| Alyutor | |
| Nativename: | алуталг’у |
| States: | Russia |
| Region: | Kamchatka |
| Ethnicity: | Alyutors |
| Speakers: | 172 |
| Date: | 2021 census |
| Ref: | [1] |
| Familycolor: | Paleosiberian |
| Fam1: | Chukotko-Kamchatkan |
| Fam2: | Chukotkan |
| Dia1: | Alutor |
| Dia2: | Koryak |
| Dia3: | Koryak ?[2] |
| Script: | Cyrillic script |
| Iso3: | alr |
| Notice: | IPA |
| Glotto: | alut1245 |
| Glottorefname: | Alutor |
| Map: | Chukotko-Kamchatkan map.svg |
| Mapcaption: | Pre-contact distribution of Alyutor (light purple) and other Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages |
| Map2: | Lang Status 40-SE.svg |
Alyutor (also called Alutor, Aliutor or Olyutor)[3] is a severely endangered language of Russia that belongs to the Chukotkan branch of the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, by the Alyutors. It is spoken by 172 speakers in the 2021 Russian census.
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 pronounced as /[ˈnəməlʔən]/ (also Нәмәлъу) means "villager" or "settled person".
Alyutor has six vowels, five of which may be long or short. The schwa pronounced as //ə// cannot be long.
| Front | Central | Back | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Close | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | ||
| Mid | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ | |
| Open | pronounced as /ink/ pronounced as /ink/ |
There are 18 consonants in Alyutor.[4]
| Labial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Uvular | Pharyngeal | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Plosive | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | pronounced as /ink/ | |||||
| Trill | pronounced as /ink/ | ||||||||
Stress generally falls on the second syllable of polysyllabic words, and on the first syllable of disyllabic words, e.g.:
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.:
The final syllable of a word is never stressed.[5]
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 pronounced as //ˈvi.tak// 'to work', pronounced as //ˈtil.mə.til// 'eagle', pronounced as //ˈʔitʔən// 'parka'.
Alyutor word boundaries always coincide with syllable boundaries.
The Alyutor language does not have a standard orthography.
Alutor is a polysynthetic language.[6]
The morphology is agglutinative, with extensive prefixes and suffixes.
The argument structure is ergative.
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.
Alyutor has the following parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns, verbs, participles, adverbs, postpositions, conjunctions, and particles.
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 | ||||||
| ergative | -a/-ta | -ətək | ||||
| locative | -k/-ki | -ətək | ||||
| dative | -ŋ | -ətək | ||||
| lative | -kəŋ | — | ||||
| prolative | -jpəŋ/-ɣəpəŋ (-e ~ -i) | |||||
| contactive | -jit ~ -jita | |||||
| causative | -kjit ~ -kjita | |||||
| equative | -u/-nu | -u/-ənu | ||||
| comitative | ||||||
| associative | — | |||||
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 |
Alyutor has simple numerals for the numbers one to five, ten, and twenty. All other numbers are compounds based on these numerals.
| Ordinal[8] | English | |
|---|---|---|
| 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) |
There are finite (conjugated) and non-finite verbs. There are several conjugations.
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 verbs include two conjugations, one with the third-person singular in ɣa-...-lin, and the other in n-...-qin.
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.
These include the infinitive, supine, gerunds, and participles.
Амто тийкәтий!
Нәӄасғәваъа юнати Камлэ, нәпуттәӈъа Оммәӄо. Камлэ ӄураӈтаткән, Оммәӄо наӄам ойиткән. Камлэнак нәкита йәг'илғән пәӈлунин, ғатаӄлаӈ әнкәт итәлъу г'уямтав'илъу.
Hello sun!
Kamle lived poorly, Omməqo lived richly. Kamle works in the herd, but Omməqo only has one. Kamle asked Luna at night why people live like this.
