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THE archeological and other evidence indicating that America has re-
ceived various waves of imigration in the last 25,000 years suggests that
there may be linguistic relationships also. If there had been only one ancient
movement many millennia back, the American languages would by now have
so far diverged from any kin still in the Old World as to defy any ordinary
efforts to discover similarities deriving from their common origin. Only an
arduous long-term effort to reconstruct very old protolanguages in both
hemispheres might eventually permit a successful comparison between them.
However, since there were in fact later migrations, the wonder is that there
is as yet no generally accepted instance of related languages in both hemi-
spheres, with the exception of the obvious unity of Siberian and American
Eskimo. The difficulty may lie in the remoteness in time of the latest migra-
tions, or in the limited intensity of comparative studies up to now. Possibly
both circumstances are involved. At any rate, there can be no doubt that the
closest intercontinental affinities are fairly distant. None can be compared,
say, to those which interconnect the Germanic languages, a group whose
separation goes back 2,000 years. In fact, as estimated by the index of basic
vocabularly retention, the time depth of the nearest possible relationships is
evidently greater than 4,000 years.
CIRCUMSTANCESOF RECENT MIGRATIONS
The fact that there are no linguistic relatives with a closer time-depth than
4,000 years in Asia and America does not imply that no migrations have taken
place in all that time. It is perfectly possible that a group of people having
arrived speaking a new language eventually was absorbed into an already
established linguistic community. Or the pioneers could have been joined by
more and more of their co-linguals, and, after the new language was well
established in the New World, those who still remained behind could have
been absorbed into some other expanding community. There are many paral-
lels for such variant possible developments in recorded history. Familiar
examples of languages which did not perdure in new territory are those of
Dutch in New York, Norman French in England, or Arabic in Spain. The
opposite case, of persistence only in the new territory, may be shown by
Dominican Carib in Central America, Magyar in Europe, Indic languages in
India.
Although preservation in both areas is a fairly common development, it
is evident that this did not occur between Asia and America during recent
millennia, and this fact is of considerable importance to prehistory. It suggests
1262
THEORIES OF INTER-HEMISPHERICRELATIONSHIP
To better orient our analysis, it is well to examine briefly a few of the more
serious theories of linguistic affinities between the Old and New World.
Rasmus Rask, one of the greatest and most able of the pioneer comparative
linguists, found evidence relating Eskimo and Aleut to Uraltaian, but his
effort did not become generally known until the present century. Uhlenbeck
renewed the question in 1905. Sauvageot, in response to his suggestion, pub-
lished data comparing Uraltaian with Eskimo and attempting to establish
phonetic laws (1924). Rask's comparisons (see Thalbitzer 1921) and some of
Sauvageot's appear to be fairly convincing, but many of the latter's seem
forced, so that his phonological equations remain doubtful. The matter re-
mained dormant for a number of years, but was reexamined a few years ago
by Bergsland (1959) on the basis of his very successful work of systematizing
the comparative study of Eskimo and Aleut. This scholar presents interesting
evidence of structural and vocabulary similarities between Uralic and Eskimo-
Aleutian which tend to support the theory of their relationship, but he him-
self does not consider it proved. Thus, he states (p. 14) that "In lexical matters
the Eskimo-Uralic hypothesis will probably remain a non-liquet..." and that
"The number-both absolute and relative-of seemingly possible morpho-
logical comparisons is fairly large . . . but the element of chance cannot be
eliminated...." It is possible that this inconclusive finding is partly due to
the author's skepticism from the outset, since he begins by saying, "Like most
problems of remote linguistic relationship the subject of this paper belongs to
the realm of speculation rather than to that of scientific linguistics." Never-
theless, he analyzes the question in a fashion which will unquestionably be
helpful for future study.
PHONOLOGY
Oneof the chief requisites for reasonable
a demonstration of common ori-
gin,serving directly as proof and at
thesame time providing atest of common
originfor specific morphemes, is consistent
a phonological theory. This re-
quirementcan be met for
Chukotan andEskaleutian. The main facts are
summarizedin the table below, in which the
contemporary language families
areeach represented by a specific dialect.
Thephonemes of the reconstructed
protolanguage are shown in the top
sectionof the table, in rows and columns,
according to positions and types of
articulation.The development of each phoneme is then to
be found in the
correspondingpoint of the section belonging to each language. The
usedto indicate loss of a phoneme. Arrows are used sign #is
where convenient to show
thedirection of change in the cases of fused items.
The diagonal indicates
alternatechanges according to phonetic environment. The
items are not simply
phonemesin the specific sense, but rather super
phonemes covering any
mechanicalvariation in each language based on phonetic
environment. Thus,
forexample, k in Greenlandic corresponds to k
before vowels, g before a
stop, rj before a nasal. Where a master phoneme could be
confused with
another,the more changeable of two is represented by small
the
N in Chukchi is that n which is replaced a cap letter.
Thus, by y before a consonant cluster.
The details of these mechanical alternations
inthe descriptive works on each can (forthe most part) be found
language; for present purposes, it may be
sufficient to give a simple summary of variations, without
to ex-
plain the conditions that give each form. is to be found attempting
It after the table.
