Cover not available
Part of
Historical Linguistics 2019: Selected papers from the 24th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Canberra, 1–5 July 2019
Edited by Bethwyn Evans, Maria Kristina Gallego and Luisa Miceli
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 367] 2024
► pp. 8–35

Chapter 1
Signs of prehistoric language shifts involving Unangam Tunuu (Aleut)

| University of Alaska Fairbanks
Unangam Tunuu (UT) underwent several periods of prehistoric contact with neighbouring languages. However, no specific period or mechanism of contact between the Unangan and other peoples has been proposed. In this paper, my aim is to better define and date the various types of language contact and/or shift that UT appears to have undergone since its divergence from Proto-Eskaleut, including linguistic and archaeological evidence for (a) early lexical replacement, (b) language bilingualism between Na-Dene and UT, leading to shared grammatical features, and (c) late Alutiiq influence on UT and the possible replacement of UT in currently Alutiiq areas.
Keywords: prehistoric language contact, Unangam Tunuu (Aleut), Yupik and Inuit, Eskaleut
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Prehistoric language contact between UT and neighbouring languages
  • 2.Types of language change from PEA to modern Unangam Tunuu (UT)
    • 2.1Undated lexical differentiation between PE and PA, ca. 3500 BP
    • 2.2Movement away from canonical EA grammar, between 2,500–1,500 BP
      • 2.2.1How has UT grammar diverged from PEA?
      • 2.2.2Region-wide shared terminology
      • 2.2.3The source and date of language contact with Na-Dene
    • 2.3Alutiiq influence on UT culture and possible replacement, ca. 800 BP
  • 3.Language contact in UT: The result of population migration, replacement, or something else?
  • 4.Concluding remarks
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References (73)
References
Ames, Kenneth M. 2001. Slaves, chiefs, and labour on the Pacific Northwest Coast. World Archaeology 33(1). The Archaeology of Slavery. 1–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barton, Lucas, Scott Shirar & James W. Jordan. 2018. Holocene human occupation of the Central Alaska Peninsula. Radiocarbon 60(2). 1–16. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beach, William Wallace (ed.). 1877. The Indian miscellany: Containing papers on the history, antiquities, arts… . Albany, NY: J. Munsell.Google Scholar
Berge, Anna. 2010a. Origins of linguistic diversity in the Aleutian Islands. Human Biology 84(4). October-December 2010 special issue. 557–582. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2010b. Unexpected non-anaphoric marking in Aleut. In Jan Wohlgemuth & Michael Cysouw (eds.), Rara & Rarissima: Documenting the fringes of linguistic diversity (Empirical Approaches to Linguistic Typology (EALT) 46), 1–22. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. Object reduction in Aleut. Asian and African Languages and Linguistics 7: Transitivity and Its Related Phenomena, ed. by Tokusu Kurebito. Tokyo: ILCAA, 5–23.Google Scholar
. 2016a. Polysynthesis in Aleut (Unangam Tunuu). In Tokusu Kurebito (ed.), Linguistic Typology of the North 3, 1–22. Tokyo: ILCAA.Google Scholar
. 2016b. Insubordination in Aleut. In Nicholas Evans & Honoré Watanabe (eds.), Dynamics of insubordination: Typology of language, 283–310. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2016c. Pribilof Anĝaĝigan Tunungin [The way we talk in the Pribilofs]. Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Center.Google Scholar
. 2017a. Subsistence terms in Unangam Tunuu (Aleut). In Martine Robbeets & Sander Savelyev (eds.), Language dispersal beyond farming, 47–73. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2017b. Lexical evidence for the former presence of Unangam Tunuu in currently Alutiiq areas. Workshop on Language Contact in the Circumpolar World, Institute for Linguistics, Moscow Russia, October 27–29.
. 2018a. Re-evaluating the linguistic reconstruction of Proto-Eskimo-Aleut. Journal of Historical Linguistics 8(2). 231–273. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2018b. Reexamining the linguistic prehistory of Aleut (Unangam Tunuu). In Rune Iversen & Guus Kroonen (eds.), Digging for words: Archaeolinguistic case studies from the XV Nordic TAG Conference held at the University of Copenhagen, 16–18 April, 2015, 31–38. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports (BAR).
