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Language Family

Eskimo-Aleut

Also Known As Eskaleutian
North American Language Families

A family of roughly 100,000 speakers spanning Alaska, northern Canada (the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Nunavut, Nunavik and Nunatsiavut), Greenland and the Chukotka Peninsula of far eastern Russia. It divides into an Eskimoan branch, containing the Inuit and Yupik languages, and a separate Aleut branch now reduced to a handful of elderly speakers. Proto-Eskimo-Aleut has been reconstructed, and the Alaska Native Language Center estimates the branches split at least 4,000 years ago. No wider genetic relationship, including proposals linking it to Uralic or to Yukaghir under a broader Uralo-Siberian or Eurasiatic hypothesis, has been demonstrated by the comparative method.

Facts
Region
Alaska, Arctic Canada (Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Nunavut, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut), Greenland and the Chukotka Peninsula of far eastern Russia. 1
Speaker Count
100,000 1
Approximately 100,000 across all member languages, the large majority Inuit; Aleut itself is down to a few dozen fluent speakers.
Proto-Language Status
Proto-Eskimo-Aleut is reconstructed; the Eskimoan and Aleut branches are estimated to have split at least 4,000 years ago. 1
No wider relationship to any other language family, including the proposed Eskimo-Uralic and Uralo-Siberian hypotheses, has been proven.
Connections

Associated With

Michael E. Krauss, Linguists

Founded the Alaska Native Language Center and documented the Eskimo-Aleut languages of Alaska, warning of the endangerment facing the family speaker communities.

Includes

Greenlandic, Languages
Source Wikipedia: Greenlandic Language
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Eskimo-Aleut Languages
Wikimedia Foundation
  • Lead and Classification sections
    Eskaleut does not have any proven genetic relationship to any of the world's other language families, this being generally accepted by linguists at the present time.
  • History section
    The language family is also known as Eskaleutian, or Eskaleutic.
View the Source
Wikipedia: Greenlandic Language
Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Greenlandic, Lead section, largest Eskaleut (Eskimo-Aleut) language by number of speakersView the Source
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