I am sure this would be highly controversial… I propose the existence of a grouping of languages spoken in Siberia and North America that are technically the Languages of Perceptivity. Beyond this, the Amerindian languages divide quite neatly into Northern and Southern. This grouping I propose consists of the following families and potentially others…
- Eskimo-Aleut
- Na-Dene
- Muskogean
- Chukotko-Kamchatkan
- Yeniseian
- Yukaghir
- Ainuic
- Nivkhic
- Tungusic
The Trans-Siberian-American languages? Is this what they should be called?
The Eskimo-Aleut languages have also been assigned the names Inuit-Yupik-Unangan, Inuit-Yupik-Unangax, Eskaleut, Eskaleutian and Eskaleutic. They are native to to Alaska, Nunavut, northern Northwest Territories (Inuvialuit Settlement Region), northern Quebec (Nunavik), northern Labrador (Nunatsiavut), Greenland and far eastern Russia (Chukotka Peninsula). It breaks down into two branches: Eskimo and Aleut. The Aleut branch contains just one language, Aleut of the Aleutian Islands and the Pribilof Islands. Aleut divides into several dialects, however. Within the Eskimo languages, meanwhile, we have the Yupik languages spoken in western and southwestern Alaska and in Chukotka, and then the Inuit languages spoken in northern Alaska, Canada and Greenland. Inuit is spoken across a vast range territory, variants including Iñupiaq of Alaska, Inuktitut of eastern Canada, and Greenlandic Kalaallisut.
Eskimo-Aleut has not been demonstrated to have any genetic relationship to any other language family of the world. Many links have been suggested, however. The Eskimo-Uralic hypothesis was put forward by pioneering Danish linguist Rasmus Rask in 1818 upon observing similarities between Greenlandic and Finnish. Michael Fortescue published his Uralo-Siberian hypothesis in 1998, linking the Eskimo-Aleut languages to Yukaghir and the Uralic languages. Joseph Greenberg more recently (2000-2002) suggested a controversial grouping termed Eurasiatic of all the language families in northern Eurasia, including Indo-European, Uralic, Altaic, Korean, Japanese, Ainu, Nivkh/Gilyak and Chukchi-Kamchatkan – except for Yeniseian. Back in the 1960s, Morris Swadesh suggested a link with the Wakashan languages, later expanded on by Jan Henrik Holst in 2005.
The Eskimo-Aleut languages are the “Catalystic” Tongues.
These are partial descendants of the original Amerindian cultures and perhaps languages that were established back when the Americas were first populated however many thousands of years ago. When the migrants first crossed Beringia to populate Alaska, only just having invented the Buzz-Concept infinity, they set up the ancestors to these cultures. The Eskimo-Aleut sphere thus technically gave rise to the rest of the Amerindian world, hence their label as the “Catalystic” Tongues. Although this of course has not defined their trajectory. And I can tell you that the first Amerindian languages were more simplistic than these, especially in terms of morphological structure.
The Na-Dene languages are also called Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit, Tlina-Dene. The family, spoken in North America, is considered at least to include the Athabaskan languages, Eyak and Tlingit. Haida was formerly included, but doubt has been cast on its status. The Na-Dene family includes Navajo, the most spoken native language of the USA. It divides first into two branches: Tlingit and Athabaskan-Eyak. The Tlingit / Lingít language of Southeast Alaska and Western Canada has a branch all to itself. Within the enormous Athabaskan-Eyak branch, we have Eyak / dAXunhyuuga’ and then the Athabaskan/Athabascan/Athapaskan/Athapascan/Dene languages.
