,000 years ago, they spread from Northeast Asia across North-America to Greenland. Over time, different dialects developed between language groups. Following the chart on page 1 we can see that Eskimo is divided into Inuit and Yupik. Inuit is in turn divided into four variations of Inuktitut. An interesting factor to notice is that Greenlandic (a type of Inuktitut) is also spoken in mainland Denmark, where news in Greenlandic is broadcast daily from FM radio stations. On the other hand, in Greenland both Greenlandic and Danish are used in schools. These facts show an example of language contact. In general, all Inuktitut languages are spoken by older people (at least over 30 or 40 years of age), and very few people are literate in the language, showing that Inuit is slowly disappearing ("Ethnologue").

As I mentioned earlier, Eskimo is divided into Inuit and Yupik. Yupik is in turn divided into Alaskan and Siberian. Alaskan comprises two types of Yupik: Central and Pacific Gulf. An interesting factor about the Central Yupik is that unlike other languages (such as Inuktitut), this type of Yupik is widely spoken by children, and people are quite bilingual, showing therefore little sign of becoming soon extinct. Just like Alaskan comprises two types of Yupik, Siberian is divided into three other Yupik languages. These are also disappearing, just like Inuktitut, because of the scarce use of them by the population ("Ethnologue").

In conclusion, the non-Indo-European language family of Eskimo-Aleut has had a history full of language contacts, migrations, and sub-groupings, which, together with origins, characteristics, and locations have brought this language family almost to extinction today. What would save this language family from completely disappearing is personal, close, and direct contact with the Eskimo-Aleut language family.

Works Cited