Languages of The Americas PDF

7 The Americas In North, Central, and South America there are three groups of languages: the indigenous languages of the Americas; the languages imported from the Old World, primarily Europe, which now predominate in the region; and contact lan- guages, which arose on the soil of the American cont...

7 The Americas In North, Central, and South America there are three groups of languages: the indigenous languages of the Americas; the languages imported from the Old World, primarily Europe, which now predominate in the region; and contact lan- guages, which arose on the soil of the American continent. Contact languages are discussed in Chapter 8. The languages imported to the Americas from Europe have, over the years, developed traits that mark them as being somewhat different from their European antecedents; however, these differences will not be discussed here. In this chapter only the native American languages will be discussed. The original inhabitants of the Americas came over from Asia, most likely across Beringia, the land bridge that connected Asia and America at various times throughout the Pleistocene, most recently for a long period of time ending about 16,000 years ago. This claim is supported by much genetic evidence connecting indigenous Americans with peoples of Asia (e.g. Fagundes et al. 2007; Goebel et al. 2008). It is not known just how long ago the migrations from Asia began. The bulk of the archaeological and genetic evidence points to dates between 20,000 and 15,000 years ago (the short chronology theory). However, several sites provide tantalizing clues that human habitation may go back 40,000 years or more, a long chronology much closer to the time when Asia was settled by modern Homo sapiens. It is also reasonable to assume that there were many waves of migrations from Asia. Some scholars believe, for example, that an Eskimo-​Aleut migration from Asia may have taken place as recently as 5,000 years ago. North American area This first section of the chapter discusses the languages of North America (Table 7.1), following the classification presented by Mithun (1999: 326–​605). This is a fairly conservative classification, in that it does not group languages into a family unless there is a broad consensus that there is solid proof for such a grouping. We 325 326 The Americas: North American area TABLE 7.1 Some languages of North America Name Size Location Eskimo-​Aleut §7.1 Russia to Greenland Na-​Dene §7.2 Alaska to Southwest US Haida (hdn) 3 (§7.2) British Columbia Algic §7.3 North America Muskogean §7.4 SE US Yuchi (yuc) 1 Oklahoma Siouan §7.5 northern plains Iroquoian §7.6 Ontario Caddoan §7.7 Oklahoma Yuman §7.8 SW US, Baja California Seri (sei) 3 Sonora Pomoan ‧ Kashaya (kju) 2 California Palaihnihan ‧ Achumawi (acv) 2 California Washo (was) 2 California Karuk (kyh) 1 California Yokuts (yok) 2 California Maidu (nmu) 0 California Wintuan ‧ Patwin (pwi) 1 California Utian ‧ Miwok (skd) 2 California ‧ Costanoan 0 California Sahaptian §7.9 NW US Chinookan ‧ Kiksht (wac) 0 Oregon Zuni (zun) 4 New Mexico Kiowa-​Tanoan §7.11 New Mexico Uto-​Aztecan §7.12 Mexico Keres (kee) 5 New Mexico Kutenai (kut) 3 British Columbia Salishan §7.13 British Columbia Wakashan British Columbia ‧ Nootka (nuk) 3 British Columbia ‧ Kwakiutl (kwk) 3 British Columbia will also mention more liberal groupings as we go along, especially those that are frequently mentioned in the literature. These languages are mapped in Figure 7.1. You may have seen other maps giving substantially different locations for some native North American languages.  7.1 Eskimo-Aleut 327 Many maps show where languages were spoken a couple of centuries ago, but we show where languages have their greatest number of speakers today. Large movements of populations can happen for many reasons, but in recent centuries the most dramatic of them were due to European settlement of the Americas. Language areas contracted or disappeared due to the death of their speakers, who succumbed to violence and to epidemics of Old World diseases to which they had no acquired immunity. In many cases, Native Americans relocated far from their homelands to avoid conflict with European settlers. In the United States, reloca- tion was especially massive in the 1800s, when laws such as the Indian Removal Act persuaded or compelled Indians to leave their homelands for lands west of the Mississippi River, often Oklahoma. 7.1 Eskimo-​Aleut Eskimo-​Aleut is the only native language family that has speakers in both Asia and America. It is divided into an Aleut branch and an Eskimo branch (Table 7.2, mapped with a “1” in Figure 7.1). The Aleut branch of the Eskimo-​Aleut family is spoken by small groups of inhabitants of various islands in the Aleutian chain and on the Commander Islands. Their self-​designation is Unangan. There are now about 150 speakers of various Aleut dialects. All of the Aleut dialects have been heavily influenced by Russian, from which most of their technical and religious vocabulary was bor- rowed. There is even a language, Mednyj Aleut, that is such a thorough mixture of Aleut and Russian that many linguists classify it as a mixed language, one that is no longer clearly Eskimo-​Aleut or clearly Indo-​European (see §8.1 for more on mixed languages). The Eskimo branch of the Eskimo-​Aleut family consists of an Inuit branch and a Yupik branch. The term Eskimo, which dates back to the 1500s, is an exonym thought to originate from an Algonquian language. In the 1970s, many Canadians began to perceive the term as offensive, and the term has been controversial ever since. One theory holds that the term is offensive because it means ‘people who eat uncooked meat’, but that etymology is imaginary. More likely, the problem is that whatever name dominant groups call subordinated groups is likely to come to sound offensive sooner or later. In Canada, the endonym Inuit replaces the exonym Eskimo, but in Alaska and Siberia, many Eskimos are not Inuit, and so a more inclu- sive term is needed. As a result, most linguists continue to use the word Eskimo for this group of languages, although the longer term Yupik-​Inuit is also available. The Inuit branch of Eskimo stretches in a dialect chain across North America from Greenland to Alaska. Despite the inevitable encroachment from the national languages (English, French, and Danish), Inuit remains a thriving language in many areas, especially in Greenland and in Canada, where it is an official and majority language in Nunavut. FIGURE 7.1 Some languages of North America. Families: 1Eskimo-​Aleut. 2Na-​Dene. 3Algic. 4Muskogean. 5Siouan. 6Iroquoian. 7Caddoan. 8Yuman. 9Sahaptian. aTsimshianic. bKiowa-​ Tanoan. cUto-​Aztecan. dSalishan. eWakashan. 330 The Americas: North American area TABLE 7.2 Some Eskimo-​Aleut languages Name Size Location Aleut (ale) 3 Alaska Eskimo 6 Russia to Greenland ‧ Inuit 5 Russia to Greenland ‧ ‧ Kalaallisut (kal) 5 Greenland ‧ ‧ Inuktitut (ike) 5 Nunavut ‧ ‧ Inuinnaqtun (ikt) 3 Northwest Territories ‧ ‧ Northern Alaskan Iñupiaq (esi) 4 Alaska ‧ ‧ Seward Peninsula Iñupiaq (esk) 4 Alaska ‧ Yupik 5 Russia to Alaska ‧ ‧ Naukan Yupik (ynk) 2 Russia ‧ ‧ Central Siberian Yupik (ess) 4 Alaska ‧ ‧ Central Alaskan Yupʼik (esu) 5 Alaska ‧ ‧ Pacific Gulf Yupik (ems) 3 Alaska The Yupik branch of Eskimo consists of four language groups with low mutual intelligibility, spoken in Alaska and Siberia in the Bering Sea area. Central Alaskan Yupʼik, the most widely spoken of the Yupik languages, is the dominant indig- enous language of Alaska. It is described in detail in §7.26. 7.2 Na-​Dene The Na-​Dene [nɑdɪˈne] family comprises Tlingit (pronounced [ˈklɪŋkɪt] in English), which is a language spoken primarily in southern Alaska, and Athabaskan (Table 7.3, mapped with a “2” in Figure 7.1). The name combines the words for ‘people’ in Tlingit and in many Athabaskan languages. It was coined by Sapir (1915) to express his hypothesis that Tlingit and Haida were related to Athabaskan. He now appears to have been right about Tlingit and wrong about Haida. The name has stuck, although some people prefer to use the term Athabaskan-​Eyak-​Tlingit to emphasize the exclusion of Haida. The Athabaskan branch of Na-​Dene contains about 42 languages, making it one of the largest clades of languages in North America. It is named after Lake Athabasca at the border of Saskatchewan and Alberta. The internal cladistic sub- grouping of Athabaskan is not well understood; consequently, it is customary to define it in terms of the three areas in which it is spoken. The northern Athabaskan area comprises the interior of Alaska and north- western Canada. Most of the variation between Athabaskan languages is found in this area, much as we observed for Austronesian variation in Taiwan. Such a situa- tion suggests that northern Athabaskan is unlikely to be a proper clade, but rather the homeland from which the other Athabaskan languages emerged.  