Eskimo–Uralic languages

Eskimo–Uralic
(proposed)
Geographic
distribution		northern Eurasia and far northern North America
Linguistic classificationProposed language family
Subdivisions
Language codes
GlottologNone
Eskimo–Uralic languages

The Eskimo–Uralic hypothesis posits that the Uralic and Eskimo–Aleut language families belong to a common macrofamily. 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.[1][2][3]

The evidence is currently not sufficient to establish a relationship between Eskaleut and Uralic, and thus the theory remains speculative.

History

Comparisons between Uralic and Eskimo–Aleut languages were made early. In 1746, the Danish theologian Marcus Wøldike 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.[2] 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.[4]

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".[5] 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.[6]

Proposed evidence

A few potential lexical cognates between Proto-Uralic and Eskimo–Aleut are pointed out in Aikio (2019: 53–54).[7] These are:

Proto-Uralic Proto-Eskimo
*ila- 'place under or below' *at(ǝ)- 'down'; *alaq 'sole'
*elä- 'to live' *ǝt(ǝ)- 'to be'
*tuli- 'to come' *tut- 'to arrive, land'; *tulaɣ-
*kuda 'morning, dawn' *qilaɣ- 'sky'
*kuda- 'to weave' *qilaɣ- 'to knit, weave'

A possible regular sound correspondence with Uralic *-l- and Proto-Eskimo-Aleut *-t can be argued to exist.[7]

According to Ante Aikio, the words 'morning' and 'to weave' 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.[7]

Relationships

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.[8] Fortescue's observations have been evaluated by specialists with a limited degree of positivity but are viewed as scattered evidence and still remain highly speculative and unproven and the soundness of the reconstructed common ancestors are challenging to evaluate.[9][10] Ante Aikio has stated that it is likely that there is some connection between The Eskaleut languages and the Uralic languages, but exact conclusions about the nature of this connection cannot presently be drawn.[7]

At present the arguments used to defend the Eskimo-Uralic theory are insufficient to suspect a relationship between the languages, let alone to make an affirmative case for their relationship.[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ Bergsland, Knut (1959). The Eskimo-Uralic Hypothesis (in German). na.
  2. ^ a b Rask, Rasmus; Thalbitzer, William (January 1921). "The Aleutian Language Compared with Greenlandic". International Journal of American Linguistics. 2 (1/2): 40–57. doi:10.1086/463733. ISSN 0020-7071. S2CID 143810291. This problem, in reality, had already been taken up earlier, first by the Danish eskimologist H. Rink, later by the French linguist Lucien Adam. The former, in 1871, had referred to the agreement in the dual and plural endings (-k and -t) between the Eskimo language and the Samoyede-Finnish languages The latter had rejected the possibility of classifying the Eskimo either with any American Indian language or with the Uralo-Altaic languages
  3. ^ Caveney, Geoffrey. "Uralic-Eskimo initial, first vowel, and medial consonant correspondences with 100 lexical examples". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  4. ^ Bergsland, Knut (1959). "The Eskimo–Uralic hypothesis". Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne. 61: 1–29.
  5. ^ Swadesh, Morris (1962). "Linguistic relations across the Bering Strait". American Anthropologist. 64 (6): 1262–1291. doi:10.1525/aa.1962.64.6.02a00090.
  6. ^ "Correlating Palaeo-Siberian languages and populations: recent advances in the Uralo-Siberian hypothesis". ResearchGate. Retrieved 2019-03-22.
  7. ^ a b c d Aikio, Ante (2019). "Proto-Uralic". In Bakró-Nagy, Marianne; Laakso, Johanna; Skribnik, Elena (eds.). Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
  8. ^ Fortescue, Michael (1998). Language Relations across Bering Strait: Reappraising the Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence. London and New York: Cassell. ISBN 0-304-70330-3.
  9. ^ Abondolo, Daniel; Valijärvi, Riitta-Liisa (2023-03-31). The Uralic Languages. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-23097-7. Fortescue's observations are encyclopaedic, and often innovative and inspiring, but the picture arrived at is one of disetcta membra [sic]
  10. ^ Berge, Anna (2024). "Mid-Holocene Language Connections between Asia and North America. By Michael Fortescue and Edward Vajda. Brill's Studies in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, vol. 17. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2022. Part 1: The Uralo-Siberian Hypothesis, pp. 13–234. USD $179, hardcover or e-book edition". Review article. International Journal of American Linguistics. 90 (1): 130–132. doi:10.1086/727525. As a result, F's list of proposed cognates contains numerous gaps, with many stems not found in more than two or three languages among the languages being compared. Therefore, it is sometimes difficult to evaluate the soundness of the reconstruction, and more illustrative examples would have helped.
  11. ^ Abondolo, Daniel; Valijärvi, Riitta-Liisa (2023-03-31). The Uralic Languages. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-317-23097-7.
  • Bergsland, Knut (1979). "The comparison of Eskimo-Aleut and Uralic". Fenno-Ugrica Suecana. 2: 7–18.
  • Georg, Stefan; Seefloth, Uwe (2020). "Uralo-Eskimo?". Academia.edu. San Francisco, California: Academia, Inc.
  • Seefloth, Uwe (2000). "Die Entstehung polypersonaler Paradigmen im Uralo-Sibirischen". Zentralasiatische Studien. 30: 163–191.
  • Künnap, A. 1999. Indo-European-Uralic-Siberian Linguistic and Cultural Contacts. Tartu, Estonia: University of Tartu, Division of Uralic Languages.
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