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
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