7.2 Na-Dene 331 TABLE 7.3 Some Na-​Dene languages Name Size US state or Canadian province Tlingit (tli) 3 Alaska Athabaskan 6 Alaska to Southwest US ‧ Babine-​Carrier ‧ ‧ Babine (bcr) 3 British Columbia ‧ ‧ Carrier (crx) 4 British Columbia ‧ Chilcotin (clc) 4 British Columbia ‧ Dene ‧ ‧ Chipewyan (chp) 4 Alberta ‧ ‧ Dogrib (dgr) 4 Northwest Territories ‧ ‧ Slavey (xsl) 4 Northwest Territories ‧ Gwich’in (gwi) 3 Northwest Territories ‧ Hupa (hup) 1 California ‧ Southern Dene 6 ‧ ‧ Navajo (nav) 6 Arizona ‧ ‧ Western Apache (apw) 5 Arizona ‧ ‧ Mescalero-​Chiricahua (apm) 4 New Mexico ‧ ‧ Jicarilla (apj) 3 New Mexico In Alaska, most of the Athabaskan languages are either nearly extinct or moribund –​spoken only by adults, with little chance of continued survival in the absence of concerted preservation campaigns. In Canada, some of the Athabaskan languages are considerably more robust. Chipewyan, whose endonym Dëne Sųłiné is one of several language names that contain the Dene element for which the lan- guage family is named, has some 11,000 speakers from Alberta to Manitoba and up into the Northwest Territories. Perhaps surprisingly from the standpoint of cultural sensitivity, Slavey is exactly what it looks like, the English word slave with the final ‹e› pronounced. The speakers call themselves Dene ‘people’. Most of the Athabaskan languages spoken in Oregon and California –​the Pacific group –​no longer have native speakers. The few languages that have any fluent speakers includes Hupa and Tolowa (tol) in California. The remaining Athabaskan languages are spoken in the American southwest, quite far from the hypothesized Athabaskan homeland in Alaska. This clade is called Southern or Apachean Athabaskan. It contains perhaps the most influential Native American language in the United States: Navajo, which has over 170,000 speakers in the Arizona, Utah, and New Mexico region. It may be the only indig- enous language of the United States whose native speakers are actually increasing rather than rapidly diminishing in numbers. A number of newspapers and peri- odicals have been published in this language. Nevertheless, there is concern that the increasing numbers of children are learning Navajo more in school than at home, a situation that augurs ill for language sustainability. 332 The Americas: North American area Paradoxically, the relatively large number of speakers of Navajo inspired the US Marine Corps to use it as the basis of a secret oral code during World War II. The Corps was able to recruit more than 300 Americans who were bilingual in Navajo and English; at the same time, outside the United States, Navajo was not spoken at all, nor were there published grammars or dictionaries. The code they devised consisted of codewords for a few hundred common English words plus letters of the English alphabet. All the codewords were Navajo words that had some semantic connection to the plaintext. For example, minesweeper ships were metaphorically called [t͡ʃʰàːʔ], the Navajo word for ‘beaver’. The codewords for letters were all Navajo words whose English translations started with the required letters. Thus [wólát͡ʃʰíː] stood for ‹A› because it means ‘ant’. These semantic con- nections made the codewords easy for Navajo–​English bilinguals to memorize and, more importantly, for them to encode and decode very quickly on the battle- field. The use of this and other codes based on minority languages is referred to as code talking. Navajo code talking was inspired by the belief that the language is so difficult to learn that the code would be unbreakable. In fact, Navajo code talk- ing amounted to English with vocabulary substitutions, which would have made it quite vulnerable to a concerted code-​breaking effort. We would normally insert here a stern warning about the dangers of exoticism –​thinking that unfamiliar languages like those of Native Americans must be so unimaginably different from written Old World languages that they are not subject to commonsense reason- ing –​but history is often surprising. By all reports, Navajo code talking was never cracked, and it served as an enormously useful vehicle for rapidly communicating battlefield tactics in the Pacific Theater for the duration of the war. Haida, which is spoken on Queen Charlotte Island and the opposite coast of Alaska, was once considered to be distantly related to the Na-​Dene languages, but the most recent comparisons, based on a larger body of evidence, disfavor this hypothesis. As we discussed in §4.2, a more recent proposal linking Na-​Dene to Ket, the sole remaining Yeniseian language of central Siberia, has attracted much interest and tentative approval by many historical linguists. Languages belonging to the Na-​Dene family possess complicated grammars that exhibit fusional and polysynthetic traits. Many of the languages are tonal. In addition, most of these languages have complicated consonant systems that include ejectives and various complex lateral sounds, not unlike many other native languages of North America. 7.3 Algic The Algic family contains two languages in California: Yurok and the recently extinct (1962) Wiyot (wiy). It also includes the Algonquian languages, which are found far to the east, up to and including the Atlantic coast (Table 7.4, mapped  7.3 Algic 333 TABLE 7.4 Some Algic languages Name Size US state or Canadian province Yurok (yur) 2 California Algonquian 6 Rockies to Atlantic ‧ Eastern Algonquian 4 Atlantic coast ‧ ‧ Micmac (mic) 4 Nova Scotia ‧ ‧ Malecite-​Passamaquoddy (pqm) 3 New Brunswick ‧ Cree (cre) 6 Canada ‧ Ojibwa (oji) 5 Canada, north US ‧ Menominee (mez) 2 Wisconsin ‧ Potawatomi (pot) 2 Michigan ‧ Fox-​Sauk-​Kickapoo 3 Oklahoma ‧ ‧ Fox (sac) 3 Iowa ‧ ‧ Kickapoo (kic) 3 Oklahoma ‧ Shawnee (sjw) 3 Oklahoma ‧ Blackfoot (bla) 4 Alberta ‧ Arapaho (arp) 3 Wyoming ‧ Cheyenne (chy) 4 Montana with a “3” in Figure 7.1). The latter clade is named after the Algonquin language (alq), which we here treat as a form of Ojibwa. Both Ojibwa and Cree have vast distributions across North America, with the expected dialectal differentiation and the expected debates about where dialect and language boundaries should be drawn. Other well-​known forms of Ojibwa include Chippewa (ciw) in Michigan and Ottawa (otw) in Ontario. English settlement of North America began on the eastern seabord, which was mostly Algonquian territory as far south as Virginia. Consequently, many of the most familiar Native American loanwords in English come from Algonquian languages. These include culture words like moccasin, papoose, powwow, squaw, tomahawk, wampum, and wigwam, plus the maize-​based foods hominy and pone; but not maize itself, which is a Spanish loan from Taino (§7.19), nor corn, which is a native English word for ‘grain’. Several names for North American animals and plants were also taken from Algonquian languages, among them moose, muskrat, opossum, raccoon, skunk, hickory, persimmon, and squash. For the most part, lin- guists do not know exactly what the original forms of these early loans were, but often they have been able to make Proto-​Algonquian reconstructions based on reflexes of those words in well-​documented Algonquian languages. Our knowl- edge of the protolanguage goes back to the 1920s, when Bloomfield (1925) used the comparative method to reconstruct much of it. This feat was hailed as a con- clusive demonstration that the method works for all languages. Previously, there had been suggestions that American languages were so different from Old World languages that sound change might not be deterministic. 334 The Americas: North American area These languages introduced linguists to previously unknown types of mor- phosyntactic alignment. Algonquian languages have a free word order and rely on grammatical morphemes to show which nouns fulfill which grammatical relations, such as the subject and object of verbs. But the system differs from the familiar nominative-​accusative systems of Russian and Finnish or the ergative-​ absolutive system of Dyirbal. It has three components: First, Algonquian languages have animacy-​based gender. Words for sentient beings –​humans and animals –​have animate gender. For the most part, nonsen- tient things have inanimate gender, but there are many exceptions whose motiva- tions are not always easy to discern, such as the Blackfoot animate nouns [istːóan] ‘knife’ and [poʔtaːt͡sis] ‘stove’. Verbs take different suffixes based on whether the subject is inanimate or animate; if the latter, that suffix may also specify that the verb takes an animate or inanimate object. In (1a), [-​at] marks the verb as requir- ing an animate object. In (1b), [-​o] has the same meaning; these animacy agree- ment markers vary depending on the verb root. The animacy of the nouns is not overtly marked on the nouns themselves, but in this instance can correctly be inferred from their meanings. (The top line is in orthography and reflects surface pronunciation; the morphemes are glossed in their underlying forms.) (1) Blackfoot a. Na John iisstsimááhkatsiiw amo nínaay. anː-​wa d͡ʒɑn iː-​sːtsimáːxk-​at-​jiː-​wa amo nínaː-​ji dem-​top John(an) pst-​hire-​tr.an_​obj-​dir-​top dem man(an)-​obv ‘John hired this man.’ (Bliss 2013: 162) b. Omáátakohkottohkoonooka nahk Rosie anni otáni. ot-​máːt-​oxkotː-​oxkoːn-​o-​ok-​wa anː-​wa-​xk rozi top_​obj-​neg-​capable-​find-​tr.an_​obj-​inv-​top dem-​top-​nvis Rosie(an) anː-​ji w-​itan-​ji dem-​obv 3.poss-​daughter(an)-​obv ‘Her daughter can’t find Rosie.’ (Bliss 2013: 251) Second, Blackfoot has a grammatical distinction between topical (in American language studies usually called proximate) and obviative elements in the discourse. At most one animate singular noun per clause can be marked as topical (top, suffix [-​wa]), showing that it refers to the person or object most central to the discourse. Other nouns, including all inanimate nouns, are marked as obviative (obv, suffix [-​ji]). Thus in (1a), ‘John’ is topical, as reflected by the suffix on its accompanying demonstrative, and ‘this man’ is obviative, as shown by the suffix on the noun itself. Example (1b) is analogous for ‘Rosie’ and ‘her daughter’. The [-​wa] on the verbs, though glossed as topical, can be ignored for the purpose of this discussion. Third, transitive verbs have another suffix that tells whether the subject is higher than the object on what is somewhat misleadingly called the animacy  7.4 Muskogean 335 hierarchy, but what is really more of an agency hierarchy. The hierarchy for Blackfoot is: (2) 1 ≻ 2 ≻ top ≻ obv That is, the speaker (first person) is more suitable as a subject of a transitive verb (agent) than is the listener, and either interlocutor is more suitable than a third party. In case both the subject and object are third person, Blackfoot ranks topical nouns above obviative ones. If this ranking expectation is met in a particular clause, the verb takes a direct (dir) suffix, which is [-​jiː] when both nouns are third per- son; otherwise it takes an inverse (inv) suffix, which is [-​ok] in the third person. Thus in (1a), the animacy hierarchy is followed, and the topical noun ‘John’ is the subject. In (1b), the animacy hierarchy is inverted, and the obviative noun ‘her daughter’ is the subject, despite the fact that the sentence also has a topical noun. 7.4 Muskogean The Muskogean family (Table 7.5, mapped with a “4” in Figure 7.1) is named after Muskogee, which is also known as Creek or Seminole. At the time of European contact, this language family was spoken in Alabama and surrounding areas. Along with the language isolate Yuchi and some extinct languages, it forms the core of the Southeast linguistic area. Languages in this area are noted for consis- tently marking position, or, more accurately, posture, especially in clauses with durative aspect (dur), which marks a continuing action or a state such as loca- tion. In (3a), Choctaw literally says ‘There sits my house’, using a postural verb for inanimate (inan) objects that are not particularly tall or long. Sentence (3b) uses a postural verb as an auxiliary. We mark these stems as inherently singular because postural verbs use suppletion to express number. For example, two people stand- ing require the verb [hiːli], and three or more people require [joh]. TABLE 7.5 Some Muskogean languages Name Size US state Western Muskogean ‧ Choctaw (cho) 5 Mississippi ‧ Chickasaw (cic) 2 Oklahoma Alabama-​Koasati ‧ Alabama (akz) 3 Texas ‧ Koasati (cku) 3 Louisiana Mikasuki (mik) 3 Florida Muskogee (mus) 4 Oklahoma 336 The Americas: North American area (3) Choctaw a. jamːakõ ã-​t͡ʃokwa talá‹n›ja there 1sg.alien-​house sit(sg.inan)‹dur› ‘There is my house.’ (Watkins 1976: 21) b. d͡ʒɑn at takːon apaʃ hikí‹n›ja John nom apple eat stand(sg)‹dur› ‘John is eating an apple.’ (Watkins 1976: 22) In 1964, about 30 linguists met at Indiana University to work out a consensus classification of the American languages. They endorsed M. Haas’s proposal (1951) that Muskogean is related to four extinct language isolates of the Southeast to form a larger family that she called the Gulf languages. They also endorsed grouping these Gulf languages together with the Algic languages, forming an even larger fam- ily called Macro-​Algonquian. In many additional respects that 1964 consensus was rather liberal, accepting many genetic groupings that many other academic linguists consider unproven. Indeed, a subsequent conference held in Oswego, New York, in 1976, rejected many of those groupings, more than tripling the number of clades considered unrelated to each other. Our main classification in this book follows the latter scheme, but we occasionally mention the 1964 consensus because that scheme is still widely enountered in the literature and has many proponents. 7.5 Siouan The Siouan languages are centered on the northern prairies (Table 7.6, mapped with a “5” in Figure 7.1). This family is sometimes called Siouan-​Catawban to empha- size that some extinct languages of the eastern United States were included in it. TABLE 7.6 Some Siouan languages Name Size US state or Canadian province Omaha-​Ponca (oma) 2 Nebraska Winnebago (win) 3 Wisconsin Dakotan ‧ Dakota (dak) 5 South Dakota ‧ Lakota (lkt) 4 South Dakota ‧ Assiniboine (asb) 3 Saskatchewan ‧ Stoney (sto) 4 Alberta Mandan (mhq) 1 North Dakota Missouri River Siouan 4 ‧ Hidatsa (hid) 3 North Dakota ‧ Crow (cro) 4 Montana  7.6 Iroquoian 337 Siouan languages tend to have SOV as their basic word order. Omaha-​Ponca has a typologically rare proliferation of contrasts in stops: voiced, voiceless, aspi- rated, and ejective. Its definite articles have different endings depending on the posture of the person it determines: standing, sitting, or moving. 7.6 Iroquoian The Iroquoian family is divided into two branches (Table 7.7, mapped with a “6” in Figure 7.1). The family originated around the Great Lakes region, but a few languages were carried as far as the American southeast. Cherokee was located in and around northern Georgia and the Carolinas until the forced removal of Indian nations in the 1830s. Now, most speakers of Cherokee live in Oklahoma. Iroquoian languages tend to have small inventories of consonants and few if any labials. They tend to have one or two nasalized vowels. Verbs have elaborate morphological structure. In Cherokee, for example, all verbs con- tain a prefix that agrees with the subject and object in person and number. In (4), that is [n-​], which is phonologically reduced from [iːniː]. Verbs also must contain a suffix that marks aspect: here, [sk-​], which denotes an uncom- pleted action. There are also possibilities for many other affixes, as well as incorporated nouns. (4) Cherokee ᏕᎾᏑᎴᏍᎪᎢ. téː-​n-​asúːléː-​sk-​óʔi iter-​1du-​wash_​hands-​ipfv-​hab ‘You and I regularly wash our hands.’ (Montgomery-​Anderson 2008: 57) TABLE 7.7 Some Iroquoian languages Name Size US state or Canadian province Cherokee (chr) 5 Oklahoma Northern ‧ Tuscarora (tus) 1 Ontario ‧ Iroquois ‧ ‧ Cayuga (cay) 3 Ontario ‧ ‧ Mohawk (moh) 4 New York ‧ ‧ Oneida (one) 3 Ontario ‧ ‧ Onondaga (ono) 2 Ontario ‧ ‧ Seneca (see) 3 New York 338 The Americas: North American area 7.7 Caddoan Caddoan was originally represented by languages covering the central United States from North Dakota to northern Louisiana and Texas, but now only four languages survive (Table 7.8, mapped with a “7” in Figure 7.1). The earlier consensus lumped the Siouan, Iroquoian, and Caddoan languages, as well as the Yuchi isolate, together into a large family called Macro-​Siouan. 7.8 Yuman The Yuman languages are spoken in the US southwest and in Baja California (Table 7.9, mapped with a “8” in Figure 7.1). This family is sometimes called Cochimí-​Yuman to emphasize that the extinct Cochimí (coj) of Baja California belonged to it. Along with Seri, Pomoan, Achumawi, Washo, Karuk, some extinct lan- guages, and a few others discussed below under Mesoamerica (Tol, Tlapanec, and TABLE 7.8 Some Caddoan languages Name Size State in US Northern Caddoan ‧ Arikara (ari) 1 North Dakota ‧ Pawnee (paw) 2 Oklahoma ‧ Wichita (wic) 1 Oklahoma Caddo (cad) 2 Oklahoma TABLE 7.9 Some Yuman languages Name Size State in Mexico or US Delta-​Californian ‧ Cocopa (coc) 3 Baja California ‧ Kumiai (dih) 3 Baja California River ‧ Mojave (mov) 3 Arizona ‧ Quechan (yum) 3 California ‧ Maricopa (mrc) 3 Arizona Pai ‧ Upland Yuman (yuf) 4 Arizona ‧ Paipai (ppi) 2 Baja California  7.9 Sahaptian 339 Tequistlatecan), the 1964 consensus grouped Yuman into a large theoretical family called Hokan. Switch-​reference systems were first documented in Hokan languages (Jacobsen 1967). These are systems that grammatically indicate whether the subjects of two consecutive clauses refer to the same entity (ss) or a differ- ent one (ds). These two situations are marked by two separate suffixes in Yavapai (5). (5) Yavapai dialect of Upland Yuman a. tokatoka-​t͡ʃ savakjuva u-​t-​k t͡ʃikwar-​kiñ Tokatoka-​nom Savakyuva see-​time-​ss laugh-​pfv ‘When Tokatoka looked at Savakyuva, he (Tokatoka) laughed.’ b. tokatoka-​t͡ʃ savakjuva u-​t-​m t͡ʃikwar-​kiñ Tokatoka-​nom Savakyuva see-​time-​ds laugh-​pfv ‘When Tokatoka looked at Savakyuva, he (not Tokatoka) laughed.’ (both from Finer 1985: 37). 