Uralo-Siberian languages

Structural similarities between Uralic and Eskimo–Aleut languages were observed early. In 1746, the Danish theologian Marcus Wöldike 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 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. In 1962, Morris Swadesh proposed a relationship between the Eskimo–Aleut and Chukotko-Kamchatkan language families. 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".

Michael Fortescue (2017) presents, besides new linguistic evidence, also several genetic studies, that support a common origin of the included groups, with a suggested homeland in Northeast Asia.[2]

Fortescue (1998, pp. 60–95) surveys 44 typological markers and argues that a typological profile uniquely identifying the language families proposed to comprise the Uralo-Siberian family can be established. The Uralo-Siberian hypothesis is rooted in the assumption that this distinct typological profile was, rather than an areal profile common to four unrelated language families, the profile of a single language ancestral to all four: Proto-Uralo-Siberian.

Phonology

• A single, voiceless series of stop consonants.
  • Voiced stops such as /d/ occur in the Indo-European, Yeniseian, Turkic, Mongolian, Tungusic, Japonic and Sino-Tibetan languages. They have also later arisen in several branches of Uralic.
  • Aspirated stops such as /tʰ/ occur in Korean, Nivkh, Na-Dene, Haida, etc.
  • Ejective stops such as /tʼ/ occur in Na-Dene, Haida, Salishan, Tsimshian, etc.
• A series of voiced non-sibilant fricatives, including /ð/, which lack voiceless counterparts such as /θ/.
  • Original non-sibilant fricatives are absent from most other languages of Eurasia. Voiceless fricatives prevail over voiced ones in most of northern America. Both voiced and voiceless fricatives occur in Nivkh.
• Primary palatal or palatalized consonants such as /ɲ ~ nʲ/, /ʎ ~ lʲ/.
• The occurrence of a rhotic consonant /r/.
  • Found in most other language families of northern Eurasia as well; however, widely absent from languages of northern America.
• Consonant clusters are absent word-initially and word-finally, but present word-medially.
  • A feature shared with most 'Altaic' languages. Contrasts with the presence of abundant consonant clusters in Nivkh, as well as in the Indo-European and Salishan languages.
• Canonically bisyllabic word roots, with the exception of pronouns.
  • Contrasts with canonically monosyllabic word roots in Indo-European, Sino-Tibetan, Yeniseian, Na-Dene, Haida, Tsimshian, Wakashan, Salishan, etc. Some secondarily monosyllabic word roots have developed in Aleut and multiple Uralic languages, and they predominate in Itelmen.
• Word-initial stress.

Morphology

• Exclusively suffixal morphology.
  • Contrasts particularly with Yeniseian and Na-Dene.
• Accusative case, genitive case and at least three local cases.
• singular, plural and dual number.
• The absence of adjectives and adverbs as morphologically distinct parts of speech.
• Evidentiality marking.
• Indicative markers based on participles.
• Possessive suffixes.

Syntax

• The presence of a copula, used as an auxiliary verb.
• Negation expressed by an auxiliary verb (known as a negative verb)
• Subordinate clauses based on non-finite verb forms.

None of the four families shows all of these 17 features; ranging from 12 reconstructible in Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan to 16 in Proto-Uralic. Frequently the modern-day descendant languages have diverged further from this profile — particularly Itelmen, for which Fortescue assumes substrate influence from a language typologically more alike to the non-Uralo-Siberian languages of the region.

Several more widely spread typologically significant features may also instead represent contact influence, according to Fortescue (1998):

• Primary uvular consonants are absent from Uralic, but can be found in Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut. They are also present in Yukaghir, though are likely to be of secondary origin there (as also in the Uralic Selkup, as well as a large number of Turkic languages). They are, however, firmly entrenched in the non-Uralo-Siberian languages of northernmost Eurasia, including Yeniseian, Nivkh, Na-Dene, Haida, Salishan, etc. Fortescue suggests that the presence of uvulars in CK and EA may, then, represent an ancient areal innovation acquired from the earlier, "pre-Na-Dene" languages of Beringia.

Fortescue argues that the Uralo-Siberian proto-language (or a complex of related proto-languages) may have been spoken by Mesolithic hunting and fishing people in south-central Siberia (roughly, from the upper Yenisei river to Lake Baikal) between 8000 and 6000 BC, and that the proto-languages of the derived families may have been carried northward out of this homeland in several successive waves down to about 4000 BC, leaving the Samoyedic branch of Uralic in occupation of the Urheimat thereafter.

Some or all of the four Uralo-Siberian families have been included in more extensive groupings of languages (see links below). Fortescue's hypothesis does not oppose or exclude these various proposals. In particular, he considers that a remote relationship between Uralo-Siberian and Altaic (or some part of Altaic) is likely (see Ural–Altaic languages). However, Fortescue holds that Uralo-Siberian lies within the bounds of the provable, whereas Nostratic may be too remote a grouping to ever be convincingly demonstrated.

The University of Leiden linguist Frederik Kortlandt (2006:1) asserts that Indo-Uralic (a proposed language family consisting of Uralic and Indo-European) is itself a branch of Uralo-Siberian and that, furthermore, the Nivkh language also belongs to Uralo-Siberian. This would make Uralo-Siberian the proto-language of a much vaster language family. Kortlandt (2006:3) considers that Uralo-Siberian and Altaic (defined by him as consisting of Turkic, Mongolian, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese) may be coordinate branches of the Eurasiatic language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg but rejected by most linguists.

• Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan language
• Proto-Uralic language
• Classification schemes for indigenous languages of the Americas
• Linguistic areas of the Americas

• Linguist List post about Uralo-Eskimo grammar as reconstructed by Uwe Seefloth, who finds Uralic and Eskimo–Aleut to be each other's closest relatives within Uralo-Siberian
  • Discussion of the above and comparisons to Indo-European
  • More discussion of the above
• "Nivkh as a Uralo-Siberian language" by Frederik Kortlandt (2004)
• "Chukcho-Kamchatkan and Uralic: Evidence of their genetic relationship" by Václav Blažek (2006)