. 2018c. Unangan place names in currently Alutiiq areas. 45th Annual Meeting of the Alaska Anthropological Association, Anchorage, AK, March 21–24.
. 2020. Language contact in Unangam Tunuu (Aleut). In Anthony P. Grant (ed.), The Oxford handbook of language contact, 642–659. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. n.d. Intransitive and causative verb pairs in Unangam Tunuu. Unpublished Manuscript.
. Forthcoming. Sketch of Unangam Tunuu. Handbook of Eskimo-Aleut languages. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bergsland, Knut. 1959. Aleut dialects of Atka and Attu. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, new series 49(3). 1–128. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1986. Comparative Eskimo-Aleut phonology and lexicon. Journal de la Société Finno-ougrienne 80. 63–137.Google Scholar
. 1989. Comparative aspects of Aleut syntax. Journal de la Société Finno-ougrienne 82. 7–80.Google Scholar
Bergsland, Knut (compiler). 1994. Aleut dictionary: Unangam Tunudgusii. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center.Google Scholar
Bergsland, Knut. 1997. Aleut grammar. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center.Google Scholar
Black, Lydia. 2003. Aleut art: Unangam Aguqaadangin. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cameron, Catherine M. 2011. Captives and culture change: Implications for archaeology. Current Anthropology 52(2). 169–209. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Donald. 1984. Pacific Eskimo: Historical ethnography. In David Damas (ed.), Handbook of the North American Indians, vol. 5. Arctic, 185–197. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Clark, Donald W. 2008. Five Seasons with the Late Kachemak. Alaska Journal of Anthropology 6(1–2). 185–197.Google Scholar
Crawford, Michael H., Rohina C. Rubicz & Mark Zlojutro. 2010. Origins of Aleuts and the genetic structure of populations of the archipelago: Molecular and archaeological perspectives. Human Biology 84(4). October-December 2010 special issue. 695–717. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Crockford, Susan J. 2008. Be careful what you ask for: Archaeozoological evidence of mid-Holocene climate change in the Bering Sea and implications for the origins of Arctic Thule. In Geoffrey Clark, Foss Leach, and Sue O’Connor (eds.), Islands of Inquiry: Colonization, Seafaring, and The Archaeology of Maritime Landscapes, 113–131. Canberra: ANU. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Davis, Stanley Drew. 1996. The archaeology of the Yakutat Foreland: A socioecological view. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University doctoral dissertation.
De Laguna, Frederica. 1975. The archaeology of Cook Inlet, Alaska, 2nd edn. Anchorage, AK: Alaska Historical Society.Google Scholar
Donald, Leland. 1997. Aboriginal slavery on the Northwest Coast of North America. Berkeley, CA: University of California.Google Scholar
Dumond, Don. 2001. Toward a (yet) newer view of the (pre)history of the Aleutians. In Don E. Dumond (ed.), Archaeology in the Aleut zone of Alaska, Some recent research (University of Oregon Anthropological Papers 58), 289–309. Eugene, OR: University of Oregon Press.Google Scholar
