Na Dené languages

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Na-Dené is a name introduced by Edward Sapir in 1915 for a group of North American languages, namely Haida , Tlingit and the forty or so Athapaskan languages , which also include the Apache languages . In 1930, Eyak , which is more closely related to Athapaskan, was added to this group . Since 1980, the genetic relationship between Haida and the other languages ​​of this group has been denied by the majority of researchers, so that Na-Dené in the narrower sense only includes Tlingit, Eyak and Athapaskan and is often also referred to as Tlingit-Eyak-Athapaskan .

Overview

There are several approaches to connect Na-Dené with Eurasian languages, such as Sino-Tibetan and Yenisese . It is also a component of the hypothetical Dene-Caucasian macro family .

This article deals with the meaning and development of the term Na-Dené , the internal structure of the Na-Dené group in historical change and potential genetic relationships with Eurasian languages. Information on the Athapaskan language family , its individual languages ​​and its internal classification, as well as the individual languages ​​Eyak, Tlingit and Haida can be found in the special articles.

Dissemination of the Na Dené languages

Development of the term Na-Dené

Adelung and father noted similarities between Tlingit, Eyak and the Athapaskan Tanaina as early as 1816, but attributed these to area contact. Radloff (1857), Krause (1885) and Boas (1894) confirmed these similarities and assumed a genetic relationship between these languages, to which they had also added Haida. On the other hand, Hale warned in a letter (1888) to Boas to be careful:

You say - 'It is likely that the Haida are allied to the Tlinget.' I can find no resemblance in the vocabularies, except in the word for 'elk', which is evidently borrowed. It will be well to be cautious in suggesting such relationships ...

“They say, 'It is likely that Haida is connected to Tlingit'. I can't find any matches in the vocabulary, with the exception of the word for 'elk' which is proven to be borrowed. It is advisable to be careful in suggesting such relationships. "

- Hale, 1888

In several works (1904-1911) Swanton strengthened the position of genetic relationship . The term Na-Dené as a collective name for Haida , Tlingit and the Athapaskan languages ​​was coined by Edward Sapir in 1915. He followed the positions of Boas and Swanton and considered Na-Dené as a genetic unit after his own extensive investigations , which he - after rediscovering the Eyak in 1930 - structured as follows:

Na-Dené in the sense of Sapir

Sapir subsequently joined many Americanists, including Joseph Greenberg in his controversial work Language in the Americas from 1987. But immediately after Sapir's work there were doubts among experts about the genetic connection of this group, the Pinnow - one of the best experts of these languages ​​- summarized in 1964 as follows:

The chief arguments of the advocates of the Na-Dene theory is that the morphological systems of Tlingit, Eyak, and the Athapaskan languages, and to a lesser extent also of Haida, show conspicuous morphological similarities and common features which justify the assumption that they belong to a larger unit. There is however a powerful argument against the genetic relationship. These four groups have very few words in common. A glance at their so-called basic vocabularies and the morphemes in their grammatical systems shows enormous differences which seem to preclude any possibility of genetic relationship. On the other hand their morphological systems reveal close similarities which cannot possibly be the work of chance. The only way out of this dilemma has been to suppose that borrowing from one language to another took place.

“The main argument of the proponents of the Na Dené theory is that the morphological systems of Tlingit, Eyak and the Athapaskan languages, and to a lesser extent that of Haida, exhibited suspicious morphological similarities and common features which the assumption they belonged to to a larger unit, supported. There is nonetheless a strong argument against genetic relatedness. These four groups have very few words in common. A quick look at their so-called basic vocabulary and the morphemes in their grammatical systems reveals enormous differences, which seem to rule out any possibility of genetic relationship from the outset. On the other hand, their morphological systems reveal close similarities which cannot possibly have arisen by chance. The only way out of this dilemma was to accept a loan from one language to another. "

- Pinnow, 1964

Scope and structure of the Na Dené group

Haida and Na-Dené

These doubts from Pinnow and others concerned in particular whether Haida belonged to the Na-Dené languages. According to these researchers, the similarities between Haida and Tlingit and the Athapaskan languages ​​were based more on areal language contacts (Tlingit is spoken directly north of Haida) and on incorrect language analyzes in earlier comparative research. Levine 1979, Leer 1990, 1991, Campbell 1997 and Mithun 1999, among others, spoke out against a relationship between Haida and the other Na Dené languages.

