Sireniki Eskimo language

Sirenik or Sirenikskiy (also Old Sirenik or Vuteen) is an extinct Eskimo-Aleut language. It was spoken in and around the village of Sireniki (Сиреники) in Chukotka Peninsula, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. The language shift has been a long process, ending in total language death. In January 1997 the last native speaker of the language, a woman named Vyie (Valentina Wye) ( _ru. Выйе) died. [http://www.siberian-studies.org/publications/PDF/bevakhtin.pdf Vakhtin 1998] : 162] Linguist List's description about [http://linguistlist.org/people/personal/get-personal-page2.cfm?PersonID=5548&RequestTimeout=500 Nikolai Vakhtin] 's book: [http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=938 "The Old Sirinek Language: Texts, Lexicon, Grammatical Notes"] . The author's untransliterated (original) name is “ [http://www.eu.spb.ru/univ/rector/index.htm Н.Б. Вахтин] ”.] [http://www.nsu.ru/ip/ Support for Siberian Indigenous Peoples Rights (Поддержка прав коренных народов Сибири)] — see the [http://www.nsu.ru/ip/eskimos.php section on Eskimos] ] Thus, the language is extinct: nowadays all Sireniki Eskimos speak a Siberian Yupik language or Russian.

See its grammar, with some ethnographic texts in Меновщиков 1964] . Although the book uses a Cyrillic transcription for Sirenik language, the cited examples of the article below are transliterated to the International Phonetic Alphabet in this article.

Classification

Genealogical

"Outside"

The Sirenik language is a remnant of a third group of Eskimo languages, in addition to Yupik and Inuit groups , see online a visual representation by tree Representing genealogical relations of (among others) Eskimo-Aleut languages by tree: [http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/groups.html Alaska Native Languages] (found on the site of [http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/index.html Alaska Native Language Center] )] and an argumentation based on comparative linguistics in [http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/yupik_inuit.html Lawrence Kaplan: Comparative Yupik and Inuit] (found on the site of [http://www.uaf.edu/anlc/index.html Alaska Native Language Center] )] . In fact, the exact genealogical classification of Sireniki language is not settled yet: Sireniki language is sometimes regarded as a third branch of Eskimo (at least, its possibility is mentioned), [http://www.siberian-studies.org/publications/PDF/bevakhtin.pdf Vakhtin 1998] : 161] cite web |title=Языки эскимосов |work=ICC Chukotka |publisher=Inuit Circumpolar Council |language=Russian |url=http://www.icc.hotbox.ru/yaziki.htm] [http://www.philology.ru/linguistics4/menovshikov-97a.htm Меновщиков 1997] ] but sometimes it is regarded rather as a group belonging to the Yupik branch. [http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=91176 Ethnologue Report for Eskimo-Aleut] ] [http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0008/000861/086162e.pdf Kaplan 1990] : 136]

Many words are formed from entirely different roots than in Siberian Yupik.Меновщиков 1964: 42] Also the grammar has several peculiarities compared to other Eskimo languages, and even compared to Aleut. For example, it is the only Eskimo-Aleut language that lacks dual number,Меновщиков 1964: 38] even its neighboring Siberian Yupik relatives have dual.Меновщиков 1964: 81] The peculiarities amounted to mutual unintelligibility with even its nearest language relatives. This forced Sireniki Eskimos to use Chukchi language as a lingua franca when speaking with neighboring Eskimo peoples. [http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0008/000861/086162e.pdf Menovshchikov 1990] : 70] Thus, any external contacts required using a different language for Sireniki Eskimos: they either resorted to use of lingua franca, or used Siberian Yupik languages (being definitely a mutually unintelligible, different language for them, not just a dialect of their own). [Меновщиков 1964: 6–7] This difference from all their language relatives may be the result of a supposed long isolation from other Eskimo groups: [Меновщиков 1962:11] [Меновщиков 1964:9] Sireniki Eskimos may have been in contact only with speakers of unrelated languages for many centuries in the past, influenced especially by non-relative Chukchi.

"Inside"

Although the number of its speakers was very few even at the end of the XIX^th century, the language had at least two dialects in the past.

Typological

As for its morphological typology, it has polysynthetic and incorporative features (just like the other Eskimo languages).