Haida was first linked to Tlingit by Franz Boas in 1894. Haida and Tlingit were then linked to Athabaskan by Edward Sapir in 1915. In 2008, a proposal linking Na-Dene to the Yeniseian family of Central Siberia, to form a Dené-Yeniseian family, was advanced. In 2014 it was proposed that the Na-Dene languages of North America and the Yeniseian languages of Siberia had a common origin in a language that had been spoken in Beringia, between the two continents. Edward Sapir has also suggested that the Na-Dene languages are related to the Sino-Tibetan languages. Sergei Starostin has suggested that Na-Dene (including Haida) may belong to a Dené-Caucasian superfamily, also comprising the North Caucasian languages, Sino-Tibetan languages, and the Yeniseian languages.
The Na-Dene languages are the “Innovative” Tongues.
The Na-Dene & Athabascan peoples are the redemptive, open-hearted, “clean-spirited” ones in this grouping I propose, as well as the freestylers. I’m an “Amerindio-phile” and I of course think the Eskimos are great but they’re also kind of intense and harsh; moving on from this jarring dimension of Proto-Amerindian culture was what spurred the development of Na-Dene culture.
The Muskogean languages are a family of six North American Indian languages historically spoken in the southeastern United States. Six that are still spoken, that is – these being Alabama, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek-Seminole, Koasati, and Mikasuki. Choctaw of Oklahoma and Mississippi is the most spoken extant Muskogean language. The family has also been named Muskhogean, or Muskogee.
The Muskogean languages are the “Evaluative” Tongues. The Muskogeans are the ultra-open-eyed ones of this grouping. They are THE Northern Amerindians.
Now let’s hop over to Siberia…
The Proto-Orientalesque heartland was located around the Amur River. Highly spiritual, they all considered this river sacred. Its memory persisted in the divergent Orientalesque psyches even as they dispersed throughout the Americas thousands of years later. So some people ended up gravitating back over to Siberia even once populations were flourishing in America.
We have the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages. Alternative names for this family are Chukchi-Kamchatkan / Chukchian / Chukotian / Chukotan / Kamchukchee / Kamchukotic / Luorawetlan / Luoravetlan / Luorawetlanic. It is spoken in extreme northeastern Siberia – in Chukotka and Kamchatka. Traditionally, its speakers were indigenous hunter-gatherers and reindeer-herders. It is endangered. Its two branches are Chukotkan/Chukotian/Chukotic and Kamchatkan/Kamchatic. The Chukotkan branch supposedly consists of a single dialect cluster, including Chukchi/Chukot (Ḷŭg̣’orawetḷʹen = “the real people”) and Koryak (Nymylan). It had around 7,000 remaining speakers as of 2010, the majority being Chukchi, and a reported total ethnic population of 25,000. The Kamchatkan branch is moribund, represented today by only 4 or 5 elderly speakers of Itelmen / Western Itelmen / Western Kamchadal / itənmən.
Michael Fortescue (2011) suggests that Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Nivkh/Gilyak/Amuric could be related, forming a Chukotko-Kamchatkan-Amuric family. Joseph Greenberg classifies Chukotko-Kamchatkan as Eurasiatic, along with Indo-European, Altaic, Eskimo-Aleut, Nivkh and Yukaghir. Murray Gell-Mann, Ilia Peiros, and Georgiy Starostin link Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Nivkh with the Almosan family (inc. Algic and Mosan) instead of Eurasiatic. Michael Fortescue, who was a specialist in Eskimo-Aleut languages as well as Chukotko-Kamchatkan, proposed a Uralo-Siberian link between Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskimo–Aleut. He also proposed that Nivkh and Chukotko-Kamchatkan are descended from a common ancestor spoken 4000 years ago.
We have the Yeniseian / Yeniseic / Yenisei-Ostyak family. These languages are spoken by the Yeniseian people in the Yenisei River region of central Siberia. The group divides into Northern and Southern branches. The only surviving language of the group today is Ket / Yenisei-Ostiak / Ostyganna qa’, of the Northern branch.
