Alyutor language

Alyutor or Alutor is a language of Russia that belongs to the Chukotkan branch of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, by the Alyutors. It is moribund, as only 25 speakers were reported in the 2010 Russian census.

Alyutor
алуталг’у alutalg'u
Native to	Russia
Region	Kamchatka
Ethnicity	Alyutors
Native speakers	25 (2010 census)
Language family	Chukotko-Kamchatkan Chukotkan Alyutor
Dialects	Alutor Palana Koryak
Writing system	Cyrillic script
Official status
Official language in	Tigilsky District, Karaginsky District, Kamchatka (Russia)
Language codes
ISO 639-3	alr
Glottolog	alut1245
ELP	Alutor
Pre-contact distribution of Alyutor (light purple) and other Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
Alutor is classified as Severely Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger

Sociolinguistic situation

The Alutor are the indigenous inhabitants of the northern part of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The language is unwritten and moribund; in the 1970s residents of the chief Alutor village of Vyvenka under the age of 25 did not know the language. In recent years the Vyvenka village school has started teaching the language. Until 1958 the language was considered the "village" (settled) dialect of the Koryak language, but it is not intelligible with traditionally nomadic varieties of Koryak. The autonym [ˈnəməlʔən] means "villager".

Phonology

Vowels

Alyutor has six vowels, five of which may be long or short. The schwa /ə/ cannot be long.

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i iː		u uː
Mid	e eː	ə	o oː
Open		a aː

Consonants

There are 18 consonants in Alyutor.

	Labial	Alveolar		Palatal	Velar	Uvular	Pharyngeal	Glottal
		plain	palatalized
Nasal	m	n	nʲ		ŋ
Plosive	p	t			k	q		ʔ
Fricative	v	s			ɣ		ʕ
Approximant	w	l	lʲ	j
Trill		r

Stress

Stress generally falls on the second syllable of polysyllabic words, and on the first syllable of disyllabic words, e.g.:

• /ˈmi.məl/ 'water', /ˈɣəl.ɣən/ 'skin', /ˈta.wə.ja.tək/ 'to feed', /qə.ˈla.vul/ 'husband', /pə.ˈla.kəl.ŋən/ 'mukluk'.

An open syllable containing schwa cannot be stressed. As a consequence, if a disyllabic term begins with such a syllable, the stress is shifted to the last syllable and thereafter a new, epenthetic syllable is added at the end, e.g.:

• */ˈmə.tan/ -> /məˈtan.nə/ 'mosquito'.

The final syllable of a word is never stressed.

Syllable structure

All Alyutor syllables begin with a single consonant. If the vowel is short, including a schwa, they may also close with a single consonant. Consonant clusters are not permitted in the word initial or word final positions. The schwa is used to break up disallowed clusters.

Examples are /ˈvi.tak/ 'to work', /ˈtil.mə.til/ 'eagle', /ˈʔitʔən/ 'parka'.

Alyutor word boundaries always coincide with syllable boundaries.

Orthography

The Alutor language does not have an official orthography, but the newspaper Aborigen Kamchatki uses the following orthography:

А а	Б б	В в	Вʼ вʼ	Г г	Гʼ гʼ	Ғ ғ	Д д
Е е	Ә ә	Ё ё	Ж ж	З з	И и	Й й	К к
Ӄ ӄ	Л л	М м	Н н	Ӈ ӈ	О о	П п	Р р
С с	Т т	У у	Ф ф	Х х	Ц ц	Ч ч	Ш ш
Щ щ	Ъ ъ	Ы ы	Ь ь	Э э	Ю ю	Я я

Typology

Alutor is a polysynthetic language.