However, there were still advocates of the view that Haida was genetically related to Tlingit and Eyak-Athapaskisch, especially Joseph Greenberg 1987 and Merritt Ruhlen 1994, but the originally skeptical Pinnow now (1985) also took a different opinion. The work of Ruhlen 1994 is examined in detail in Campbell 1997. Ruhlen offers 324 word equations , of which 119 do not contain any Haida forms. According to Campbell, the remaining etymologies cannot prove a genetic relationship between Haida and Na-Dené. Campbell criticized the wide range of meanings of the word equations, poor linguistic analysis of the word forms, so mostly only short roots were compared, the sound similarities were very broad, loanwords and onomatopoeic expressions were not excluded, etc.

Today, the majority of specialists take the view that Haida should be viewed as an isolated language and not as a Na-Dené language. That is why the name Na-Dené has recently been understood in a narrower sense (without Haida), which now only includes Tlingit, Eyak and the Athapaskan languages.

Reduction to Tlingit-Eyak-Athapaskan

In the current general descriptions of indigenous (North) American languages ​​by Mithun (1999) and Campbell (1997) - in order to avoid misunderstandings - the term Na-Dené is completely omitted and the term Tlingit-Eyak-Athapaskian is used instead. The genetic unity of Tlingit and Eyak-Athapaskan is recognized by the majority of researchers. But there are also skeptics here. Krauss and Golla (1981) note:

Tlingit bears a close resemblance to Athapaskan-Eyak in phonology and grammatical structure, but shows little regular correspondence in vocabulary. Therefore the nature of the relationship between Athapascan-Eyak and Tlingit remains an open question.

“Tlingit shows great similarities to Athapaskan Eyak in phonology and grammatical structure, but little agreement in vocabulary. Therefore the relationship between Athapaskan Eyak and Tlingit remains an open question. "

- Krauss and Golla, 1981

Marianne Mithun (1999), who is otherwise very cautious in her classifications, assumes the Tlingit-Eyak-Athapaskish language family, while Campbell treats Tlingit separately in 1997.

Eurasian relatives

Na-Dené and Sinotibetic

The Na Dené group has been compared to several Eurasian languages ​​and language families. Such was Edward Sapir from a relationship of the Na-Dene with the Sino Tibetan convinced. In 1921 he wrote in a letter to the Americanist Alfred Kroeber that has since become known :

If the morphological and lexical accord which I find on every hand between Nadene and Indo-Chinese is accidential, then every analogy on God's earth is an accident.

"If the morphological and lexical correspondence that I can find everywhere between the Na-Dené and the Indo-Chinese languages ​​(meaning Sinotibetic) is supposed to be a coincidence, then every correspondence on God's earth is a coincidence."

- Edward Sapir, 1921

Sapir did not publish his opinion on the subject because he expected that it would lead to hostility from other Americanists. Campbell 1999 rates Sapir's analogies as not very exceptional, suggesting that they all have non-genetic, typological explanations. Sapir's thesis was also based on the fact that many Sino-Tibetan and Na-Dene languages ​​are tonal languages . In the meantime it has been proven that tone development was a secondary process in both Sino-Tibetan and Na-Dené, which cannot be traced back to one of the proto languages . So this typological argument is no longer necessary . Sapir's thesis was followed up by Shafer (1952, 1969) and supported in some work by Swadesh . However, Campbell 1999 rates the entire etymological material as unconvincing and the statements on morphology as typological.

The Dene-Caucasian hypothesis

The Dene-Caucasian macro family is based on a Sino-Caucasian macro family that Sergei Starostin founded in 1984. He assumed a genetic relationship between the North Caucasian , the Siberian Yenisian and the Sinotibetic , based on his reconstructions of the respective proto-languages . This macro family was later expanded to include some ancient oriental components ( Hurrian - Urartian , Hattic , Sumerian, etc.), Burushaski and Basque (1985). Finally, in 1988 Nikolajev proposed the Na-Dené as a further member of the Sino-Caucasian, whereby this was expanded to the Dene-Caucasian .