7.9 Sahaptian The Sahaptian languages are spoken in the plateau at the juncture of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho (Table 7.10, preceded by “9” in Figure 7.1). Nez Perce has been analyzed as having an unusual type of morphosyntactic alignment called tripartite alignment (Rude 1986). As we have seen, most lan- guages that have morphological case either treat the subject of intransitive verbs the same as the subject of transitive verbs –​nominative-​accusative languages –​ or the same as the object of transitive verbs –​ergative-​absolutive languages. Nez Perce leaves the subject of an intransitive verb unmarked but has special suffixes for the other two relations, so that, effectively, there are three separate forms for the three grammatical relations (6). TABLE 7.10 Some Sahaptian languages Name Size State in US Nez Perce (nez) 3 Idaho Sahaptin ‧ Tenino (tqn) 2 Oregon ‧ Umatilla (uma) 2 Oregon ‧ Walla Walla (waa) 2 Oregon ‧ Yakima (yak) 2 Washington 340 The Americas: North American area (6) Nez Perce a. hi-​páaj-​na háama 3.Vintr-​arrive-​pfv man[abs] ‘The man arrived.’ b. háama-​nm pée-​ʔwi-​je wewúkije-​ne man-​erg 3.tr-​shoot-​pfv elk-​acc ‘The man shot the elk.’ (both from Rude 1986: 126) 7.10 Tsimshianic Tsimshianic languages are spoken in British Columbia and Alaska (Table 7.11, preceded by a “a” in Figure 7.1). The 1964 consensus, endorsing a theory proposed a century ago, grouped together into a family called Penutian all the language groups from Yokuts to Zuni in Table 7.1, plus a few Mesoamerican groups (Mixe-​Zoque, Mayan, Totonacan, and Huave). Yokuts, which is either a language family (Yokutsan) or a language isolate, depending on how one regards its member language varieties, has a complicated phonology. This richness has made it a traditional focus of research and a testbed for different phonological theories. 7.11 Kiowa-​Tanoan Kiowa-​Tanoan includes the languages listed in Table 7.12 (preceded by a “b” in Figure 7.1). These languages have an unusual way of marking number on nouns. In Kiowa (7), all nouns in their basic, unsuffixed form (left side of table), can be interpreted as having dual number. In addition, almost all nouns can express at least one other number in their basic form. For animates like ‘cow’, the basic form can also express singular; thus [t͡senbóː] means ‘one or two cows’. Most inanimates are like ‘rib- bons’, whose basic form can also express a plural (three or more in Kiowa), so that TABLE 7.11 Some Tsimshianic languages Name Size Province in Canada Tsimshian (tsi) 3 British Columbia Nass-​Gitksan ‧ Nisga’a (ncg) 3 British Columbia ‧ Gitxsan (git) 3 British Columbia  7.12 Uto-Aztecan 341 TABLE 7.12 Some Kiowa-​Tanoan languages Name Size State in US Kiowa (kio) 3 Oklahoma Tiwa ‧ Northern Tiwa (twf) 4 New Mexico ‧ Southern Tiwa (tix) 4 New Mexico Tewa (tew) 4 New Mexico Jemez (tow) 4 New Mexico [ɔ́lpʰãː] means ‘two or more ribbons’. Some others, mostly fruit like ‘apples’, can express only a dual, and other inanimates can represent any number in their basic form. To express any number other than that expressed by a noun’s basic form, an inverse morpheme is added. Thus [t͡senbóː-​ɡɔ] means ‘any number of cows other than two or one’, thus three or more; [ɔ́lpʰãː-​ɡɔ] means ‘any number of ribbons other than two or more than two’, thus one; and so forth. The inverse morpheme is never used with words like [tó] that can express any number in their basic form. (7) Kiowa (Wonderly et al. 1954) [t͡senbóː] ‘cow(s)’ du or sg [t͡senbóː-​ɡɔ] pl [ɔ́lpʰãː] ‘ribbons’ du or pl [ɔ́lpʰãː-​ɡɔ] sg [álɔː] ‘apples’ du [álɔː-​ɡɔ] sg or pl [tó] ‘house(s)’ du or sg or pl —​ 7.12 Uto-​Aztecan Table 7.13 lists some members of the Uto-​Aztecan family; in Figure 7.1, the codes for these languages are preceded by a “c”. Tepehuan languages are tonal, but most other Uto-​Aztecan languages are not. The Aztecan subbranch contains a large number of languages, including Classical Nahuatl, which was the chief language of the Aztec empire at the time of Spanish conquest. The modern languages belong- ing to this subgroup are all descendants of Nahuatl, which served as a lingua franca throughout central Mexico. Over two dozen varieties have been recognized by various researchers, many of them being quite divergent from each other. In Table 7.13 we list both the most populous Nahuatl language –​dialects of Huasteca Nahuatl are spoken by about a million people –​and the most linguistically diver- gent, Pipil, which is spoken in El Salvador. The grammatical structure of Uto-​Aztecan languages is less elaborate than, for example, that of the Na-​Dene languages. Most of the languages are agglutinative in type and have elaborate suffixation. The Numic languages are strongly verb-​final, and it is believed that this feature ought to be reconstructed for Proto-​Uto-​Aztecan. 342 The Americas: North American area TABLE 7.13 Some Uto-​Aztecan languages Name Size State in US or Mexico Numic ‧ Western Numic ‧ ‧ Mono (mnr) 2 California ‧ Central Numic ‧ ‧ Shoshone (shh) 4 Idaho ‧ ‧ Comanche (com) 3 Oklahoma ‧ Southern Numic ‧ ‧ Kawaiisu (xaw) 1 California ‧ ‧ Ute-​Chemehuevi (ute) 3 Utah Tübatulabal (tub) 1 California Takic ‧ Cahuilla (chl) 2 California ‧ Luiseño (lui) 1 California Hopi (hop) 4 Arizona Taracahitic ‧ Cahitan ‧ ‧ Mayo (mfy) 5 Sonora ‧ ‧ Yaqui (yaq) 5 Sonora ‧ Tarahumaran ‧ ‧ Guarijío (var) 4 Chihuahua ‧ ‧ Tarahumara (tar) 5 Chihuahua Corachol ‧ Cora (crn) 4 Nayarit ‧ Huichol (hch) 5 Jalisco Tepiman ‧ O’odham (ood) 5 Arizona ‧ Pima Bajo (pia) 3 Chihuahua ‧ Northern Tepehuán (ntp) 4 Chihuahua ‧ Southern Tepehuán (stp) 5 Durango Aztecan ‧ Classical Nahuatl (nci) 0 México ‧ Eastern Huasteca Nahuatl (nhe) 6 Hidalgo ‧ Pipil (ppl) 2 El Salvador Whorf (1956) made Hopi a major focus of his work on linguistic rela- tivity. He claimed, among other things, that Hopi does not have tenses for expressing past, present, and future. Such linguistic properties, he believed, had a profound effect on its native speakers, causing them to conceptual- ize time in a completely different way from the European notion of time as  7.13 Salishan 343 a linear fourth dimension. Most linguists could make little sense of Whorf ’s statements –​Hopi’s treatment of time is quite typical of languages around the world (Malotki 1983) –​but the public was eager to believe that the Hopi peo- ple live in an unimaginably exotic world where time as we understand it does not exist. The 1964 consensus grouped Kiowa-​Tanoan and Uto-​Aztecan together into a group called Aztec-​Tanoan. 7.13 Salishan Most Salishan languages (Table 7.14; preceded by a “d” in Figure 7.1) are spoken only by small numbers of speakers, most of whom are middle-​aged or older. Salishan languages have very rich consonantal systems. Shuswap, for example, uses several places of articulation, including the typologically rare pharyngeals, and a contrast between velars and uvulars. It also has glottalized or ejective ver- sions of almost all of its consonants. Salishan languages often permit long clusters of consonants. Words such as the example in (8) have been used to test and extend theories about syllable structure. TABLE 7.14 Some Salishan languages Name Size US state or Canadian province Bella Coola (blc) 2 British Columbia Central Salishan ‧ Comox (coo) 2 British Columbia ‧ Sechelt (sec) 2 British Columbia ‧ Halkomelem (hur) 3 British Columbia ‧ Squamish (squ) 1 British Columbia ‧ Straits Salish (str) 2 British Columbia ‧ Lushootseed (lut) 2 Washington Interior Salishan ‧ Coeur d’Alene (crd) 1 Idaho ‧ Columbian (col) 2 Washington ‧ Kalispel-​Salish (fla) 2 Montana ‧ Spokane (spo) 1 Washington ‧ Okanagan (oka) 3 British Columbia ‧ ‧ Lillooet (lil) 3 British Columbia ‧ ‧ Shuswap (shs) 3 British Columbia ‧ ‧ Thompson (thp) 3 British Columbia 344 The Americas: Mesoamerican area (8) Bella Coola ɬχʷt-​ɬ-​t͡s-​xʷ spit-​pst-​1sg-​2sg ‘You spat on me.’ (Bagemihl 1998: 74) The grammar of Salishan languages is complex and polysynthetic. They make extensive use of reduplication to express grammatical functions such as plural number: Shuswap [ˈpesəɬkʷe] ‘lake’, [pəsˈpesəɬkʷe] ‘lakes’ (van Eijk 1998). They have many suffixes, including a large number of lexical suffixes: suffixes that express basic noun-​like meanings such as body parts but that appear to be etymo- logically unrelated to noun roots of the same meaning. Even the very liberal consensus of 1964 did not group these last-​mentioned languages and families –​Keres through Wakashan in Table 7.1 –​into larger groups. The general consensus is that any similarities among them is due to exten- sive borrowing. In particular, Salishan and Wakashan (which is preceded by an “e” in Figure 7.1) exhibit a number of similarities in structure and phonology as part of a Pacific Northwest sprachbund. But there are important classifications that assigned broader genetic relations between these languages and others. In 1929 Sapir was commissioned to produce a classification for the Encyclopædia Britannica. He developed a scheme that grouped all of the languages of North America into six families, for example grouping Keres in Hokan and many of the remaining languages as sisters of Algonquian. Greenberg (1987) went even further, with a theory that grouped all languages of the Americas but Eskimo-​ Aleut and Na-​Dene into one huge family called Amerind. His conclusions were based on subjectively judging similarities between words in different languages. Because these data were not measured or assessed by any objective standard, his claim was not subject to replication and has received little acceptance. See, for example, the very negative review of Greenberg’s Amerind hypothesis by L. Campbell (1988) and Kaufman’s (1990: 15–​17) comments on Greenberg’s methodology. Mesoamerican area Mesoamerica –​the region from central Mexico to northern Costa Rica –​is tradi- tionally separated from the rest of North America in part because of its distinctive culture. It was, for example, one of the very few places in the world where writing was invented independently. It is also a sprachbund, where hundreds of languages exerted much influence on each other. That said, Mesoamerica was not a cultural island, and some northern language families extend into Mesoamerica, notably Uto-​Aztecan (§7.12), as do some language families that will be discussed below under South America: Chibchan and Misumalpan. See Figure 7.2 for locations. The classification used for the Mesoamerican languages (Table 7.15) follows that of L. Campbell 1997. FIGURE 7.2 Some languages of Mesoamerica. Families: 1Oto-​Manguean. 