Sirenik language
Sirenik Yupik[], Sireniki Yupik, Sirenik, or Sirenikskiy is an extinct Eskimo–Aleut language. It was spoken in and around the village of Sireniki 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 Vyjye , died. Ever since that point, the language has been extinct; nowadays, all Sirenik Eskimos speak Siberian Yupik or Russian. Despite this, censuses as late as 2010 report up to 5 native speakers of Sirenik.
Сиӷы́ных is the endonym for the eponymous settlement of Sireniki. The endonym for the people itself is сиӷы́ныгмы̄́ӷий "Sirenikites"; the singular form is сиӷы́ныгмы̄́ӷа.
This article is based on Menovschikov, with cited examples transliterated from Cyrillic transcription to the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Classification
Genealogical
External
Some argue that the Sirenik language is a remnant of a third group of Eskimo languages, in addition to Yupik and Inuit groups. In fact, the exact genealogical classification of Sireniki language is not settled yet, and some others regard it belonging to the Yupik branch.Many words are formed from entirely different roots to those in Siberian Yupik. Also, the grammar has several peculiarities compared to other Eskimo languages, and even compared to Aleut. For example, dual number is not known in Sireniki Eskimo, while most Eskimo–Aleut languages have dual, including even its neighboring Siberian Yupik relatives. The peculiarities amounted to mutual unintelligibility with even its nearest language relatives. This forced Sirenik Eskimos to use Chukchi as a lingua franca when speaking with neighboring Eskimo peoples. 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. This difference from all their language relatives may be the result of a supposed long isolation from other Eskimo groups: 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.
Internal
Although the number of its speakers was very few even at the end of the nineteenth century, the language had at least two dialects in the past.Typological
As for its morphological typology, it has polysynthetic and incorporative features.Phonology
Consonants
- Some consonants can be palatalized, e.g.:.
- Sounds are heard as variants of.
Vowels
- Sounds may also range to.
Morphology
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 ;
- 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
- * verbal suffixes;
- nomenverbum-like roots, becoming nominal or verbal only via the suffix they get;
- Eskimo texts abound in various kinds of participles ;
Common grammatical 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
s can make a distinction in 3rd person for “self”, thus the mere personal suffix can distinguish e.g.;a nominal example
;a verbal example
Thus, it can be translated into English using a 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. Sireniki is, as mentioned above, peculiar in this aspect, alongside Greenlandic, within the Eskimo–Aleut language family, with even its neighboring Siberian Yupik relatives having dual number.Deictic demonstrative pronouns
Sireniki had an unusual wide range of deictic distinctions between up to four distances which could be horizontal “una”>”igna”>”ikna”, vertical “mana”>”unygna”>”pikna”, marking a movement like approaching the speaker “ukna”, away from them “agna”, refer to conversational topics be they definite “ugna”>”k’amna”>oov “amna” or indefinite “k’akymna”>”k’agna”>oov “akymna” or describe sth in the past “imna”.Building verbs from nouns
Suffix -- meaning “to be similar to sth”:| Root | Becomes verbal by suffix | Indicative mood, singular 3rd person |
| - | ||
| raven | to be similar to a raven | he/she is similar to a raven |
Predicative form of a noun
Predicative form of a noun can be built using suffix --:Verbs built from [toponym]s
Nominal lexical categories
Grammatical categories
Not only the grammatical cases of nouns are marked by suffixes, but also the person of possessor can be expressed by agglutination.| Sing 1st person | Sing 2nd person | |
| Absolutive | ||
| Ablative / Instrumental | ||
| Dative / Lative | ||
| Locative | ||
| Equative |
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.
There is no grammatical gender.
Case
Sireniki is an absolutive–ergative language.Cases :
- 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
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
Verbal lexical categories
Also at verbs, the morphology is very rich. Suffixes can express grammatical moods of the verb, and also negation, tense, aspect, the person of subject and object. Some examples :The rich set of morphemes makes it possible to build huge verbs whose meaning could be expressed as whole sentences . Sireniki – like the other Eskimo languages – has polysynthetic and incorporative features, in many forms, among others polypersonal agreement.
Grammatical categories
The polysynthetic and incorporative features mentioned above manifest themselves in most of the ways Sirenik language can express grammatical categories.Transitivity
For background, see transitivity.See also Nicole Tersis and Shirley Carter-Thomas.
Polarity
Even the grammatical polarity can be expressed by adding a suffix to the verb.An example for negative polarity: the negation form of the verb :
Aspect
- and , from
Modality
The table illustrates also why Sirenik is treated as agglutinative.
Voice
Four grammatical voices are mentioned in:;active
;passive
;middle
;causative
all of them are expressed by agglutination, thus, no separate words are required.
Participles
A distinction between two kinds of participles makes sense in Sireniki.Sireniki has many kinds of participles in both categories. In the following, they will be listed, grouped by the relation between the “dependent action” and “main action” – following the terminology of Menovschikov. A sentence with a participle can be imagined as simulating a subordinating compound sentence where the action described in the dependent clause relates somehow to the action described in the main clause. In English, an adverbial clause may express reason, purpose, condition, succession etc., and a relative clause can express many meanings, too.
In an analogous way, in Sireniki Eskimo language, the "dependent action" relates somehow to the “main action”, and the participles will be listed below grouped by this relation.
Adverbial participles
They can be translated into English e.g. by using an appropriate adverbial clause. There are many of them, with various meanings.An interesting feature: they can have person and number. The person of the dependent action need not coincide with that of the main action. An example :
| If I were a marksman, we should kill walrus |
Another example :
| when he/she sings, they keep frightening him/her |
They will be discussed in more details below.
Reason, purpose or circumstance of action
An adverbial participle “explaining reason, purpose or circumstance of action” is expressed by suffix -- / --. Examples:Another example, with a somewhat different usage:
| Adverbial participle | Verb |
| To examine him/her2 | he/she1 went |