The Yeniseian group has been classified as belonging to the proposed Dené-Yeniseian family. There is also the Karasuk hypothesis, linking Yeniseian to Burushaski of Pakistan. Genetic relations have also been suggested between Yeniseian and the Sino-Tibetan languages. Geoffrey Caveney (2014) sought support for a link between Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dené and Yeniseian. A possible link between Yeniseian and the proposed Dené-Caucasian family was suggested in the past but is now obsolete.
The Yukaghir / Yukagir / Jukagir languages are a family of two small closely related languages called Tundra and Kolyma Yukaghir which are spoken in the Russian Far East, around the basin of the Kolyma River.
Distant relation to Uralic languages has been suggested, to form the proposed Uralic-Yukaghir family. Michael Fortescue has argued that Yukaghir is related to Eskimo-Aleut languages along with the Uralic languages, to form the Uralo-Siberian languages.
We have the Tungusic / Manchu-Tungus / Tungus languages of Eastern Siberia and Manchuria, spoken by Tungusic peoples. Today, there are approximately 75,000 native speakers of the dozen Tungusic languages still spoken. They are widely considered to be part of the Altaic language family, along with the Turkic, Mongolic, and sometimes the Koreanic and Japonic languages. They are normally classified into a northern and a southern branch. Hölzl (2018) recognises four mid-level subgroups: Ewenic, Udegheic, Nanaic, and Jurchenic. Xibe/Sibe/sibe gisun is the most spoken Tungusic language today, with 30,000 speakers as of the year 2000 among the Sibe minority of Xinjiang, Northwest China. Approximately 55% of Tungusic-speakers are speakers of Xibe.
The Tungusic languages are the Languages of Prowess.
We also have the Ainuic family, a tiny family consisting of just one language, an isolate, called Ainu / Aynu-itak. It is currently only spoken in the Japanese island of Hokkaido, and formerly in southern and central Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands and possibly northern Honshu.
Joseph C. Street (1962) proposed linking Ainu, Korean and Japanese in one family and Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic in another, and then linking the two families in a common “North Asiatic” family. James Patrie (1982) would also adopt the same groupings. Joseph Greenberg moreover classified Ainu with Korean and Japanese, regarding them as forming a “Korean-Japanese-Ainu” branch within his proposed Eurasiatic language family. The potential connection of Ainu to the Austroasiatic languages including Vietnamese has been put forth. As has a potential Indo-European relationship. And (like me) Tambotsev (2008) proposes that Ainu is typologically most similar to Native American languages.
And finally we have the Nivkhic family, Nivkh being another supposed language isolate. Nivkh / Gilyak / Amuric / nivkh dif / nivxgu dif is spoken by the Nivkh people in Outer Manchuria, around the mouth of the Amur, and on the northern half of Sakhalin. It had 198 speakers as of the 2010 census.
Nivkh is the Language of Presence.
There were others
Orientalesque Amerindian culture was spread throughout the Americas in an electric wave, starting from when it really began to flourish, whenever that was, surely accompanied by a population boom. There were probably some other preliminary experimental cultures already set up further south that were shrouded by the wave. I ascertain there to have been a Language of Resonance spoken in Mesoamerica, for example. What do they know about vibing?! It wasn’t an Orientalesque language, in fact. Preliminary cultures like this were all (however many there actually were) wiped out by the Orientalesque wave. Orientalescence is highly addictive and adhesive stuff.
Proto-Trans-Siberian-American will have been spoken from 30-15,000 years ago. The Trans-Siberian-American peoples are the steadfast “Amerindians”. These languages revolve around what the Buzz-Concept infinity in its variety of evolved forms can really do for you.
Now for the (exact) Buzz-Concepts…
- Chukotko-Kamchatkan: eternality
- Yeniseian: everlastingness
- Yukaghir: sensory discernment
- Ainu: reaction
- Tungusic: front-running
- Nivkh: serendipity
- Eskimo-Aleut: boundlessness
- Na-Dene: infinitude
- Muskogean: transversity
The Buzz-Concept Project 