Chapter published in:
Language Dispersal Beyond Farming
Edited by Martine Robbeets and Alexander Savelyev
[Not in series 215] 2017
► pp. 47–73

Subsistence terms in Unangam Tunuu (Aleut)

| Alaska Native Language Center
The Eskimo-Aleut are arctic and subarctic hunter-gatherers known for their geographic spread and successful adaptation to a harsh climate; they are one of the canonical examples of a people that spread without agriculture. One of the most prehistoric recent spreads in this language family occurred about 1000 years ago, with effects felt throughout coastal Alaska. One area of language contact and possible spread was in Southeast Alaska, between the Pacific Coast Yupik language Alutiiq and the Aleutian language Unangam Tunuu. In this paper, I look at the distribution of cognates and borrowings of subsistence terminology in Unangam Tunuu, and I show that Alutiiq must have spread into a previously Unangax̂ area as a result of warfare rather than subsistence activities.
Keywords: Eskimo-Aleut, hunter-gatherers, prehistoric language contact, distribution of cognates, borrowed subsistence terminology, warfare
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Published online: 21 December 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.215.03ber
References

References

Anichtchenko, Evguenia
2012 Open skin boats of the Aleutians, Kodiak Island, and Prince William Sound. Études/Inuit/Studies 36(1): 157–181. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bellwood, Peter
2011 First Migrants: Ancient Migration in Global Perspective. Malden MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Berge, Anna
forthcoming. Reevaluating the reconstruction of Proto-Eskimo-Aleut. Journal of Historical Linguistics.
submitted. Reexamining the linguistic prehistory of Aleut (Unangam Tunuu). In Archaeology and Language – And the Future of Archaeo-linguistic Studies. Selected papers from the Proceedings of the XV Nordic TAG, Copenhagen, Denmark, April 16–18, 2015, Rune Iversen & Guus Kroonen eds Oxford British Archaeological Reports (BAR)
Forthcoming. Language contact in Aleut. In Handbook of Language Contact, Anthony Grant ed. Oxford OUP
2016 Lexical Differentiation in Aleut (Unangam Tunuu). Frontiers of Early Human Expansion in Asia: Linguistic Perspectives on Ainu, Japan, and the North Pacific Rim, Zurich, March 13–14. https://​www​.academia​.edu​/30870719​/Lexical​_Differentiation​_in​_Aleut​_Unangam​_Tunuu_
Berge, Anna & Holton, Gary
2015 Toward a history of the Aleut language (Unangam Tunuu). Paper presented at the conference of the Societas Linguistica Europæa (SLE), Leiden, the Netherlands, September 2–5, 2015. Hdt posted on https://​www​.academia​.edu​/15391546​/Toward​_a​_history​_of​_the​_Aleut​_language​_Unangam​_Tunuu_.
Berge, Anna
2010 Origins of linguistic diversity in the Aleutian Islands. Human Biology 84(4): 557–582. (October-December 2010 special issue).Google Scholar
Bergsland, Knut
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
compiler 1994 Aleut Dictionary: Unangam Tunudgusii. Fairbanks AK: ANLC.Google Scholar
Byers, David A., Yesner, David R., Broughton, Jack M. & Coltrain, Joan Brenner
2011 Stable isotope chemistry, population histories, and late prehistoric subsistence change in the Aleutian Islands. Journal of Archaeological Science 38: 183–196. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Davis, Richard S. & Knecht, Richard A.
2010 Continuity and change in the Eastern Aleutian archaeological sequence. In Special Issue on the Origins of the Populations of the Aleutian Islands, Michael H. Crawford, Dixie L. West, & Dennis H. O’Rourke (eds), 507–524. Human Biology 82(5–6).Google Scholar
Dumond, Don
1987 A reexamination of Aleut prehistory. American Anthropologist 89(1): 32–56. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2001 Toward a (yet) newer view of the (pre)history of the Aleutians. In Archaeology in the Aleut Zone of Alaska, Some Recent Research [University of Oregon Anthropological Papers 58], Don E. Dumond (ed.), 289–309. Eugene OR: University of Oregon Press.Google Scholar
Erlandson, Jon M.
2001 The archaeology of aquatic adaptations: Paradigms for a new millenium. Journal of Archaeological Research 9(4): 287–350. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fitzhugh, Ben
2003 The Evolution of Complex Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeological Evidence from the North Pacific. Dordrecht: Kluwer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fortescue, Michael
1998 Language Relations Across Bering Strait: Reappraising the Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence. London: Cassell.Google Scholar
Fortescue, Michael, Jacobson, Steven & Kaplan, Lawrence
2010 Comparative Eskimo Dictionary with Aleut Cognates, 2nd edn. Fairbanks AK: ANLC.Google Scholar
Funk, Caroline