Itwill be noted that in fewa particulars our phonemic analysis differs
from that of other authors. We do
not insist that ours is necessarily the best
treatment, but we believe makes
it all the necessary distinctions. Itshould be
for other scholars to recognize the
easy forms and thereby to realize what new
interpretations are being made, with the possible exception of
which we believe Kamchadal,
has never had an adequate phonemic interpretation. This
Proto P ((?) c 1 q
language p t c s k q x
b d z g p u i i
m w n r 1 X y ni 0 o a e
West p c 1 ?
Kamchadal p t c z k k(?) G
w - - z Y g u i i
m #/w n r 1 c #/y c e o a e
Chukchi [ r g v
p t c < k q #
w r R Y/W g u i i'
m w n r 1 c y N 1' a
Aleut [ I I #
h/hm t c s k q #/p
$ t/d c/s k/g #/p u/u a/A i/I
h/m #/m t/n ->t/1 -- #/y t/n 13 u a i
Greenland 1 1 i #
Inuk p t -- s k q #/p
p/w t/s s/s k/g #/p u/I I i/I
m #/w n-on/l #- #/y n/N 13 u a i
language evidently has considerable positional and some free variation; the
sound or sounds written g, x, and h may be one phoneme, and similarly f/w,
z/s/z/s, palatalized and nonpalatalized dentals (perhaps an intermediate
type, identifid by the early Slavic-speaking phoneticians at times with one
and at times with another of their contrasting types). It is not clear whether
k and q are one phoneme, variously written for lack of adequate criteria, or
two of them frequently confused. For practical purposes it is easiest to assume
one entity.
INITIAL-PHONEMEEQUATIONS
The languages are shown by abbreviations, made up of one letter for
Eskimo, Inuk, Yuk, Aleut, and two letters for Kamchadal, Kerek, Koryak,
Chukchi; E. (Eskimo) means both I. and Y. Dialect or free variants are
ordinarily listed without special indications. Normalized phonemic writing is
used in all instances to the extent that the source material permits it. Morpho-
phonemic symbols (consisting of small caps where two entities have to be dis-
tinguished) are used, when the data is available, in the parts of the cited ele-
ments where interchange is possible. Longer forms are broken with hyphens
when the separate elements can be identified. At the head of each set of forms
are given the reconstructed phoneme and the phonologic equation.
(*p-). Ka-Ch. p = A. h = E. p.
Ka-Ch. pamya- stockings; A. hamga- sleeve. From *pami-ga. Original
meaning of *pami perhaps extending member, found also in Ch. pamyayp-
SKORYIK, P. Y.
1958 K
Voprosu o Klassyifyikatsii Chukotsko-Kamchatskikh Yazikov, Voprosi Yazikoz-
nanyiya, pp. 21-35.
Voprosio Stravnyityelynom Izuchenyii Chukotsko-Kamchatskikh Yazikov.
STYEBYINTSKIY, S. N.
1934a Nimilanskiy (Koryatskiy) Yazik. YPNS 47-84.
1934b Itelymyenskiy Yazik. YPNS 85-104.
SWADESH,M.
South
1948a Greenlandic paradigms. IJAL 14:29-36.
A structural trend in
1948b Nootka. Word 4:106-19.
1951-2 Unaaliq and Proto Eskimo. IJAL 1:25-34, 69-76, 166-71, 241-56.
Sino Tibetan.
1952 Athapaskan and IJAL 18:178-81.
1956a Contributions, Section
B, Comparative Linguistics (on quantitative criteria for
provinglinguistic
relationship). Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress
ofLinguists, London 1952, pp.38-39.
1956bProblems of
long-rangecomparison in Penutian. 32:17-41.
1959 The mesh principle in comparative linguistics. Anthropological
Linguistics 1:7-14.
1960aOn
interhemisphere linguistic connections. In Culture in History, S. Diamond, ed.
New York,pp. 894-924. Columbia University Press.
1960b
Tras la HuellaLingiiistica de laPrehistoria. Suplementos delSeminario de Prob-
lemas
CientSficosy Filos6ficos, 2a. Serie, No. 26.
1961 Los
supuestos australianos en America. Homenaje aPablo Martmnez delRfo, pp.
401-25.
1962 Archaic doublets
in Altaic. InAmerican Studies in Altaic, N. Poppe ed.
WILLIAM
THALBITZER,
1921 The Aleutian language compared with
1928 Is there Greenlandic. IJAL 2:40-57.
anyconnection between the Eskimo language and the Uralian? Atti del
Congresso Intern. degli
XXII
1952 Possible Americanisti 2:551-67.
early contacts between Eskimo and Old World languages.
of In Indian Tribes
Aboriginal America, S.
Tax. ed. Proceedings of the 29th International Congress of
Americanists3: 50-54.
ARTHUR
THIBERT,
1954
English-Eskimo Eskimo-EnglishDictionary. Ottawa, University of Ottawa Re-
searchCenter of Amerindian Anthropology.
C.
UHLENBECK,C.
1905
Uralische Anklange in den Eskimosprachen. Zeitschriftder deutschen morgen-
landischen
1935 Eskimo Gesellschaft 59: 757-65.
en
Oer-Indogermaansch. Mededeelingender Koninklijke Akademie van
Wetenschappen, Afdeeling Letterkunde Deel 77,Ser. A. 6:179-96.
TOR
ULVING, Consonant gradation in Eskimo.
1953 IJAL19:45-52.
WORTH,
DEAN STODDARD
1959Paleosiberian etymologies. IJAL25:32-40, 105-13.