Aleut language
Aleut or Unangam Tunuu is the language spoken by the Aleut living in the Aleutian Islands, Pribilof Islands, Commander Islands, and the Alaska Peninsula. Aleut is the sole language in the Aleut branch of the Eskimo–Aleut language family. The Aleut language consists of three dialects, including Unalaska, Atka/Atkan, and Attu/Attuan.
Various sources estimate there are fewer than 100 to 150 remaining active Aleut speakers. Because of this, Eastern and Atkan Aleut are classified as "critically endangered and extinct" and have an Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale rating of 7. The task of revitalizing Aleut has largely been left to local government and community organizations. The overwhelming majority of schools in the historically Aleut-speaking regions lack any language/culture courses in their curriculum, and those that do fail to produce fluent or even proficient speakers.
History
The Eskimo and Aleut peoples were part of a migration from Asia across Beringia, the Bering land bridge between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago. During this period, the Proto-Eskimo-Aleut language was spoken, which broke up around 2000 BC. Differentiation of the two branches is thought to have happened in Alaska because of the linguistic diversity found in the Eskimo languages of Alaska relative to the entire geographic area where Eskimo languages are spoken. After the split between the two branches, their development is thought to have occurred in relative isolation.Evidence suggests a culture associated with Aleut speakers on the Eastern Aleutian Islands as early as 4,000 years ago, followed by a gradual expansion westward over the next 1,500 years to the Near Islands. Another westward expansion may have occurred about 1,000 years ago, which may explain the lack of obvious diversification among the Aleut dialects, with Eastern Aleut features having spread westward. This second westward expansion is characterized as a period of cultural affinity with southeastern Alaska and the Pacific Northwest Coast, which may explain linguistic features that Aleut shares with neighboring non-Eskimo languages, such as rules of plural formation.
Due to colonization by Russian colonizers and traders in the 18th and 19th centuries, Aleut has a large portion of Russian loanwords. However, they do not affect the basic vocabulary and thus do not suggest undue influence on the language.
In March 2021, the last native speaker of the Bering dialect, Vera Timoshenko, died aged 93 in Nikolskoye, Bering Island, Kamchatka.
Dialects
Within the Eastern group are the dialects of the Alaskan Peninsula, Unalaska, Belkofski, Akutan, the Pribilof Islands, Kashega and Nikolski. The Pribilof dialect has more living speakers than any other dialect of Aleut.The Atkan grouping comprises the dialects of Atka and Bering Island.
Attuan was a distinct dialect showing influence from both Atkan and Eastern Aleut. Copper Island Aleut was a Russian-Attuan mixed language. Despite the name, after 1969 Copper Island Aleut was spoken only on Bering Island, as Copper Islanders were evacuated there. After the death of the last native speaker in 2022, it became extinct.
All dialects show lexical influence from Russian; Copper Island Aleut has also adopted many Russian inflectional endings. The largest number of Russian loanwords can be seen in the Bering Aleut.
| Bering Aleut | Russian | English translation |
| пруса̄йил | take leave; tell goodbye | |
| сулкуӽ | silk | |
| на̄нкал | to nurse | |
| на̄нкаӽ | a nurse | |
| ра̄ниӽ | wound, injury | |
| рисувал | to draw | |
| саса̄тхиӽ | ambush, ambuscade | |
| миса̄йал | to interfere | |
| зӣткал | liquid, fluid |
Phonology
Consonants
The consonant phonemes of the various Aleut dialects are represented below. Each cell indicates the International Phonetic Alphabet representation of the phoneme; consonants existing only in loanwords are in parentheses. Some phonemes are unique to specific dialects of Aleut.The palato-alveolar affricate and uvular stop are pronounced with strong aspiration.
Attuan labial fricative is pronounced voiced or devoiced.
Voiceless approximants and devoiced nasals are preaspirated. The preaspiration of approximants causes very little friction and may pronounced more as a breathy voice. The preaspiration of devoiced nasals starts with a voiceless airstream through the nose and may end voiced before a vowel. The preaspiration feature is represented orthographically with an preceding the given sound. For example, a devoiced, preaspirated labial nasal would be written.
Voiced approximants and nasals may be partly devoiced in contact with a voiceless consonant and at the end of a word.
The voiceless glottal approximant functions as an initial aspiration before a vowel. In Atkan and Attuan, the prevocalic aspiration contrasts with an audible but not written glottal stop initiation of the vowel. Compare halal and alal. This contrast has been lost in Eastern Aleut.
Modern Eastern Aleut has a much simpler consonant inventory because the voice contrasts among nasals, sibilants and approximants have been lost.
Consonants listed in the dental column have varied places of articulation. The stop, nasal, and lateral dentals commonly have a laminal articulation. The voiced dental fricative is pronounced interdentally.
The pronunciation of the sibilant varies from an alveolar articulation to a retracted articulation like a palato-alveolar consonant. There is no contrast between and in Aleut. Many Aleut speakers experience difficulties with this distinction while learning English.
