Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan is the reconstructed common ancestor of the

Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages The Chukotko-Kamchatkan or Chukchi–Kamchatkan languages are a Language families and languages, language family of extreme northeastern Siberia. Its speakers traditionally were indigenous hunter-gatherers and reindeer-herders. Chukotko-Kamchatk ...

. It is purported to have broken up into the Northern ( Chukotian) and Southern (

Itelmen The Itelmens (; ) are an Indigenous ethnic group of the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. The Itelmen language is distantly related to Chukchi and Koryak, forming the Chukotko-Kamchatkan language family, but it is now virtually extinct, the vas ...

) branches around 2000 BCE, when western reindeer herders moved into the Chukotko-Kamchatkans' homeland and its inland people adopted the new lifestyle. A reconstruction is presented by

Michael Fortescue Michael David Fortescue (born 8 August 1946, Thornbury) is a British-born linguist specializing in Arctic and native North American languages, including Kalaallisut, Inuktun, Chukchi and Nitinaht. Fortescue is known for his reconstructions ...

in his ''Comparative Dictionary of Chukotko-Kamchatkan'' (2005).

Phonology

According to Fortescue, Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan had the following

phoneme A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...

s, expressed in

IPA IPA commonly refers to: * International Phonetic Alphabet, a system of phonetic notation ** International Phonetic Association, the organization behind the alphabet * India pale ale, a style of beer * Isopropyl alcohol, a chemical compound IPA ...

symbols.

Consonants

is a true

voiceless palatal stop The voiceless palatal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in some vocal languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is c. Voiceless palato-alveol ...

(not the affricate ''č''). Note that Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan had only

voiceless stops In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...

, no voiced stops (such as ). However, there is a series of voiced

fricatives A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...

, . These have no voiceless counterparts (such as ). is a voiced labiodental fricative (like ''v'' in English). is a voiced velar fricative (like the ''g'' in Dutch ''ogen'', modern Greek gamma, Persian qāf, etc.). is a voiced uvular fricative (like ''r'' in French). The entire series is alveolar — i.e. are not dentals.

Vowels

Grammar

It is generally accepted that Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan had an eleven-

case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...

system for nouns, but Dibella Wdzenczny has hypothesised that these evolved from only six cases in Pre-Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan. Below is the reconstructed case system of Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan. ₁Note that the (mostly inanimate) nouns of the first declension only marked plurality in the absolutive case. The protolanguage is thought to have been a nominative-accusative language, with the current Chukotko-Kamchatkan ergative aspects coming later in the (Northern) Chukotian branch, possibly through contact with nearby

Eskimo–Aleut The Eskaleut ( ), Eskimo–Aleut or Inuit–Yupik–Unangan languages are a language family native to the northern portions of the North American continent, and a small part of northeastern Asia. Languages in the family are indigenous to parts of ...

-speaking peoples. This would explain why

, spoken further south than any Eskimo–Aleut speakers visited, lacks ergative structures. Some linguists, however, maintain that Proto-Chukotko-Kamchatkan began as an ergative language and lost that feature over time.Fortescue, Michael. 2005. ''Comparative Chukotko-Kamchatkan Dictionary. Trends in Linguistics 23.'' Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

References

{{Paleosiberian languages *Proto Chukotko-Kamchatkan

Phonology

Consonants

Vowels

Grammar

See also

References