Eskimo-Aleut Languages

Eskimo-Aleut Languages

Eskimo–Aleut or Eskaleut is a language family native to Alaska, the Canadian Arctic, Nunavik, Nunatsiavut, Greenland, and the Chukchi Peninsula on the eastern tip of Siberia. It is also known as Eskaleutian and Eskaleutic.

The Eskimo–Aleut language family is divided into two branches, the Eskimo languages and the Aleut language.

The Aleut language family consists of a single language, Aleut, spoken in the Aleutian Islands and the Pribilof Islands. Aleut is divided into several dialects.

The Eskimo languages are divided into two branches, the Yupik languages, spoken in western and southwestern Alaska and in easternmost Siberia, and the Inuit language, spoken in northern Alaska, in Canada, and in Greenland. The Inuit language, which covers a huge range of territory, is divided into several dialects.

The proper place of one language, Sirenik, within the Eskimo family has not been settled. Some linguists list it as a branch of Yupik, others as a separate branch of the Eskimo family, alongside Yupik and Inuit.

It is thought that the common ancestral language of the Eskimo languages and of Aleut divided into the Eskimo and Aleut branches around 2000 BCE. The Eskimo language family divided into the Yupik and Inuit branches around 1000 CE.

The Eskimo–Aleut languages are among the native languages of the Americas. This is a geographical category, not a linguistic one. The Eskimo–Aleut languages are not demonstrably related to the other language families of North America and are believed to represent a separate, and the last, prehistoric migration of people from Asia.