Vowels
Aleut has a basic three-vowel system including the high front, low, and high back. Aleut vowels contrast with their long counterparts,, and.Notably, Aleut is pronounced slightly lower than in the vowel space.
The long vowel is pronounced retracted in the vowel space creating a significant distinction relative to the vowel length of. The two high vowels are pronounced with the same vowel quality regardless of vowel length.
In contact with a uvular, is lowered to, is backed to, and is lowered to. In contact with a coronal, is raised to or, and is fronted to.
The mid-vowels and occur only in family names like Nevzorof and very recently introduced Russian loanwords.
Syllable structure
V ± ± CAn Aleut word may contain one to about a dozen syllables, all syllables with a vocalic nucleus. In Atkan and Attuan, there is a word-final CC due to apocopation. There also exist word initial CCC in loanwords.
Phonotactics
A word may begin or end in a vowel, both short and long, with few exceptions. Due to apocopation, short is not found in the final position. The same is true for short, except in some obsolete suffixes, such as -chi 'your' which is realized as -chin and -chix in modern Eastern and Atkan Aleut.Vowels within a word are separated by at least one consonant. All single consonants can appear in an intervocalic position, with the following exceptions:
- and do not occur in intervocalic positions
- does not occur in contact with
- does not occur in contact with
The word-initial CC can take many forms, with various restrictions on the distribution of consonants:
- a stop or, followed by a continuant other than or
- a coronal stop or, followed by a postlingual continuant.
- postlingual stop or, followed by
- or, followed by
In CC clusters of two voiced continuants, there is often a short transitional vowel. For example, qilĝix̂ 'umbilical cord' is pronounced similar to qiliĝi-n 'brain'.
Almost all possible combinations of coronal and postlingual consonants are attested.
The combination of two postlingual or two coronal consonants is rare, but attested, such as hux̂xix 'rain pants', aliĝngix̂ 'wolf', asliming 'fit for me', iistalix 'to say; to tell; to call'.
In CCC clusters, the middle consonant is either,,. For example, taxtxix̂ 'pulse', huxsx̂ilix 'to wrap up', chamchxix̂ 'short fishline'.
The most common single consonants to appear word-final are,,,,, and.
Through apocopation, word-final single consonants and occur, and word-final consonant clusters ending with or.
Syncopation
The details of the extensive syncopation characteristic of the Eastern Aleut dialect are described below. In the examples, the syncopated vowel will be shown in parentheses.A word medial short vowel may be syncopated between single consonants, except after an initial open short syllable and/or before a final open short syllable. For example, ìx̂amnákux̂ 'it is good' and 'what for?'.
The syncopation often creates consonant clusters beyond those prescribed by the general rules of Aleut phonotactics. The resulting clusters include:
- clusters of two stops: 'he killed it'
- geminate consonants: 'is young'
- a regular three consonant cluster: 'after a short while '
At slower speeds of speech, the syncopation may not be realized. Compare 'you are getting skinny' beside 'I am getting skinny'.
Stress
Aleut stress is indeterminate and often difficult to define. Stress varies based on the relation to the beginning or end of the word form, the length of the vowels, the sonority of the consonants, open- or closeness of the syllables, or the number of syllables in sentential rhythm and intonation. Stress affects the length of both vowels and consonants. Stress underlies the distinctive syncopation characteristics of Eastern Aleut. In the following discussion, the acute accent indicates the stronger stress and the grave accent indicates the weaker.In Eastern Aleut, stronger stress tends to fall on the penultimate syllable if it is short, or on the last syllable if it is long. The weaker stress commonly falls on the first syllable. For example, úlax̂ 'house', tùnúnax̂ 'talked', tùnulákan 'without talking', ìnaqáam 'he himself'.
Eastern Aleut words with more than two syllables exhibit a wider variety of stress patterns. Stress may be attracted to another syllable by a long vowel or relatively sonorant consonant, or by a closed syllable. It is possible the stress can be determined by rhythmic factors so that one word will have different stress in different contexts, such as áĝadax̂ compared to àĝádax̂, both meaning 'arrow'.
In Atkan and Attuan Aleut, stronger stress more commonly falls on the first syllable. However, long vowels, sonorants, etc. have similar effects on stress as in Eastern Aleut. For example, qánáang 'how many' vs qánang 'where'; ùĝálux̂ 'spear' vs álaĝux̂ 'sea'.
Stress may also be expressive, as with exclamations or polite requests. Stronger stress falls on the last syllable and is accompanied by a lengthening of a short vowel. For example, kúufyax̂ àqakúx̂! 'coffee is coming'. There is a similar structure for polite requests: qadá 'please eat!' vs qáda 'eat'.
Under ordinary strong stress, a short syllable tends to be lengthened, either by lengthening the vowel or geminating the following single consonant. Lengthening of the vowel is most common in Eastern, but is found in Atkan before a voiced consonant. In all dialects gemination is common between an initial stressed syllable with a short vowel and a following stressed syllable. For example, ìláan 'from him' pronounced and làkáayax̂ 'a boy' pronounced.