Since the Sino-Tibetan proto-language is probably more than 10,000 years old, a Deno-Caucasian proto-language would have to be at least 20,000 years old and, given its extremely wide geographical distribution, probably even older. The majority of historical-comparative linguists doubt that, after such a long time, substantial similarities in phonology , grammar and vocabulary can still be proven. The theses of the Dene-Caucasians are therefore not accepted by the majority of historical linguists, especially not the affiliation of Na-Dené on the part of the Americanists. Campbell (1999) is particularly negative.

Na-Dené and Yenisei

Another proposal has been attracting some attention for a few years now. Edward Vajda postulated in several articles and lectures (2000-2004) that the Na-Dené languages ​​with the Siberian Yenisei language family - one of the members of the hypothetical Dene-Caucasian - are genetically related. In this he found support from Werner (2004). In Vajda's proposal, the Haida (which is also integrated in the Dene-Caucasian proposal) is now included again, but as a distant relative, since the Yenisian is positioned closer to the Tlingit-Eyak-Athapaskian than the Haida (a relatively unlikely hypothesis, da Haida today the immediate geographic neighbor of the Tlingit, but thousands of kilometers from the Yenisian Ket; the implications for possible migration scenarios are at least problematic). Vajda (2002) comes to the following classification:

  • Na-Dené (in the sense of Vajda)
    • Haida
    • Dené-Yenisei
      • Yenisei
      • Tlingit-Eyak-Athapaskan
        • Tlingit
        • Eyak-Athapaskan
          • Eyak
          • Athapaskan

It is too early to judge the viability of Vajda's thesis. Based on experience so far, she will find little support from the Americanists. A competing theory brings the Yenisian into special proximity to the Burushaski , which is also counted as part of the Dene-Caucasian. That would probably - together with Vajda's results - again speak in favor of the more extensive Dene-Caucasian approach. Greenberg's caution against binary comparisons seems appropriate here too (see the articles Joseph Greenberg and Lexical Mass Comparison ).

A work by Rohina Rubicz et al. Suggests that at least the speakers of the Yenisan and Na-Dené languages ​​are closely related . (2002), in which a closer biological-genetic relationship between the Ket speakers (Ket is the only surviving language of the Yenisan group) and the Na-Dené speakers is stated than they have with the other Indian groups or the Eskimos.

See also

literature

American languages

  • Lyle Campbell : American Indian Languages. Oxford University Press 1997.
  • Joseph Greenberg : Language in the Americas. Stanford University Press 1987.
  • Ernst Kausen : The language families of the world. Part 2: Africa - Indo-Pacific - Australia - America. Buske, Hamburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-87548-656-8 . (Chapter 12)
  • Marianne Mithun : The Languages ​​of Native North America. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999.

Na-Dené

  • Johann Christoph Adelung , Johann Severin Father : Mithridates or general language studies with the Our Father as a language sample in almost five hundred languages ​​and dialects. Voss, Berlin 1816.
  • Franz Boas : Classification of the Languages ​​of the North Pacific Coast. Schulte, Chicago 1894.
  • Michael Dürr, et al .: Language and Culture in Native North America: Studies in Honor of H.-J. Pinnow. Lincom, Munich 1995.
  • Theodore B. Fernald , Paul R. Platero (2000): The Athabaskan Languages: Perspectives on a Native American Language Family. Oxford Studies in Anthropological Linguistics. Oxford University Press 2000.
  • Aurel Krause : The Tlinkit Indians. Constenoble, Jena 1885.
  • Michael Krauss : Na-Dene. Current Trends in Linguistics Vol. 10. 1973.
  • Michael Krauss: The Indigenious Languages ​​of the North: a Report on their Present State. National Museum of Osaka, 1997.
  • Michael Krauss, Victor Golla: Northern Athabascan Languages. Smithsonian Institution, Washington 1981.
  • Jeff Leer : Tlingit: a Portmanteau Language Family? Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin 1990.
  • Jeff Leer: Evidence for a Northern Northwest Coast Language Area. IJAL 57, 1991.
  • Robert Levine : Haida and Na-dene: a New Look at the Evidence. IJAL 45, 1979.
  • Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow : On the historical position of Tlingit. IJAL 30, 1964.
  • Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow: Fundamentals of a historical theory of Tlingit phonetics: an attempt. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1966.
  • Leopold Radloff : Some news about the language of the kaigans. St. Petersburg 1859.
  • Keren Rice : Morpheme Order and Semantic Scope: Word Formation in the Athapaskan Verb. Cambridge Studies in Linguistics. Cambridge University Press 2000.
  • Merritt Ruhlen : On the Origin of Languages. Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy. Stanford University Press 1994.
  • Edward Sapir : The Na-Dene Languages. A preliminary report. AA 17, 1915.

