Episode 28 The Original American Languages Part 2

Dr John McWhorter (2019)

Film Review

The last family of American languages to emerge, the Aleut languages were spoken in Alaska, northern Canada and eastern Siberia.  After the first migration out of Siberia 20,000 years ago, there were three additional migrations, 5,000, 2,800 and 1,000 years ago.

There are two primary Aleut languages: Yupik (spoken in Alaska and Siberia), which is nearly extinct,s and Inuktitut (aka Greenlandic), spoken in Greenland. Inuktitut is one of Greenland’s official languages and is taught in school. Aleut languages tend to use really long words to convey full sentences (known as polysynthesis).

Algonquin Famil

The Algonquin family of languages was mainly spoken on the US East Coast and eastern Canada. However two Algonquin subfamilies, Yurok and and Wiok, were spoken in Western California. This suggests Algonquin languages were once widespread across the American continent before being displaced by other languages.

Most English borrowed words are Algonquin, eg squash and papoose. Most indigenous Americans who became famous for helping European settlers spoke Algonquin languages. Squanto, who helped the Plymouth Rock settlers, spoke Narragansett and Poccahantes spoke Powhata. Munsee was the language spoken on Manhattan Island.

West Coast Families

There were 78 indigenous languages belonging to five different families spoken in California and northwest Canada. Most belonged to the Penutian family, like Yokuts and Miwok (the latter using case markings as in Latin or Russian), which was spoken in central California.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/6120000/6120058