Flegontov, Pavel, Ezgi Altinişik, Piya Changmai, Nadin Rohland, Swapan Mallick, Deborah A. Bolnick, Francesca Candilio, Olga Flegontova, Choongwon Jeong, Thomas K. Harper, Denise Keating, Douglas J. Kennett, Alexander M. Kim, Thiseas C.Lamnidis, Iñigo Olalde, Jennifer Raff, Robert A. Sattler, Pontus Skoglund, Edward J. Vajda, Sergey Vasilyev, Elizaveta Veselovskaya, M. Geoffrey Hayes, Dennis H. O’Rourke, Ron Pinhasi, Johannes Krause, David Reich, Stephan Schiffels. 2017. Paleo-Eskimo genetic legacy across North America. bioRxiv preprint. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Flegontov, Pavel, N. Ezgi Altınışık, Piya Changmai, Nadin Rohland, Swapan Mallick, Nicole Adamski, Deborah A. Bolnick, Nasreen Broomandkhoshbacht, Francesca Candilio, Brendan J. Culleton, Olga Flegontova, T. Max Friesen, Choongwon Jeong, Thomas K. Harper, Denise Keating, Douglas J. Kennett, Alexander M. Kim, Thiseas C. Lamnidis, Ann Marie Lawson, Iñigo Olalde, Jonas Oppenheimer, Ben A. Potter, Jennifer Raff, Robert A. Sattler, Pontus Skoglund, Kristin Stewardson, Edward J. Vajda, Sergey Vasilyev, Elizaveta Veselovskaya, M. Geoffrey Hayes, Dennis H. O’Rourke, Johannes Krause, Ron Pinhasi, David Reich & Stephan Schiffels. 2019. Palaeo-Eskimo genetic ancestry and the peopling of Chukotka and North America. Nature 570. 236–257. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fortescue, Michael. 1998. Language relations across Bering Strait: Reappraising the archaeological and linguistic evidence. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
. 2002. The Rise and fall of Eskimo-Aleut polysynthesis. In Nicholas Evans & Hans-Jürgen Sasse (eds.), Problems of Polysynthesis, 257–276. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2017. Polysynthesis in the Arctic/Sub-Arctic. In Michael Fortescue, Marianne Mithun & Nicholas Evans (eds.), The Oxford handbook of polysynthesis, 217–234. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fortescue, Michael, Steven Jacobson & Lawrence Kaplan. 2010. Comparative Eskimo dictionary with Aleut cognates, 2nd edn. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, Martin, Andreea Calude, Michael Spagnol, Heiko Narrog & Elif Bamyaci. (2014). Coding causal–noncausal verb alternations: A form–frequency correspondence explanation. Journal of Linguistics, 50(3). 587–625. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heggarty, Paul. 2015. Prehistory through language and archaeology. In Claire Bowern & Bethwyn Evans (eds.), The Routledge handbook of historical linguistics, 598–626. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2005. Language contact and grammatical change (Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holland, Kathryn M. 2004. A brief note on the significance of prehistoric dogs from the Eastern Aleutian Islands. Arctic Anthropology 41(2). 50–54. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holst, Jan Henrik. 2005. Einführung in die eskimo-aleutischen Sprachen [An introduction to the Eskimo-Aleut languages]. Hamburg: Buske Verlag.Google Scholar
Kari, James. 1989. Dena’ina prehistory. In Eung-Do Cook & Keren D. Rice (eds.), Athapaskan linguistics: Current perspectives on a language family, 533–574. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2013. Dena’ina topical dictionary, revised. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center.Google Scholar
Kilani, Marwan. 2017. Language interferences in Egyptian: A semantic diachronic perspective. Paper presented at Workshop on Language Shift and Substratum Interference in (Pre)history, Max-Plank Institute Jena, 11–12 July 2017.