Phonology

Some notes (very far from being a complete description):
* The alveolar lateral approximant IPA|/l/ has its voiceless version IPA|/l̥/, and it can be also palatalized IPA|/lʲ̥/
* glottal stop IPA|/ʔ/

Morphology

Like all other Eskimo languages, the morphology is rather complex. A description grouped by lexical categories follows.

Nominal and verbal

Although morphology will be treated grouped into a nominal and a verbal part, many Eskimo languages show features which “crosscut” any such groupings in several aspects:
* the ergative structure at verbs is similar to the possessive structure at nouns (see section #Ergative-absolutive);
* a physical similarity exists between nominal and verbal personal suffix paradigms, i.e., in most cases, the respective person-number is expressed with the same sequence of phonemes at:
** possessive suffixes (at nouns)
** verbal suffixes;
* nomenverbum-like roots, becoming nominal or verbal only via the suffix they get;
* Eskimo texts abound in various kinds of participles (see section #Participles);

Common grammatical categories

Some grammatical categories (e.g. person and number) are applicable to both verbal and nominal lexical categories.

Although person and number are expressed in a single suffix, sometimes it can be traced back to consist of a distinct person and a distinct number suffix Person and number in a single suffix, or in two distinct ones: p. 61 of ] .

Person

Paradigms can make a distinction in 3^rd person for “self”, thus the mere personal suffix (of the verb or noun) can distinguish e.g.;a nominal example:“He/she takes his/her own dog” versus “He/she takes the dog of another person”.;a verbal example:“He/she sees himself/herself” versus “He/she sees him/her (another person)”

Thus, it can be translated into English (and some other languages) using reflexive pronoun. This notion concerns also other concepts in building larger parts of the sentence and the text, see section #Usage of third person suffixes.

Number

Although other Eskimo languages know more than the familiar two grammatical numbers (by having also dual), Sireniki uses only singular and plural, thus it lacks dual. As mentioned, Sireniki is peculiar in this aspect not only among Eskimo languages, but even in the entire Eskimo-Aleut language family, even its neighboring Siberian Yupik relatives have dual.

Building verbs from nouns

Suffix -IPA|/ɕuɣɨn/- meaning “to be similar to sth”:

It is just an excerpt for illustration: not all cases are shown, Sirenik language has more grammatical cases. The table illustrates also why Sirenik language is treated as agglutinative (rather than fusional).

There is no grammatical gender (or gender-like noun class system).

Case

Sireniki is an absolutive-ergative language.

Cases (listed using Меновщиков's numbering):
# Absolutive
# Relative case, playing the role of both genitive case and ergative case.
# Ablative / Instrumental, used also in accusative structures.
# Dative / lative
# Locative
# Vialis case, see also prosecutive case, and "motion via"
# Equative (comparative)

To see why a single case can play such distinct roles at all, read morphosyntactic alignment, and also a short table about it.

Some finer grammatical functions are expressed using postpositions. Most of them are built as a combinations of cases
* lative or locative or ablative
* combined with relative (used as genitive)in a similar way as we use expressions like "on top of" in English.

Verbal lexical categories

Also at verbs, the morphology is very rich. Suffixes can express grammatical moods of the verb (e.g. imperative, interrogative, optative), and also negation, tense, aspect, the person of subject and object. Some examples (far from being comprehensive):

Another example (with a different adverbial participle):

Dependent action ends just before main action begins

Using the adverbial participle -IPA|/ja/- / -IPA|/ɕa/-, the dependent action (expressed by the adverbial participle in the sentence element called adverbial) finishes just before the main action (expressed by the verb in the sentence element called predicate) begins Adverbial participle -IPA|/ja/- / -IPA|/ɕa/- (dependent action ends just before main action begins): pp. 91–92 of ] .

Dependent action begins before main action, but they continue together till end

It can be expressed by suffix -IPA|/inɨq j̥a/- Adverbial participle -IPA|/ja/- / -IPA|/ɕa/- (dependent action ends just before main action begins): p. 92 of ] . Examples:

Conditional

Dependent action is conditional: it does not takes place, although it would (either really, or provided that some — maybe irreal — conditions would hold. Confer also conditional sentence.