ɣəmmə

I.ABS

t-ə-plak+tavamjat-ə-tkən

1SG.S-E-boot+crumple-E-IMPERF

ɣəmmə t-ə-plak+tavamjat-ə-tkən

I.ABS 1SG.S-E-boot+crumple-E-IMPERF

'I soften boots '

The morphology is agglutinative, with extensive prefixes and suffixes.

qəlʲippə

bread+NOM+SG

tətu-kki

eat.with.something-CVB

ɣeqə⟩masla⟨ta

ASSOC⟩butter⟨ASSOC

n-ə-mal-qin.

good

qəlʲippə tətu-kki ɣeqə⟩masla⟨ta n-ə-mal-qin.

bread+NOM+SG eat.with.something-CVB ASSOC⟩butter⟨ASSOC good

'Bread (eaten) with butter is excellent.'

The argument structure is ergative.

ən-an(nə)

he-ERG

ɣəmmə

me+ABS

ina-ɣal-i.

1SG.P-walk.past-3SG.A

ən-an(nə) ɣəmmə ina-ɣal-i.

he-ERG me+ABS 1SG.P-walk.past-3SG.A

'He walked past me.'

The word order is variable, and it is difficult to say which typology is basic. The verb-absolutive orders AVO and VAO are perhaps most common.

tita·qa

once

qutkinʲnʲaqu-nak

(name)-ERG+SG

maŋ.ki·ʔana

somewhere

ɣa⟩laʔu⟨lin

RES⟩see⟨RES+3SG.P

ʔənnə-ʔən.

fish-ABS+SG

tita·qa qutkinʲnʲaqu-nak maŋ.ki·ʔana ɣa⟩laʔu⟨lin ʔənnə-ʔən.

once (name)-ERG+SG somewhere RES⟩see⟨RES+3SG.P fish-ABS+SG

'Once Qutkinnyaqu saw a fish somewhere.'

ɣa⟩nvə⟨lin

RES⟩poke⟨RES+3SG.P

qutkinʲnʲaqu-nak

(name)-ERG+SG

təlɣə-lŋən

finger-ABS+SG

ŋan.tiŋ.

there

ɣa⟩nvə⟨lin qutkinʲnʲaqu-nak təlɣə-lŋən ŋan.tiŋ.

RES⟩poke⟨RES+3SG.P (name)-ERG+SG finger-ABS+SG there

'Qutkinnyaqu stuck his finger there.'

Morphology

Alyutor has the following parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns, verbs, participles, adverbs, postpositions, conjunctions, and particles.

Nouns

Nouns are inflected for number, case, definiteness, and grammatical person.

There are three grammatical numbers: singular, dual and plural.

There are eleven cases: absolutive, ergative, locative, dative, lative, prolative, contractive, causative, equative, comitative, and associative.

Number and case are expressed using a single affix. A suffix is used for all cases except the comitative and associative, which are expressed using circumfixes. There are two declensions, taught as three noun classes. The first class are nonhuman nouns of the first declension. Number is only distinguished in the absolutive case, though verbal agreement may distinguish number when these nouns are in the ergative. The second class are proper names and kin terms for elders. They are second declension, and distinguish number in the ergative, locative, and lative cases, as well as the absolutive. The third class are the other human nouns; they may be either first or second declension.

	1st declension			2nd declension
	singular	dual	plural	singular	dual	plural
absolutive	(stem)	-t/-ti	-w/-wwi	(stem)	-nti	-w/-wwi
ergative	-a/-ta			-ənak	-ətək
locative	-k/-ki			-ənak	-ətək
dative	-ŋ			-ənaŋ	-ətək
lative	-kəŋ			—
prolative	-jpəŋ/-ɣəpəŋ (-e ~ -i)
contactive	-jit ~ -jita
causative	-kjit ~ -kjita
equative	-u/-nu			-u/-ənu
comitative	ɣa⟩…⟨a/-ta			awən⟩…⟨ma
associative	ɣeqə⟩…⟨a/-ta			—

Case roles

• The absolutive case is the citation form of a noun. It is used for the argument ("subject") of an intransitive clause and the object of a transitive clause, for "syntactic possessives", and for the vocative.
• The ergative is used for the agent ("subject") of a transitive verb, as an instrumental case, and as the argument of an antipassive clause.
• The locative is used for position and direction (essive and lative cases), as well as arguments which are "driven away", e.g.:

ənnu

he-ABS.SG

ɣilŋatə-tkən

drive-IMPERF

ujatiki-k.

sledge-LOC

ənnu ɣilŋatə-tkən ujatiki-k.

he-ABS.SG drive-IMPERF sledge-LOC

'he drove away the sledge.'