Krauss, Michael. 1990. Typology and change in Alaskan languages. In Winfred P. Lehmann (ed.) Language Typology 1987: Systematic Balance in Language, Papers from the Linguistic Typology Symposium, Berkeley, 1–3 December 1987 (published as Vol. 67 of Current Issues in Linguistic Theory), 147–159. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2012. Eyak Dictionary (draft). Fairbanks: Alaska Native Language Archive. [URL]Google Scholar
. 2017. Eyak grammar (draft). Uncatalogued copy held at the Alaska Native Language Archive, Fairbanks, AK.Google Scholar
Krauss, Michael, Gary Holton, Jim Kerr & Colin T. West. 2011. Indigenous peoples and languages of Alaska. Fairbanks, AK/Anchorage, AK: Alaska Native Language Center and UAA Institute of Social and Economic Research. [URL] [02/12/2020].Google Scholar
Krauss, Michael E. & Victor K. Golla. 1981. Northern Athapaskan Languages. In June Helm (ed.), Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 6: Subarctic, 67–85. Washinton D. C.: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Leer, Jeff. 1978. Nanwalegmiut Paluwigmiut-llu Nupugnerit: Conversational Alutiiq dictionary, Kenai Peninsula Alutiiq. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Center.Google Scholar
. 1980. Sugpiaq place names. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Archive. SUK972L1980o, unpublished manuscript. [URL] [05/16/2017].Google Scholar
. 1981. Diffusions in Alutiiq. Fairbanks, AK: Alaska Native Language Archive. SUK972L1981f, unpublished manuscript. [URL][05/16/2017].Google Scholar
. 1990. Tlingit: A portmanteau language family? In Philip Baldi (ed.), Linguistic change and reconstruction methodology, 73–99. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1991. Evidence for a Northwest Coast language area: Promiscuous number marking and periphrastic possessive constructions in Haida, Eyak, and Aleut. International Journal of American Linguistics 57(2). 158–193. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Liapunova, Roza G. 1996. Essays on the ethnography of the Aleuts: At the end of the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century. Translated by Jerry Shelest, edited by William B. Workman and Lydia T. Black. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska.Google Scholar
Marsh, Gordon & Morris Swadesh. 1951. Kleinschmidt Centennial V: Eskimo Aleut correspondences. International Journal of American Linguistics 17(4). 209–216. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maschner, Herbert D.G. 2016. Archaeology of the Eastern Aleut region. In T. Max Friesen & Owen K. Mason (eds.), The Oxford handbook of the prehistoric Arctic, 323–348. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Misarti, Nicole & Herbert D.G. Maschner. 2015. The Paleo-Aleut to Neo-Aleut transition revisited. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 37. 67–84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mitchell, Donald. 1984. Predatory warfare, social status, and the North Pacific slave trade. Ethnology 23(1). 39–48. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Johanna, David Peterson & Jonathan Barnes. 2004. Transitivizing and detransitivizing languages. Linguistic Typology 8(2). 149–211. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ross, Malcolm. 2003. Diagnosing prehistoric language contact. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), Motives for Language Change, 174–198. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Smith, Silvia E., M. Geoffrey Hayes, Graciela S. Cabana, Chad Huff, Joan Brenner Coltrain & Dennis H. O’Rourke. 2009. Inferring population continuity versus replacement with aDNA: A cautionary tale from the Aleutian Islands. Human Biology 31(4). 407–426. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Steffian, Amy, Patrick Saltonstall & Linda Finn Yarborough. 2016. Maritime economies of the central Gulf of Alaska after 4000 B.P. In T. Max Friesen & Owen K. Mason (eds.), The Oxford handbook of the prehistoric Arctic, 303–322. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Swadesh, Morris. 1962. Linguistic relations across Bering Strait. American Anthropologist 64(6). 1262–1291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thomason, Sarah G. 2001. Language contact: An introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Thomason, Sarah Grey & Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language contact, creolization, and genetic linguistics. Berkeley, CA: University of California. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tremayne, Andrew & William A. Brown. 2017. Mid to late Holocene population trends, culture change, and marine resource intensification in Western Alaska. Arctic 70(4). 365–380. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Veniaminov, Ivan. 1984 (1840). Notes on the Islands of the Unalaska District. Translated by Lydia Black & R. H. Geoghegan, edited by Lydia Black. Anchorage, AK: Limestone Press.Google Scholar
Woodbury, Anthony. 1984. Eskimo and Aleut languages. In David Damas (ed.), Handbook of North American languages, vol. 5: Arctic, 49–63. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.Google Scholar
Workman, William B. 1998. Archaeology of the Southern Kenai Peninsula. Arctic Anthropology 35(1). North Pacific and Bering Sea Maritime Societies: The Archaeology and Early Historic Coastal Peoples. 146–159.Google Scholar
Workman, William B. & Karen Wood Workman. 2010. The end of the Kachemak Tradition on the Kenai Peninsula, Southcentral Alaska. Arctic Anthropology 47(2). Issue in Honor of Donald E. Dumond. 90–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar