http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/03/080326-language-link.html



	


Siberian, Native American Languages Linked -- A First
John Roach
for National Geographic News
March 26, 2008

A fast-dying language in remote central Siberia shares a mother tongue  
with dozens of Native American languages spoken thousands of miles  
away, new research confirms.

The finding may allow linguists to weigh in on how the Americas were  
first settled, according to Edward Vajda, director of the Center for  
East Asian Studies at Western Washington University in Bellingham.

Since at least 1923 researchers have suggested a connection exists  
between Asian and North American languages—but this is the first time  
a link has been demonstrated with conservative standards, said Vajda,  
who has studied the relationship for more than 15 years.

Previous researchers had provided lists of similar-sounding and look- 
alike words. Such similarities, Vajda noted, are likely to be  
dismissed as coincidence even if they represent genuine evidence.

So Vajda developed another method. "I'm providing a whole system of  
[similar] vocabulary and also of grammatical parallels—the way that  
verb prefixes are structured," he said.

Dying Tongue

His research links the Old World language family of Yeniseic in  
central Siberia with the Na-Dene family of languages in North America.

The Yeniseic family includes the extinct languages Yugh, Kott, Assan,  
Arin, and Pumpokol. Ket is the only Yeniseic language spoken today.  
Less than 200 speakers remain and most are over 50, according to Vajda.

"Within a couple of generations, Ket will probably become extinct," he  
said.

(Related news: "Languages Racing to Extinction in 5 Global  
'Hotspots' [September 18, 2007].)

The Na-Dene family includes languages spoken by the broad group of  
Athabaskan tribes in the U.S. and Canada as well as the Tlingit and  
Eyak people. The last Eyak speaker died in January.

Vajda presented the findings in February at a meeting of linguists at  
the Alaska Native Language Center in Fairbanks.

Making the Connection

Vajda established the Yeniseic-Na-Dene link by looking for languages  
with a verb-prefix system similar to those in Yeniseic languages. Such  
prefixes are unlike any other language in North Asia.

"Only Na-Dene languages have a system of verb prefixes that very  
closely resemble the Yeniseic," he said.

 From there, Vajda found several dozen cognates—or words in different  
languages that sound alike and have the same meaning.

The results validate earlier work by Merritt Ruhlen, an anthropologist  
at Stanford University in California who Vajda said discovered the  
first genuine Na-Dene-Yeniseic cognates.

Vajda also showed how these cognates have sound correspondences.

"I systematically connect these structures in Yeniseic with the  
structures in modern Na-Dene," Vajda said.

"My comparisons aren't just lists of some look-alike words … I show  
there is a system behind it."

Johanna Nichols is a linguist at the University of California in  
Berkeley who attended the Alaska meeting where Vajda presented his  
research.

With the exception of the Eskimo-Aleut family that straddles the  
Bering Strait and Aleutian Islands, this is "the first successful  
demonstration of any connection between a New World language and an  
Old World language," Nichols said.

Mother Tongue

Vajda said his research puts linguistics on the same stage as  
archaeology, anthropology, and genetics when it comes to studying the  
history of humans in North Asia and North America.

However, the research has not revealed which language came first.  
Neither modern Ket nor Na-Dene languages in North America represent  
the mother tongue.

For example, some words in the Na-Dene family likely represent sounds  
of the mother tongue more closely than their Yeniseic cognates. Other  
words in Yeniseic, however, are probably more archaic.

Based on archaeological evidence of human migrations across the Bering  
land bridge, the language link may extend back at least 10,000 years.

(Explore an atlas of the human journey.)

If true, according to Vajda, this would be the oldest known  
demonstrated language link.

But more research is needed to determine when the languages originated  
and how they became a part of various cultures before such a claim  
will be accepted, according to UC Berkeley linguist Nichols.

"I don't think there is any reason to assume the connection is [10,000  
years] old … this must surely be one late episode in a much longer and  
more complicated history of settlement," she said.

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