2Totonacan. 3 Mixe-Zoquean. 4Mayan. 5Tequistlatecan. TABLE 7.15 Some indigenous languages of Mesoamerica Name Size Location Oto-​Manguean §7.14 Mexico Totonacan §7.15 Mexico Mixe-​Zoquean §7.16 Mexico Mayan §7.17 Guatemala Tol (jic) 3 Honduras Tarascan ‧ Western Highland Purepecha (pua) 6 Mexico Tequistlatecan ‧ Lowland Oaxaca Chontal (clo) 4 Mexico ‧ Highland Oaxaca Chontal (chd) 4 Mexico Huave (huv) 5 Mexico 346 The Americas: Mesoamerican area 7.14 Oto-​Manguean The languages belonging to this family are currently spoken in Mexico, primarily in Oaxaca (Table 7.16; labeled with “1” in Figure 7.2). Oto-​Manguean languages are tonal and most have nasalized vowels and VSO word order. In the Otomi counting system, there are basic words for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, and 20, and other numbers are formed by adding or multiplying smaller units. Thus 57 is literally ‘(2 × 20) + 10 + (2 + 5)’ (Gilsdorf 2012: chap. 9). Thus it has a mixed based system of the pattern 5–​10–​20. The inclusion of 20 as a base –​the vigesi- mal component –​is typical of languages throughout Mesoamerica, but is also found in a large number of languages throughout the world, including, at least in part, European languages like French, Danish, and Welsh. 7.15 Totonacan The Totonacan family has an especially complicated morphology, resulting in quite long words. It is divided into two groups, Totonac and Tepehua. The tra- ditional nomenclature treats these as two languages having several dialects (e.g. Coyutla Totonac, Northern Totonac, etc.), but the current approach is to treat many of these dialects as comprising a dozen or more different languages, several of which are listed in Table 7.17 (indicated by the superscript “2” in Figure 7.2). 7.16 Mixe-​Zoquean The Mixe-​Zoquean languages (“3” in Figure 7.2) are spoken in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the strip of land where the Gulf of Mexico most closely approaches the Pacific Ocean. Table 7.18 presents the most widely accepted grouping of these TABLE 7.16 Some Oto-​Manguean languages Name Size State in Mexico Eastern Oto-​Manguean ‧ Amuzgo-​Mixtecan ‧ ‧ Amuzgo (amu) 5 Guerrero ‧ ‧ Mixtecan ‧ ‧ ‧ Cuicatec (cux) 4 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ Mixtec 6 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Jamiltepec (mxt) 4 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Juxtlahuaca (vmc) 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Metlatónoc (mxv) 5 Guerrero (continued) TABLE 7.16 Continued Name Size State in Mexico ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Northern Tlaxiaco (xtn) 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ San Juan Colorado (mjc) 4 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Yosondúa (mpm) 4 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Silacayoapan (mks) 5 Oaxaca ‧ Popolocan-​Zapotecan ‧ ‧ Popolocan ‧ ‧ ‧ Mazatec 6 ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Huautla (mau) 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Jalapa de Díaz (maj) 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ San Jerónimo Tecóatl (maa) 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ Western Popoloca (pca) 4 Puebla ‧ ‧ Zapotecan ‧ ‧ ‧ Chatino ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Nopala (cya) 4 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Zenzontepec (czn) 4 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ Zapotec (zap) ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Miahuatlán (zam) 4 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Tlacolulita (zpk) 3 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Choapan (zpc) 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Isthmus (zai) 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Ocotlán (zac) 5 Oaxaca Western Oto-​Manguean ‧ Tlapanec (tpx) 5 Guerrero ‧ Oto-​Pame-​Chinantecan ‧ ‧ Chinantecan ‧ ‧ ‧ Lalana-​Tepinapa (cnl) 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ Ojitlán (chj) 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ Palantla (cpa) 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ Quiotepec (chq) 4 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ Usila (cuc) 4 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ Oto-​Pamean ‧ ‧ ‧ Chichimeca-​Jonaz (pei) 4 Guanajuato ‧ ‧ ‧ Otomi 6 ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Eastern Highland (otm) 5 Hidalgo ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Mezquital (ote) 5 Hidalgo ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Querétaro (otq) 5 Querétaro ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Temoaya (ott) 5 México ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Tenango (otn) 5 Hidalgo ‧ ‧ ‧ Mazahua (maz) 6 México ‧ ‧ ‧ Pame ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Central Pame (pbs) 4 San Luis Potosí ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Northern Pame (pmq) 4 San Luis Potosí 348 The Americas: Mesoamerican area TABLE 7.17 Some Totonacan languages Name Size State in Mexico Totonac 6 ‧ Coyutla Totonac (toc) 5 Puebla ‧ Filomeno Mata-​Coahuitlán (tlp) 5 Veracruz ‧ Northern Totonac (too) 4 Puebla ‧ Papantla (top) 5 Veracruz ‧ Sierra Totonac (tos) 6 Puebla Tepehua ‧ Huehuetla (tee) 4 Hidalgo ‧ Pisaflores (tpp) 4 Puebla ‧ Tlachichilco (tpt) 4 Veracruz TABLE 7.18 Some Mixe-​Zoquean languages Name Size State in Mexico Mixean 6 ‧ Oluta Popoluca (plo) 3 Veracruz ‧ Sayula Popoluca (pos) 4 Veracruz ‧ Oaxaca Mixean ‧ ‧ Lowland Mixe (mir) 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ Midland Mixe ‧ ‧ ‧ South Midland Mixe (mxq) 4 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ South Highland Mixe 5 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ ‧ Zempoaltepetl (mxp) 4 Oaxaca ‧ ‧ North Highland Mixe (mto) 4 Oaxaca Zoquean ‧ Chiapas Zoquean ‧ ‧ Central Zoque (zoc) 5 Chiapas ‧ ‧ North Zoque (zos) 5 Chiapas ‧ ‧ Northeast Zoque (zor) 4 Chiapas ‧ Chimalapa Zoquean ‧ ‧ Santa María Chimalapa Zoque (zoh) 4 Oaxaca ‧ Gulf Zoquean ‧ ‧ Sierra Popoluca (poi) 5 Veracruz languages, that of Wichmann (1995). The traditional taxonomy treats this family as comprising three languages, Mixe, Zoque, and Popoluca, but recent approaches distinguish at least a dozen languages. L. Campbell & Kaufman (1976) have argued that a Mixe-​Zoquean language, possibly Proto-​ Mixe-​ Zoquean, was spoken by the Olmecs, the foundational  South American area 349 civilization of Mesoamerica, which dates back to about 1500 bc. They based their argument on comparisons of linguistic and archaeological data. Items that were introduced or first raised to importance by the Olmecs, such as plants like cacao and tomato, are often named throughout Mesoamerica by terms that are best explained as borrowings from Proto-​Mixe-​Zoquean. For example, ‘cacao’ is reconstructed as Proto-​Mixe-​Zoquean [kakawa], which appears as [kakawa] in Nahuatl, and in similar forms in several other unrelated languages. Clearly, borrow- ing is involved, but how do we know the word originally came from Proto-​Mixe-​ Zoquean and not, say, Proto-​Uto-​Aztecan, the ancestor of Nahuatl? One piece of reasoning is that other Uto-​Aztecan words do not have forms like [kakawa-​], so it cannot be traced back to Proto-​Uto-​Aztecan. Forms very similar to [kakawa-​] do appear throughout most of the Mayan languages, but Mayan languages have mostly monosyllabic roots, so it would be odd for the word [kakawa-​] to have originated in Proto-​Mayan: it sounds like a loanword. Archaeological linguistics can be very complicated and fraught with uncertainties, and so proposals such as that of Campbell and Kaufman are usually considered intriguing hypotheses rather than established fact. 7.17 Mayan Table 7.19 is based on L. Campbell & Kaufman’s (1985) cladistic analysis of the Mayan language family (plotted with a prefixed “4” in Figure 7.2). Ancient Mayas were one of only a handful of civilizations to independently invent writing, and the only native American people who did so