Sireniki Eskimo has several adverbial participles to express that Adverbial participles conveying conditional dependent action: pp. 92–93 of Men-JazSirEsk] . We can distinguish them according to the concerned condition (conveyed by the dependent action): it may be
* either real (possible to take place in the future)
* or irreal (it would take place only if some other irreal condition would hold)

Real

It is expressed with suffix -IPA|/qɨɣɨ/- / -IPA|/kɨɣɨ/-, let us see e.g. a paradigm beginning with IPA|/aʁa-qɨɣɨ-ma/ (if I get off / depart); IPA|/aʁa-qɨɣɨ-pi/ (if you get off / depart):

Adjectival participles

There are more kinds of them.
* (The sledge [that went to Imtuk] returned)
* (I saw [perceived] a sleeping man)They can be used not only in attributive role (as in the above examples), but also in predicative role Attribute versus predicative usage of adjectival participles: p. 95 of ] :
* (The man is sleeping)

Modality

Adjectival participle -IPA|/kajux/ / -IPA|/qajux/ conveys a meaning related rather to modality (than to the relation of dependent action and main action). It conveys meaning “able to” Adjectival participle -IPA|/kajux/ / -IPA|/qajux/ (able to): p. 97 of ] .
* (A child who is able to walk moves around spontaneously)

Syntax

Ergative-absolutive

Sireniki is (just like many Eskimo languages) an ergative-absolutive language. For English-language materials treating this feature of Sireniki, see Vakhtin's book , or see online a paper treating a relative Eskimo language Bodil Kappel Schmidt: [http://www.ub.uit.no/baser/nordlyd/include/getdoc.php?id=106&article=12&mode=pdf West Greenlandic antipassive] ] .

Usage of third person suffixes

Although the below examples are taken from Inuit Eskimo languages (Kalaallisut), but e.g. Sireniki's distinguishing between two kinds of 3^rd person suffixes can be concerned, too (remember section #Person above: there is a distinct reflexive (“own”-like) and an “another person”-like 3^rd person suffix).

Topic-comment

For a detailed theoretical treatment concerning the notions of topic (and anaphora, and binding), with Eskimo-related examples, see online [http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mbittner/ Maria Bittner] 's works, especially [http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mbittner/pdf%20files%20for%20web/bittner%2003_cls.pdf Word Order and Incremental Update] . See also the author's Kalaallisut materials.] .

Obviation

For a treatment of "obviation" in (among others) Eskimo languages, see online Maria Bittner and Ken Hale: [http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mbittner/pdf%20files%20for%20web/bittner%20&%20hale%2093.pdf Comparative notes on ergative case systems] . Rutgers and MIT. 1993.] and in more details (also online) Maria Bittner and Ken HaleErgativity: [http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~mbittner/pdf%20files%20for%20web/bittner%20&%20hale%2096b.pdf Towards a theory of a heterogenous class] ] from the same authors.

Word order

See also .

See also

* Siberian Yupik
* Eskimo
* Ergative-absolutive language
* Transitive verb
* Intransitive verb
* Polysynthetic language
* Incorporation (linguistics)
* Language death

Notes

References

Latin

*
*
*

Cyrillic

* The transliteration of author's name, and the rendering of title in English: cite book |last=Menovshchikov |first=G.A. |title=Grammar of the language of Asian Eskimos. Vol. I. |publisher=Academy of Sciences of the USSR |location=Moscow • Leningrad |year=1962
* The transliteration of author's name, and the rendering of title in English: cite book |last=Menovshchikov |first=G.A. |title=Language of Sirenik Eskimos. Phonetics, morphology, texts and vocabulary |publisher=Academy of Sciences of the USSR |location=Moscow • Leningrad |year=1964
*
* The transliteration of author's name, and the rendering of title in English: cite book |last=Rubcova |first=E. S. |title=Materials on the Language and Folklore of the Eskimoes, Vol. I, Chaplino Dialect |publisher=Academy of Sciences of the USSR |location=Moscow • Leningrad |year=1954

External links

* (Languages of the world — Paleoasian languages.)
* Linguist List's description about [http://linguistlist.org/people/personal/get-personal-page2.cfm?PersonID=5548&RequestTimeout=500 Nikolai Vakhtin] 's book: [http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=938 "The Old Sirinek Language: Texts, Lexicon, Grammatical Notes"]
*