Notable Features
The Eskimo–Aleut languages are affixally polysynthetic and exclusively suffixing (with the exception of one prefix in Inuktitut which appears in demonstratives).
Every word must have only one root (free morpheme) always at the beginning. Eskimo–Aleut languages have a relatively small number of roots – in the case of Central Alaskan Yup'ik around two thousand. Following the root are a number of postbases, which are bound morphemes that add to the basic meaning of the root. If the meaning of the postbase is to be expressed alone, a special neutral root (in the case of Central Alaskan Yup'ik and Inuktitut pi) is used.
Following the postbases are non-lexical suffixes that indicate case on nouns and person and mood on verbs. The number of cases varies, with Aleut languages having a greatly reduced case system compared to Eskimo. The Eskimo languages are ergative–absolutive in nouns and in Yup'ik languages, also in verbal person marking. All Eskimo–Aleut languages have obligatory verbal agreement with agent and patient in transitive clauses, and there are special suffixes used for this purpose in subordinate clauses, which makes these languages, like most in the North Pacific, highly complement deranking.
At the end of a word there can be one of a small number of clitics with meanings such as "but" or indicating a polar interrogative.
Phonologically, the Eskimo–Aleut languages resemble other languages of northern North America and far eastern Siberia. There are usually only three vowels, a, i and u, though some Yup'ik dialects also have ə. There are no ejectives, but there are voiceless plosives at the bilabial, coronal, velar and uvular positions in all languages except Aleut, which has lost the bilabial stops but retained the nasal. There are contrasting voiced and voiceless fricatives at the same positions, and in the Eskimo subfamily a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative is also present. A rare feature of many dialects of Yup'ik and Aleut is contrasting voiceless nasals.
Read more about this topic: Eskimo-Aleut Languages
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