Language Relations Across The Bering Strait: Reappraising the Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence (Open Linguistics) [Hardcover]

Michael Fortescue (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0304703303 | ISBN-13: 978-0304703302

In building up a scenario for the arrival on the shores of Alaska of speakers of languages related to Eskimo-Aleut with genetic roots deep within Sineria, this book touches upon a number of issues in contemporary historical linguistics and archaeology. The Arctic "gateway" to the New World, by acting as a bottleneck, has allowed only small groups of mobile hunter-gatherers through during specific propitious periods, and thus provides a unique testing ground for theories about population and language movements in pre-agricultural times. Owing to the historically attested prevalence of language shifts and other contact phenomena in the region, it is arguable that the spread of genes and the spread of language have been out of step since the earliest reconstructable times, contrary to certain views of their linkage. Proposals that have been put forward in the past concerning the affiliations of Eskimo-Aleut languages are followed up in the light of recent progress in reconstructing the proto-languages concerned. Those linking Eskimo-Aleut with the Uralic languages and Yukagir are particularly promising, and reconstructions for many common elements are presented. The entire region "Great Beringia" is scoured for typological evidence in the form of anomalies and constellations of uncommon traits diagnostic of affiliation or contact. The various threads lead back to mesolithic times in south central Siberia, when speakers of a "Uralo-Siberian" mesh of related languages appears to have moved along the major waterways of Siberia. Such a scenario would acount for the present distribution of these languages and the results of their meeting with remnants of earlier linguistic waves from the Old World to the New.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Valuable... a wide-ranging, stimulating work, containing much original information and many provocative ideas."--Anthropological Linguistics

About the Author

Michael Fortescue is Professor of General Linguistics in the Department of Scandinavian Studies and Linguistics of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 316 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (November 30, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0304703303
• ISBN-13: 978-0304703302
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,139,496 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Useful Book for an Unorthodox Topic, July 20, 2010

By 

Raymond Cote (Lowell, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Language Relations Across The Bering Strait: Reappraising the Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence (Open Linguistics) (Hardcover)

Let me start with a major complaint. This book is ridiculously overpriced. I was fortunate enough to find a cheaper used copy, but even that price would have been expensive for a NEW book.

Fortescue has amassed a sizeable body of morphological and lexical evidence demonstrating that the Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukchi-Kamchatkan, and Eskimo-Aleut languages are genetically related. Most of the cognates look pretty solid and the morphological evidence linking Yukaghir with the rest of the languages was stronger than I'd expected based upon my own cursory examination of the Yukaghir languages. His discussion of typological similarities and differences between Uralo-Siberian and nearby languages was informative and interesting. He's spends a lot of time (too much time, IMO) discussing nonlinguistic evidence for the relationship.

But in many ways reading this book was frustrating. He proposes that the development of uvulars in Eskimo-Aleut and Chukchi-Kamchatkan were secondary, but the evidence that he presents contradicts his claims. Other proposed sound laws also contradict his own evidence. He attempts to reconstruct a pronoun *tek with various suffixes, from which 1st and 2nd person pronouns are to be derived, but he doesn't explain how the wide variety of forms could be derived from this. He merely says that it can be done with a minimal amount of steps.

All in all, this is a good book if you can get it cheaply and if you want to use it as a starting point for your own research.