Paleo-Asiatic Languages

Paleo -Siberian languages

 or Paleo-Asiatic languages

Group of four unrelated language families spoken in northeastern Asia. Believed to have covered much larger areas of Siberia and perhaps Manchuria in the past, they have lost ground to Uralic and Altaic languages and more recently to Russian (see Siberian peoples). Of the Yeniseian languages, the only survivors are Ket, spoken by fewer than 500 people, and the virtually extinct Yug. The two extant Yukaghir languages (which are believed by some specialists to belong to the Uralic languages), North, or Tundra, Yukaghir and South, or Kolyma, Yukaghir, together have fewer than 100 speakers. The Chukotko-Kamchatkan (Luorawetlan) family includes Chukchi, with about 10,000 speakers in extreme northeastern Siberia; Koryak, with fewer than 5,000 speakers south of Chukchi; and Itelmen, spoken on the Kamchatka Peninsula by fewer than 100 people. The two Nivkh (Gilyak) varieties, Amur Nivkh and Sakhalin Nivkh, together have fewer than 1,000 speakers.

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Paleo-Asiatic Languages 

(also Paleosiberian languages), a conventional name for the genetically distinct languages of small peoples in northern and northeastern Siberia. The Russian scholar L. I. Shrenk hypothesized that these peoples are the descendants of the oldest inhabitants of northern Asia. The Paleo-Asiatic languages comprise four genetic groups: Chukchi-Kamchatka (Chukchi, Koriak, Aliutor, Kerek, and Itel’men), Eskimo-Aleut (Eskimo and Aleutian), Yukaghir-Chuvan (Yukaghir and the extinct Chuvan language), and Eniseian (Ket and the extinct Kot, Arin, and Asan languages). The Paleo-Asiatic group also includes the genetically isolated Nivkh language.

Genetically dissimilar, the Paleo-Asiatic languages have typological differences. They are all agglutinative. But in some languages the agglutination is suffixal; in others, suffixal-prefixal; and in still others, infixal. Several Paleo-Asiatic languages are incorporating languages, and some have an ergative construction. Thus, the widely used term “Paleo-Asiatic languages” is conventional and has no linguistic significance.

V. G. Bogoraz and L. Ia. Shternberg, the Russian scholars who founded Paleo-Asiatic studies, played a large role in the study of the Paleo-Asiatic languages; I. I. Meshchaninov also studied the Paleo-Asiatic languages. Soviet linguistic research has helped clarify the nature of the internal and external relationships of the languages. It has also aided the attempt to resolve problems regarding the settlement patterns and interrelationship of the peoples of northern Asia and North America.

Some scholars have suggested possible relationships between the Paleo-Asiatic languages and the Uralic and Altaic languages. The Eniseian languages are sometimes associated with the Sino-Tibetan languages.

REFERENCES

Iazyki i pis’mennost’ narodov Severa. Editor in chief, Ia. P. Al’kor. Part 3: Iazyki i pis’mennost’ paleoaziatskikh narodov. Edited by E. A. Kreinovich. Moscow-Leningrad, 1934.
“Paleoaziatskie iazyki.” In the collection Iazyki narodov SSSR, vol. 5. Leningrad, 1968. (Includes references.)

P. IA. SKORIK