• The dative is used for recipients, benefactors, directional objects (allative case), and subjects of experiential verbs
• Lative is used for motion toward a goal
• Prolative is used for movement along and movement from (perlative and elative cases)
• Equative is used with the meanings 'like X', 'as X', usually with verbs like 'to become', 'to turn into', 'to work as,' etc.
• Contactive is used for objects that make contact
• Causative is used for noun phrases that cause or motivate an action
• Comitative is used for ... . It is primarily used with high-animacy referents.
• Associative is used for secondary or passive accompaniment. It is only attested in the declension of nouns of the first declension, usually inanimate.

Grammatical person

Grammatical first and second person suffixes on nouns are used to equate a noun with participants in the discourse. They only appear in the absolutive, with an intervening j on nouns ending in a vowel and an i on nouns ending in a consonant.

	singular	dual	plural
1st person	-j-ɣəm	-muri	-muru
2nd person	-j-ɣət	-turi	-turu

• ...ʡopta am-ʡujamtawilʔ-ə-muru "yes we the people"
• japlə=q ʡujamtawilʔ-iɣəm "and I'm a man"

Numerals

Alyutor has simple numerals for the numbers one to five, ten, and twenty. All other numbers are compounds based on these numerals.

ənnan	one
ŋitaq	two
ŋəruqqə	three
ŋəraqqə	four
məlləŋin	five
ənnanməlləŋ(in)	six (one-five)
ŋitaqməlləŋ(in)	seven (two-five)
ŋəruqməlləŋ(in)	eight (three-five)
ŋəraqməlləŋ(in)	nine (four-five)
mənɣətkin	ten
mənɣətək ənnan	eleven
qəlikkə	twenty (a score)
qəlikək ənnan	twenty one
ŋəraqmənɣətkin	forty (four tens)
ŋəraqmənɣətkin ŋəraqqə	forty four
ŋitaqməlləŋin mənɣətkin	seventy (seven tens)
mənɣətək mənɣətkin	hundred (ten tens)

Verbs

There are finite (conjugated) and non-finite verbs. There are several conjugations.

Polypersonal conjugation

Finite verbs agree in person and number with their nuclear arguments; agreement is through both prefixes and suffixes. Transitive verbs agree with both arguments (ergative and absolutive), whereas intransitive verbs agree with their sole (absolutive) argument.

Verbs distinguish two aspects, perfective, the bare stem, and imperfective, using the suffix -tkə / -tkəni. There are five moods, indicative, imperative, optative, potential (marked by the circumfix ta…(ŋ)), and conjunctive (prefix ʔ-/a-).

Monopersonal conjugation

Monopersonal verbs include two conjugations, one with the third-person singular in ɣa-...-lin, and the other in n-...-qin.

Impersonal conjugation

For impersonal forms of conjugation include verbal predicate (formed with the circumfix a...ka) and imperative (formed by circumfix ɣa...a/ta). Non-finite forms Impersonal forms include the verbal predicate with the circumfix a…ka, and the imperative in ɣa…a/ta.

Non-finite forms

These include the infinitive, supine, gerunds, and participles.

Bibliography

• Kibrik, A.E., S.V. Kodzasov, I.A. Murav'eva. 2000. Jazyk i fol'klor aljutorcev. Moscow: IMLI RAN Nasledie. ISBN 5-9208-0035-6
• Nagayama, Yukari. 2003. Ocherk grammatiki aljutorskogo jazyka (ELPR Publication Series A2-038). Osaka: Osaka Gakuin University.

External links

• The Aliutors
• The Aliutor Language
• Alutor: Bibliographical guide