Dene-Caucasian

  • Vitaly Shevoroshkin (Ed.): Dene-Sino-Caucasian Languages. Brockmeyer, Bochum 1991.
    (Contains the English translation of Starostin's original Russian article on Sino-Caucasian from 1984 and the article Sino-Caucasian Languages ​​in America by Sergej Nikolajev 1988, in which the Na-Dené languages ​​are added to Sino-Caucasian. )
  • Vitaly Shevoroshkin, Alexis Manaster Ramer: Some Recent Work in the Remote Relations of Languages. In: Sydney M. Lamb and E. Douglas Mitchell (Eds.): Sprung from Some Common Source. Investigations into the Prehistory of Languages. Stanford University Press, Stanford (Calif.) 1991.

Na-Dené and Yenisei

  • Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza : Genes, Peoples and Languages. The biological foundations of our civilization. Hanser, Munich-Vienna 1999.
  • Paul Radin : The genetic relationship of the North American Indian languages. University of California Publications in Archeology and Ethnology 14, 1919.
  • Ruhina Rubicz, Kristin L. Melvin, Michael H. Crawford: Genetic Evidence for the phylogenetic relationship between Na-Dene and Yeniseian speakers. Human Biology 74, 2002.
  • Edward J. Vajda : Evidence for a genetic connection between Na-Dene and Yeniseian (Central Siberia). - Paper read at: January 2000 meeting of Society for the Study of Indigenous Languages ​​of America (SSILA) and Linguistic Society of America (LSA) 2000.
  • Edward J. Vajda: Yeniseian and Na Dene: Evidence for a genetic relationship. Read at: 38th Conference on American Indian Languages ​​(SSILA), Chicago, Jan. 2000.
  • Edward J. Vajda: Yeniseian and Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit. Read at: Linguistics Department Colloquium, University of British Columbia, Mar. 2000.
  • Edward J. Vajda: Ket verb morphology and its parallels with Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit: evidence of a genetic link. Read at: Athabaskan Language Conference, Moricetown, BC, June 9, 2000.
  • Edward J. Vajda: Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit and Yeniseian: lexical and phonological parallels. Read at: 39th Conference on American Indian Languages, San Francisco, Nov. 14-18, 2000.
  • Edward J. Vajda: Toward a typology of position class: comparing Navajo and Ket verb morphology. Read at: SSILA Summer Meeting, July 7, 2001.
  • Edward J. Vajda: Linguistic relations across Bering Strait: Siberia and the Native Americans. Read at: Bureau of Faculty Research, Western Washington University, Bellingham, WA, March 8, 2001.
  • Edward J. Vajda: The origin of phonemic tone in Yeniseic. CLS 37 (Parasession on Arctic languages): 305-320, 2002.
  • Edward J. Vajda: Ket. Languages ​​of the World Materials 204. Lincom Europe, Munich 2004.
  • Heinrich Werner : On the Yenisei-Indian primordial relationship. Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2004.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert Shafer : Athabaskan and Sino-Tibetan. International Journal of American Linguistics (1952) 18: 178-181
  2. ^ Lyle Campbell : Historical Linguistics: an Introduction. MIT Press, Cambridge MA 1999. (American rights edition of 1998 Edinburgh University Press book.), P. 288
  3. ↑ Heinrich Werner : Zur Jenissejisch-Indianischen Urverwandnung Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 978-3-44704-896-5
  4. ↑ Rubicz, R., K. Melvin, and MH Crawford. (2002) Genetic evidence for the relationship between Na-Dene and Yeniseian speakers. Hum. Biol. 74 (6): 743-760