2010 The bow and arrow war days on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Ethnohistory 57(4): 523–569. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Heggarty, Paul
2015 Prehistory through language and archaeology. In The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics, Claire Bowern & Bethwyn Evans (eds), 595–626. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kari, James
1989 Some linguistic insights into Dena’ina prehistory. In Athabaskan Linguistics: Current Perspectives on a Language Family, Eung-Do Cook & Keren Rice (eds), 533–574. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
2013 Dena’ina Topical Dictionary. Fairbanks AK: ANLC.Google Scholar
Lambert, Patricia M.
2002 The archaeology of war. Journal of Archaeological Research 10(3): 207–241. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lantis, Margaret
1938 The Alaskan whale hunt and its affinities. American Anthropologist 40(3): 438–464. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Leer, Jeff
1991 Evidence for a Northwest Coast language area: Promiscuous number marking and periphrastic possessive constructions in Haida, Eyak, and Aleut. IJAL 57(2) :158–193.Google 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, Jerry Shelest (transl.), William B. Workman & Lydia T. Black (eds). Fairbanks AK: University of Alaska.Google Scholar
Maschner, Herbert D. G.
2016 Archaeology of the Eastern Aleut region. In The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic, T. Max Friesen & Owen K. Mason (eds), 323–348. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Maschner, Herbert & Mason, Owen K.
2013 The bow and arrow in northern North America. Evolutionary Anthropology 22: 133–138. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Maschner, Herbert D. G. & Reedy-Maschner, Katherine L.
1998 Raid, retreat, defend (repeat): The archaeology and ethnohistory of warfare on the North Pacific Rim. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 17: 19–51. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Maschner, Herbert D. G. & Reedy, Katherine L.
2007 Heads, women, and the baubles of prestige: Trophies of war in the Arctic and Subarctic. In The Taking and Displaying of Human Body Parts as Trophies by Amerindians, Richard J. Chacon & David H. Dye (eds), 32–44. New York NY: Springer. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Maschner, Herbert D. G. et al.
2009 Did the North Pacific ecosystem collapse in AD 1250? In The Northern World, AD 900–1400, Herbert Maschner, Owen Mason & Robert McGhee (eds), 33–57. Salt Lake UT: University of Utah.Google Scholar
Mason, Owen K.
2009 Flight from the Bering Strait: Did Siberian Punuk/Thule military cadres conquer Northwest Alaska? In The Northern World, AD 900–1400, Herbert Maschner, Owen Mason & Robert McGhee (eds), 76–127. Salt Lake UT: University of Utah.Google Scholar
Misarti, Nicole & Maschner, Herbert D. G.
2015 The Paleo- to Neo-Aleut transition revisited. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 37: 67–84. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Potter, Ben
2010 Archaeological patterning in Northeast Asia and Northwest North America: An examination of the Dene-Yeniseian hypothesis. Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska, New Series 5(1–2): 138–167.Google Scholar
Renfrew, Colin
1987 Archaeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origin. London: Jonathan Cape.Google Scholar
Ross, Malcolm
2003 Diagnosing prehistoric language contact. In Motives for Language Change, Raymond Hickey (ed.), 174–198. Cambridge: CUP. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Silvia E. et al.
2009 Inferring population continuity versus replacement with a DNA: A cautionary tale from the Aleutian Islands. Human Biology 31(4): 407–426. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Steffian, Amy, Saltonstall, Patrick & Yarborough, Linda Finn
2016 Maritime economies of the central gulf of Alaska after 4000 B.P. In The Oxford Handbook of the Prehistoric Arctic, T. Max Friesen & Owen K. Mason (eds), 303–322. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Turner, Lucien M.
2008 An Aleutian Ethnography. Raymond L. Hudson (ed.). Fairbanks AK: University of Alaska Press.Google Scholar
Woodbury, Anthony
1984 Eskimo and Aleut languages. In Handbook of North American Indians 5: Arctic, David Damas (ed.), 49–63. Washington DC: Smithsonian.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Berge, Anna
2018. Re-evaluating the reconstruction of Proto-Eskimo-Aleut. Journal of Historical Linguistics 8:2 ► pp. 230 ff. Crossref logo
Ricquier, Birgit
2020.  In The International Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology, ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo
Robbeets, Martine & Chuan-Chao Wang
2020. About millets and beans, words and genes. Evolutionary Human Sciences 2 Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 20 october 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.