before the coming of the Europeans. This script, which has been deciphered recently, began as a logographic system that developed a syllabic system. As in many other syllabographies, most Mayan syllabograms represented a consonant followed by a vowel (CV). Closed syllables (CVC) were written with two CV signs, in which case the vowel of the second sign was silent but was chosen to match the vowel of the root. For example, the Yucatec word [kuːt͡s] ‘turkey’ was spelled as if [ku.t͡su]. The Maya script was first used by Cholan speakers, who were the principal bearers of the Classic Lowland Maya culture (300–​900 ad), and later by Yucatecans, mainly to record dynastic histories. South American area An estimated 11.2 million people in South America speak an American native language. Unfortunately, only in the latter half of the 20th century did the study of South American languages begin to make significant progress. As a result, the genetic classification of these languages is still in quite a primitive state. At TABLE 7.19 Some Mayan languages Name Size Country Huastec (hus) 6 Mexico Yucatecan–​Core Mayan ‧ Core Mayan ‧ ‧ Cholan-​Tzeltalan ‧ ‧ ‧ Cholan ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Chol-​Chontal ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Chol (ctu) 6 Mexico ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Chontal (chf) 5 Mexico ‧ ‧ ‧ Tzeltalan ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Tzeltal (tzh) 6 Mexico ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Tzotzil (tzo) 6 Mexico ‧ ‧ Qʼanjobʼalan-​Chujean ‧ ‧ ‧ Chujean ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Chuj (cac) 5 Guatemala ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Tojolabal (toj) 5 Mexico ‧ ‧ ‧ Qʼanjobʼalan ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Qʼanjobʼal-​Akateko-​Jakalteko ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Akateko (knj) 5 Guatemala ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Jakalteko (jac) 4 Guatemala ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Qʼanjobʼal (kjb) 5 Guatemala ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Mocho (mhc) 3 Mexico ‧ ‧ Kʼichean-​Mamean ‧ ‧ ‧ Mamean ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Awakateko-​Ixil ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Awakateko (agu) 5 Guatemala ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Ixil (ixl) 5 Guatemala ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Teco-​Mam ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Mam (mam) 6 Guatemala ‧ ‧ ‧ Kʼichean ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Poqom-​Kʼichean ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Core Kʼichean ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Kaqchikel-​Tzʼutujil ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Kaqchikel (cak) 6 Guatemala ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Tzʼutujil (tzj) 5 Guatemala ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Kʼicheʼ (quc) 7 Guatemala ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Poqom ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Poqomchiʼ (poh) 5 Guatemala ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Qʼeqchiʼ (kek) 6 Guatemala ‧ Yucatecan ‧ ‧ Yucatec-​Lacandon ‧ ‧ ‧ Yucatec (yua) 6 Mexico ‧ ‧ ‧ Lacandón (lac) 3 Mexico  7.18 Intermediate area 351 TABLE 7.20 Indigenous languages of South America Name Subsection Intermediate area §7.18 Western Amazonia §7.19 Northern foothills §7.20 Andes §7.21 Southern foothills §7.22 South §7.23 Central Amazonia §7.24 Northern Amazonia §7.25 one extreme, we have Greenberg’s (1987) Amerind hypothesis that lumps all South American Indian languages into one family. At the other extreme, we have Kaufman’s (1990) classification, which lists 118 families and language iso- lates. In between, there are many proposals for how some of Kaufman’s groups might be combined into larger groups. Most authorities are agreed that many of the larger groups are supported by intriguing pieces of evidence, but the consensus is that these larger groupings are hypotheses that have not yet been proved. The following presentation of genetic relationships is based on the care- ful and conservative work of Kaufman, taking into account updates in sources such as L. Campbell (1997). In this overview (Table 7.20, Figure 7.3), we do not strive to be exhaustive; in particular, we have omitted most languages that are not known to have any native speakers. Campbell, Kaufman, and compre- hensive sources like Ethnologue provide more exhaustive lists of current and historical languages. 7.18 Intermediate area Because of the large number of language families in South America, we have arranged this survey geographically in relatively short sections. This first section is for languages centered in the northwest of South America and parts of Central America (Table 7.21). This area is called intermediate because it lay between the Maya civilization to its north and the Inca civilization to its south. We then tour the continent in a counterclockwise direction. The Chocoan languages are spoken in Colombia and Panama (plotted with a prefixed “1” in Figure 7.3). There is broad support for the idea that Paezan is distantly related to the Barbacoan family (prefixed with “2” in Figure 7.3), which extends from Colombia south into Ecuador. The Chibchan family stretches from Honduras to Venezuela (“3” in Figure 7.3). It is often hypothesized to be connected to the Misumalpan family (“4”), which is spoken in Honduras and Nicaragua. 352 The Americas: South American area FIGURE 7.3 Some languages of South America. Families: 1Chocoan. 2Barbacoan. 3Chibchan. 4 Misumalpan. 5Arawakan. 6Tucanoan. 7Jivaroan. 8Cahuapanan. 9Zaparoan. aWitotoan. bAymaran. c Chipaya-​Uru. dPanoan. eTacanan. fMatacoan. gGuaykuruan. hMascoyan. iZamucoan. jJean. k Jabutian. lNambiquaran. mTupian. nCariban. oSálivan. pQuechuan. 7.19 Western Amazonia A selection of Western Amazonian languages is presented in Table 7.22. The Arawakan family is the largest family of indigenous languages in the Americas, both in geographical coverage –​it is spoken in almost every country of South America (plotted with a prefixed “5” in Figure 7.3) –​and in the number of lan- guages it contains. It includes the extinct language Taino, which, as the dominant language in the Caribbean, was recorded by Columbus and is the source of the first American loanwords into Spanish and thence into many other languages; among  7.20 Northern foothills 353 these borrowings, cited here in their Spanish form, are canoa ‘canoe’, cazabe ‘cas- sava’, hamaca ‘hammock’, huracán ‘hurricane’, and maíz ‘maize’. The languages belonging to the Tucanoan family are found in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil (plotted with a prefixed “6” on the map in Figure 7.3). Almost all of those languages are SOV. The American continent in general has a disproportionately high number of languages that have nasalized vowel phonemes, but the equatorial area is particularly abundant in them. Many of these languages have nasal harmony. In Cubeo, if any phoneme in a syllable is phonologically nasal, then every voiced phoneme in the syllable must be nasal. That is, there are syllables like [ba], [mã], and [pã], but not ✗[bã] or ✗[ma]. Such a pattern leads many phonologists to say that in this language, nasality is a feature that belongs to the syllable rather than to the phoneme. Thus it is an important example of a prosodic feature, one that is best understood in terms of linguistic structures that are larger than segments. If any morpheme ends in a nasalized syllable, the nasal- ity spreads to all suffixes that follow that syllable. Thus in (9a), both words have the same underlying suffixes (second line), but their surface forms (top line) are different, because the nasal phoneme has spread from the root ‘man’. The spread is blocked by voiceless consonants, which cannot be nasalized: [k] in (9b). (9) Cubeo (Chacon 2012: Chap. 3) a. [d͡ʒaˈʋi-​βa-​ɽe] [ɨˈ̃ mɨ-̃ ​w̃ã-​ɽ ẽ̃ ] /​jawi-​wa-​de/​ ̃ wa-​de/​ /​ ibi-​ jaguar-​an.pl-​obl man-​an.pl-​obl ‘for the jaguars’ ‘for the men’ b. [a-​ˈbiko] [ã-​ˈmĩko] ̃ biko/​ /​a-​biko/​ /​ a-​ eat-​3.f say-​3.f ‘She ate.’ ‘She said.’ 7.20 Northern foothills Table 7.23 lists some of the languages of the northern foothills of the Andes. The Jivaroan family is spoken in Ecuador and Peru (prefixed with a “7” in Figure 7.3). The Cahuapanan family of Peru (prefixed with an “8” on that map) consists of two mutually unintelligible languages. The Zaparoan languages (pre- fixed “9”) are found in Ecuador and Peru. The Witotoan family (prefixed “a”) includes a few languages of Colombia, Peru, and Brazil. Yagua is the sole surviving member of the Peba-​Yaguan family, which had two other members in historic times. It has about 40 classifiers that must be used with numbers. Like many other South American languages, it is mildly polysynthetic; verbs in particular can take many suffixes, though the great bulk of verbs rarely  TABLE 7.21 Some languages of the Intermediate Area Name Size Country Chocoan ‧ Emberá-​Catío (cto) 5 Colombia ‧ Northern Emberá (emp) 5 Colombia ‧ Southern Emberá (cmi) 5 Colombia Paezan ‧ Páez (pbb) 5 Colombia Barbacoan ‧ Northern Barbacoan ‧ ‧ Awa-​Cuaiquer (kwi) 5 Colombia ‧ Southern Barbacoan ‧ ‧ Chachi (cbi) 4 Ecuador Chibchan (cba) ‧ Chibchan A ‧ ‧ Ngäbere (gym) 6 Panama ‧ ‧ Bribri (bzd) 5 Costa Rica ‧ Chibchan B ‧ ‧ San Blas Kuna (cuk) Panama ‧ ‧ Kogi (kog) 4 Colombia Misumalpan ‧ Mískito (miq) 6 Nicaragua ‧ Mayangna (yan) 4 Nicaragua Camsá (kbh) 4 Colombia TABLE 7.22 Some languages of Western Amazonia Name Size Country Chapacuran ‧ Wari’ (pav) 4 Brazil Guajiboan ‧ Guahibo (guh) 5 Colombia Arawakan ‧ Yanesha’ (ame) 4 Peru ‧ Parecís (pab) 4 Brazil ‧ Palikúr (plu) 4 Brazil ‧ Northern Arawakan ‧ ‧ Wapishana (wap) 5 Guyana ‧ ‧ Caribbean Arawakan ‧ ‧ ‧ Arawak (arw) 4 Guyana ‧ ‧ ‧ Taino (tnq) 0 Caribbean (continued)  7.20 Northern foothills 355 TABLE 7.22 Continued Name Size Country ‧ ‧ ‧ Wayuu (guc) 6 Colombia ‧ ‧ ‧ Garifuna (cab) 6 Honduras ‧ ‧ Inland Northern Arawakan ‧ ‧ ‧ Curripaco (kpc) 5 Colombia ‧ ‧ ‧ Piapoco (pio) 4 Colombia ‧ Southern Arawakan ‧ ‧ Bolivia-​Parana ‧ ‧ ‧ Terêna (ter) 5 Brazil ‧ ‧ ‧ Moxo ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Ignaciano (ign) 4 Bolivia ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Trinitario (trn) 4 Bolivia ‧ ‧ Purus ‧ ‧ ‧ Apurinã (apu) 4 Brazil ‧ ‧ ‧ Yine (pib) 4 Peru ‧ ‧ Pre-​Andine ‧ ‧ ‧ Nomatsiguenga (not) 4 Peru ‧ ‧ ‧ Asha-​Ashe-​Kak-​Matsi-​Nan ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Machiguenga (mcb) 4 Peru ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Asha-​Ashe ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Asháninka (cni) 5 Peru ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Ashéninka ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Ashéninka Pajonal (cjo) 5 Peru ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ Apurucayali (cpc) 4 Peru Arauan ‧ Kulina (cul) 4 Brazil Harákmbut ‧ Amarakaeri (amr) 3 Peru Puinavean ‧ Puinave (pui) 4 Colombia Katukinan ‧ Kanamarí (knm) 4 Brazil Tucanoan ‧ Tucano (tuo) 4 Brazil ‧ Guanano (gvc) 3 Brazil ‧ Cubeo (cub) 4 Colombia Ticuna (tca) 5 Brazil have more than three or four. It has a particularly exuberant system of suffixes for expressing different degrees of past tense. [-​hásij] expresses a proximate past, typi- cally something that happened today; [-​háj] is a recent past, but not today; [-​sij] is a matter of weeks ago; [-​tij] a matter of months; [-​haⁿda] a matter of years (D. Payne 1985: 240–​246). 356 The Americas: South American area TABLE 7.23 Some languages of the northern foothills of the Andes Name Size Country Pumé (yae) 4 Venezuela Cofán (con) 4 Colombia Candoshi-​Shapra (cbu) 4 Peru Jivaroan ‧ Jívaro ‧ ‧ Shuar (jiv) 5 Ecuador ‧ ‧ Achuar-​Shiwiar (acu) 4 Ecuador ‧ ‧ Huambisa (hub) 4 Peru ‧ Aguaruna (agr) 5 Peru Cahuapanan ‧ Chayahuita (cbt) 4 Peru ‧ Jebero (jeb) 4 Peru Zaparoan ‧ Iquito (iqu) 2 Peru ‧ Arabela (arl) 2 Peru ‧ Záparo (zro) 1 Ecuador Yagua (yad) 6 Peru Waorani (auc) 4 Ecuador Urarina (ura) 4 Peru Boran ‧ Bora (boa) 4 Peru Witotoan ‧ Minica Huitoto (hto) 4 Colombia ‧ Murui Huitoto (huu) 4 Colombia Andoque (ano) 3 Colombia 7.21 Andes region Table 7.24 lists some of the languages of the Andes. The Quechuan family (prefixed with a “p” in Figure 7.3) is spoken in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. For more details on the Quechuan lan- guages, see the sketch of Ayacucho Quechua (§7.27). Aymaran (prefixed with a “b” in Figure 7.3) has often been considered to be related to Quechuan, due in part to similarities in much of their vocabulary. But current thought is that the simi- lar words are actually too similar and are not very common in the basic vocabu- lary: a state of affairs that suggests borrowing, not descent from a remote common ancestor. Chipaya-​Uru consists of two languages spoken in Bolivia (prefixed with a “c” in Figure 7.3). At last report, though, Uru had only two native speakers, so Chipaya is well on its way to becoming a language isolate.  7.23 South 357 TABLE 7.24 Some languages of the Andes Name Size Country Aymaran ‧ Aymara (ayr) 7 Bolivia ‧ Jaqaru (jqr) 3 Peru Quechuan ‧ South Bolivian Quechua (quh) 7 Bolivia ‧ Cusco Quechua (quz) 7 Peru ‧ Ayacucho Quechua (quy) 7 Peru ‧ Chimborazo Highland Quichua (qug) 6 Ecuador Chipaya-​Uru ‧ Chipaya (cap) 4 Bolivia ‧ Uru (ure) 1 Bolivia 7.22 Southern foothills Table 7.25 lists some of the languages of the southern foothills of the Andes. The features that get the most mention in descriptions of the languages of the southern foothills region are their agglutinative morphology, SOV word order, and ergative-​absolutive morphosyntactic alignment. Panoan (plotted with a pre- fixed “d” in Figure 7.3) consists of 28 languages, of which 13 are no longer spoken. These languages are spoken in Bolivia, Peru, and Brazil. The Tacanan (prefixed “e”) family consists of five languages spoken in the Amazonian lowlands of northern Bolivia and southeastern Peru. According to Kaufman (1990: 45), there is a very good chance that the Panoan and Tacanan families are genetically related. 7.23 South In Table 7.26 we list several languages of the southern part of the continent, from Chile to the non-​Amazonian part of Brazil. Indigenous language families of this region include Matacoan (prefixed with an “f ” in Figure 7.3), Guaykuruan (prefixed “g”), Mascoyan (prefixed “h”), Zamucoan (prefixed “i”), and Jean (prefixed “j”). In the Chaco province of Argentina, Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz is one of three local languages that share official status with Spanish. Since 1926, efforts have been made to group the Brazilian languages in this region into what has been called a Macro-​Jê clade. But the evidence has been too spotty for any variant of the Macro-​Jê hypothesis to gain firm acceptance. Mapudungu contains two indigenous languages of Chile and Argentina, of which the most populous is Mapudungun. In many ways, Mapudungun clause structure is similar to that of Blackfoot (§7.3). There are no explicit markers on nouns to tell whether they are the subject or object of transitive verbs. Verbs, however, give some information about their subject and object. There are specific 358 The Americas: South American area TABLE 7.25 Some languages of the southern foothills of the Andes Name Size Country Yuracare (yuz) 4 Bolivia Panoan ‧ Kaxararí (ktx) 3 Brazil ‧ Mainline Panoan ‧ ‧ Shipibo ‧ ‧ ‧ Capanahua (kaq) 2 Peru ‧ ‧ ‧ Marúbo (mzr) 4 Brazil ‧ ‧ ‧ Shipibo-​Conibo (shp) 5 Peru ‧ ‧ ‧ Panoan Katukína (knt) 3 Brazil ‧ ‧ Tri-​State Panoan ‧ ‧ ‧ Amahuaca (amc) 3 Brazil ‧ ‧ ‧ Sharanahua (mcd) 4 Peru ‧ ‧ ‧ Yaminahua (yaa) 4 Peru ‧ ‧ ‧ Kashinawa (cbs) 4 Peru ‧ ‧ Yora (mts) 3 Peru ‧ ‧ Cashibo-​Cacataibo (cbr) 4 Peru ‧ Matsés (mcf) 4 Peru ‧ Chácobo (cao) 3 Bolivia Tacanan ‧ Tacana (tna) 4 Bolivia ‧ Cavineña (cav) 4 Bolivia ‧ Ese Ejja (ese) 3 Bolivia Tsimané (cas) 4 Bolivia markers that tell they are first, second, or third person, so that a proposition like ‘I call you’ can be unambiguously expressed in the verb itself. In the common situation where both roles are filled by third-​person words, the verb has different suffixes depending on whether the subject is the topic of the sentence. The topic usually comes first in the sentence. If the topic noun is the subject, a direct suffix appears on the verb (10a); if it is the object, then an inverse suffix is used (10b). (10) Mapudungun a. wenʈʂu mɨʈʂɨm-​fi domo man called-​dir woman ‘The man called the woman.’ (Zúñiga 2006: 231) b. domo mɨʈʂɨm-​ejew wenʈʂu woman called-​inv man ‘The man called the woman.’ (Zúñiga 2006: 233) c. t͡ʃi t͡ʃaw ɲi ɽuka def.art father his house ‘the father’s house’ (Zúñiga 2006: 100)  7.23 South 359 TABLE 7.26 Some languages of southern South America Name Size Country Qawasqar (alc) 2 Chile Mapudungu ‧ Mapudungun (arn) 6 Chile Matacoan ‧ Iyo’wujwa Chorote (crq) 4 Argentina ‧ Nivaclé (cag) 5 Paraguay ‧ Wichí Lhamtés Vejoz (wlv) 5 Argentina Guaykuruan ‧ Mocoví (moc) 4 Argentina ‧ Pilagá (plg) 4 Argentina ‧ Toba (tob) 5 Argentina Mascoyan ‧ Enlhet (enl) 4 Paraguay ‧ Toba-​Mascoy (tmf) 4 Paraguay Zamucoan ‧ Ayoreo (ayo) 4 Paraguay ‧ Chamacoco (ceg) 3 Paraguay Chiquitano (cax) 4 Bolivia Bororoan ‧ Borôro (bor) 4 Brazil Rikbaktsa (rkb) 2 Brazil Jean ‧ Xokleng (xok) 3 Brazil ‧ Central Jean ‧ ‧ Xavánte (xav) 4 Brazil ‧ ‧ Xerénte (xer) 4 Brazil Maxakalí (mbl) 4 Brazil Iatê (fun) 4 Brazil Karajá (kpj) 4 Brazil Ofayé (opy) 1 Brazil Guató (gta) 1 Brazil The fact that morphemes within the verb identify its subject, object, and other grammatical relations is an instance of head marking, because the verb is the head of the clause. The opposite approach, dependent marking, is when the subject and object –​dependents of the verb –​have case markers to indicate their grammatical relation with the verb. Another construction that illustrates the difference between these two marking systems is when one noun is possessed by another. In the English phrase the father’s house, house is the head and the father’s is a dependent. It is the dependent that carries a marker of possession: depen- dent marking. The system works the opposite way in Mapudungun, where that 360 The Americas: South American area phrase would be translated as, literally, ‘the father his house’. In this language it is the head noun that is preceded by a marker, [ɲi], that says the head is possessed by some third-​person object: head marking (10c). The Americas have more than their share of languages that mostly use head marking on verbs; only Australia and New Guinea have comparable concentrations of such languages. 7.24 Central Amazonia Indigenous languages of Central Amazonia (Table 7.27) include several iso- lates like Pirahã and Trumai, and the Jabutian (prefixed with a “k” in Figure 7.3), Nambiquaran (“l”), and Tupian (“m”) families. TABLE 7.27 Some languages of Central Amazonia Name Size Country Pirahã (myp) 3 Brazil Itonama (ito) 1 Bolivia Kanoé (kxo) 1 Brazil Jabutian ‧ Arikapú (ark) 1 Brazil ‧ Jabutí (jbt) 1 Brazil Aikanã (tba) 3 Brazil Nambiquaran ‧ Sabanê (sae) 1 Brazil ‧ Southern Nambikuára (nab) 3 Brazil Irántxe (irn) 2 Brazil Trumai (tpy) 2 Brazil Movima (mzp) 4 Bolivia Tupian ‧ Tupí-​Guaraní ‧ ‧ Guaraní (grn) ‧ ‧ ‧ Eastern Bolivian Guaraní (gui) 5 Bolivia ‧ ‧ ‧ Mbyá Guaraní (gun) 5 Paraguay ‧ ‧ ‧ Paraguayan Guaraní (gug) 7 Paraguay ‧ ‧ ‧ Kaiwá (kgk) 5 Brazil ‧ ‧ ‧ Ñandeva (tpj) 4 Paraguay ‧ ‧ Guarayu (gyr) 4 Bolivia ‧ ‧ Tupí (tpw) ‧ ‧ ‧ Cocama-​Cocamilla (cod) 3 Peru ‧ ‧ ‧ Nheengatú (yrl) 5 Brazil ‧ ‧ Tenetehara ‧ ‧ ‧ Guajajára (gub) 5 Brazil (continued)  7.24 Central Amazonia 361 TABLE 7.27 Continued Name Size Country ‧ ‧ Kayabí ‧ ‧ ‧ Kayabí (kyz) 4 Brazil ‧ ‧ Kawahib ‧ ‧ ‧ Tenharim (pah) 3 Brazil ‧ ‧ Wayampí ‧ ‧ ‧ Kaapor (urb) 3 Brazil ‧ ‧ ‧ Wayampi (oym) 4 Brazil ‧ ‧ Kamayurá (kay) 3 Brazil ‧ Arikem ‧ ‧ Karitiâna (ktn) 3 Brazil ‧ Awetí (awe) 3 Brazil ‧ Jurúna (jur) 3 Brazil ‧ Mondé (mnd) 1 Brazil ‧ Mundurukú (myu) 4 Brazil ‧ Ramarama ‧ ‧ Karo (arr) 3 Brazil ‧ Sateré-​Mawé (mav) 4 Brazil ‧ Tuparí (tpr) 3 Brazil Pirahã has garnered much attention, even in the popular press (Colapinto 2007), for claims that it is unusually simple. Everett (2005) pointed out, for exam- ple, that it has no true color terms –​just words for ‘light’ and ‘dark’. He reported that it completely lacks any treatment of number: no grammatical marking for singular or plural, no quantifiers like ‘all’, and no number words, not even words for ‘one’ or ‘two’. Most impressively, he claims that the grammar lacks recursion –​ phrases that contain phrases of the same type –​or any embedding at all. For exam- ple, one cannot construct sentences like ‘John thinks Mary caught the fish’, because that would constitute embedding a clause within another clause. Even construc- tions like ‘big slippery fish’ or ‘John’s father’s boat’ are impossible, and the language has no conjunctions. Controversies abound as to whether these claims about the language are true and, if so, whether the lack of recursion invalidates the idea that recursion is the only uniquely human property of human language (Hauser et al. 2002). Also controversial is Everett’s claim that these properties of the Pirahã lan- guage are entailed by the Pirahã culture in a sort of reverse linguistic relativity. He believes the Pirahã eschew abstractions and only talk about things in the personal experience of themselves and their interlocutors. Respondents (see, for example, comments published with Everett 2005) are not all convinced that such cultural traits, even if true, would necessarily lead to lack of recursion. Old Guaraní or Classical Guaraní was widely spoken in the coastal regions of Brazil during that country’s early colonial period (1604–​1767), and a variety of it served as a lingua franca among speakers of indigenous languages and colonizers 362 The Americas: South American area across Brazil. We know quite a bit about this language, thanks to grammars and dictionaries by colonial missionaries. In Paraguay, Guaraní has the status of an offi- cial language, alongside Spanish. Its nasal harmony rules are even more vigorous than those of Cubeo (§7.19) in several respects. Whereas in Cubeo, nasality only spreads perseveratively from a nasal syllable up to the next voiceless phoneme, in Guaraní it spreads in both directions, not stopping until another stressed syl- lable is encountered (11a; 2nd line shows underlying form). Nasality even spreads anticipatorily from voiced oral stops, which in Guaraní are prenasalized (11b). (11) Guaraní a. [ʔĩɲãˌkãɾ̃ãkú] /​iɟaˌkãɾaˈku/​ ‘is hot-​headed’ b. [ɾ̃õⁿbowaˈta] /​ɾo-​ⁿbo-​waˈta/​ 1sg.2sg-​caus-​walk ‘I made you walk.’ (both from Walker 1998: 230) 7.25 Northern Amazonia Table 7.28 enumerates some of the languages and language families of Northern Amazonia. The Cariban family (prefixed with an “n” in Figure 7.3) consists of 43 languages, of which 19 are no longer spoken. This family is found in Venezuela, Colombia, Suriname, Guyana, French Guiana, and Brazil. There are many subgroups in this family that do not appear to group together into major divisions. Hixkaryána is famous among linguists because of its rare basic word order: OVS. In (12), the verbal prefix [j-​] means that both the subject and object are third person; thus it offers no help in deciding which of the nouns is subject and which is object. Only by invoking the default word order of the language is it clear that the boy is the catcher and not the catchee. Derbyshire (1985) discussed the significance of the existence of OVS word order for linguistic typology. (12) Hixkaryána kana j-​anɯm-​nɔ bɯrjekɔmɔ fish 3sg-​catch-​rec boy ‘The boy has caught a fish.’ (Derbyshire & Pullum 1981: 194) rec = recent past. The Island Carib (crb) language, which used to be spoken on a number of Caribbean islands, belonged to the Arawakan language family, not Cariban. It is most closely related to the Central American language Garifuna cab (§7.19). It  7.26 Sketch of Central Alaskan Yup’ik 363 TABLE 7.28 Some languages of Northern Amazonia Name Size Country Cariban ‧ Carib (car) 4 Venezuela ‧ North Amazonian Cariban ‧ ‧ Macushi (mbc) 5 Brazil ‧ Pemon (aoc) 4 Venezuela ‧ ‧ Kapong ‧ ‧ ‧ Akawaio (ake) 4 Guyana ‧ ‧ ‧ Patamona (pbc) 4 Guyana ‧ South Amazonian Cariban ‧ ‧ E’ñapa Woromaipu (pbh) 4 Venezuela ‧ Waiwai ‧ ‧ Waiwai (waw) 4 Brazil ‧ ‧ Hixkaryána (hix) 3 Brazil ‧ Central Cariban ‧ ‧ Wayana (way) 3 Suriname ‧ ‧ Maquiritari (mch) 4 Venezuela ‧ Yukpa ‧ ‧ Yukpa (yup) 4 Colombia Yanomaman ‧ Yanomamö (guu) 5 Venezuela Warao (wba) 5 Venezuela Sálivan ‧ Piaroa (pid) 5 Venezuela ‧ Sáliba (slc) 4 Colombia Arutani (atx) 2 Brazil Sapé (spc) 1 Venezuela Yuwana (yau) 3 Venezuela appears to have got its name because Carib invaders from the mainland of South America imposed their nationality and name on their Arawakan subjects, even though they were unable to replace the native Arawakan language of their subjects. The Yanomaman family consists of four languages found in Venezuela and Brazil. The Sálivan family (prefixed with an “o” in Figure 7.3) consists of two lan- guages of Venezuela and Colombia. 7.26 Sketch of Central Alaskan Yup’ik 7.26.1 GENETIC AFFILIATION AND GENERAL INFORMATION Central Alaskan Yupʼik is a Yupik language belonging to the Eskimo branch of the Eskimo-​Aleut family of languages. Yupik languages are spoken in both Siberia (the Chuckchi Peninsula) and Alaska, which makes Eskimo-​Aleut the only family 364 The Americas: South American area that is definitively known to have been found in both North America and Asia in pre-​Columbian times. Yupʼik is the largest of the Yupik languages, and the only one that we know is still being passed on naturally to children in a substantial number of villages. It stretches from Nunivak Island, along the Alaska coast from Bristol Bay to Norton Sound, and inland along the Nushagak, Kuskokwim, and Yukon Rivers. Its closest relative is Pacific Gulf Yupik. A somewhat more distant, Siberian, group of Yupik languages is spoken on the Siberian side of the Bering Sea, but Central Siberian Yupik, despite its name, is spoken more on St. Lawrence Island in Alaska. The following sketch of Yupʼik Eskimo is based mainly on Reed (1977). Yupʼik is the only Yupik language in which the [p] in its name is long, which is indicated in the standard orthography by the apostrophe; the names of the other lan- guages, as well as the name of the Yupik group in general, do not take the apostrophe. Eskimo languages spoken in Alaska have been influenced by Russian and have borrowed extensively from that language: (13) a. [staːlista], [əstaːlista] < Russian ['starasta] ‘church elder’ b. [tupuːluq] < Russian [ta'por] ‘axe’ c. [kuːlit͡ʃaq] < Russian [ˈkurʲit͡sa] ‘chicken’ In Canada, and in recent years in Alaska, there has been more borrowing from English: (14) a. [pəluməsaq] ‘women’s underpants’ < English bloomers b. [minaq] < English miner c. [tiːviːq] < English TV Kalaallisut Eskimo in Greenland has borrowed words mainly from Danish. 7.26.2 PHONETICS, PHONOLOGY, AND ORSTHOGRAPHY Although a native speaker of Yupʼik invented a syllabography for the language around 1900, Yupʼik is now written in the Latin script using an orthography designed by American linguists. Table 7.29 gives the Yupʼik consonants in IPA; the standard orthography, where it differs, is in angled brackets. There are long consonants, which are mark