Indigenous languages almost always struggle against the influence of colonizer languages. The Indigenous language of Hawaii, for example, nearly went extinct as a result of efforts to suppress it. However, this is not the case everywhere, as evidenced by Alaska, which has nearly two dozen official languages. While English is the major language spoken in Alaska, there has been an effort to research and preserve Indigenous languages.
Two of the major language families in Alaska are Eskimo-Aleut and Athabascan-Eyak-Tlingit (AET), which are fairly easily distinguishable from each other even by the casual linguist. Grammatically, the families are different; AET tends to build words with prefixes while Eskimo-Aleut uses suffixes. Also, AET has ejective consonants, making it sound distinct from Eskimo-Aleut.
Two Indigenous languages in Alaska are not related to either family. Tsimshian belongs to the Tsimshianic family, along with three other languages primarily spoken in Canada. Haida has a structure similar to Tlingit, but it is not part of the AET family. In fact, researchers have not been able to link Haida to any other language family in a clear way, meaning it is a language isolate.
The Eskimo-Aleut and AET Languages in Alaska and Beyond
A proto-language can be reconstructed for both Eskimo-Aleut and AET. For AET, this language is known as proto-Athabascan, which has a clear relationship to Eyak and Tlingit. Both of these families include languages spoken far beyond the borders of Alaska, with Eskimo-Aleut spanning the Arctic, from the Bering Strait to Greenland. The family likely originated in Southwestern Alaska or the Bering Strait.
Interestingly, Athabascan languages have a different trajectory. While they are spoken in Western Canada, they are also found throughout the Pacific Northwest and even down into the desert regions of the Southwestern United States. Its origin is likely along the border between Alaska and Yukon.
Linguistically, tracing the languages back to their proto-forms is easier than figuring out where those roots originated. Alaska does not have ancient manuscripts or tablets that give information about prehistoric languages. Reconstruction only helps linguists trace these prehistoric forms back about 5,000 years before the method is no longer reliable. Linguists are still unsure about the relationship between Eskimo-Aleut and AET and any shared root, as well as the potential connection to Asiatic languages. While there are theories, they are simply proposals without strong evidence.
How AET Might Connect to Asiatic Language Families
A proposal that once gained a decent amount of traction in linguist communities was about the relationship between AET and the Haida language. This theory is usually credited to Edward Sapir, who formulated it under the title Na-Dene, which combines the Haida word na, meaning “person,” with dene, a word also meaning “person” in many Athabascan languages. Sapir focused on Haida, Athabascan languages, and Tlingit, although many people have since shown how Eyak would presumably fit into this theory. AET and Haida have comparable syntax and similar sound systems. More recently, this theory has been criticized. Na-Dene suffered from a lack of data, particularly related to Haida. With the publication of a Haida Dictionary, researchers have struggled to create a proto-Na-Dene that follows regular rules and thus linguists now largely conclude that Haida is not related to AET.
Another respected proposal connects AET to Caucasian languages. However, the large amount of work put into creating a proto-Dene-Caucasian language has not resulted in a clear shared root. More recently, Edward Vajda published work speculating a connection between AET and Yeniseian languages, a small family spoken in Siberia. Vajda’s work looks specifically at Ket, a critically endangered Yeniseian language, and uses it to explain the modern changes in Athabascan that resulted in Eyak and Tlingit. This theory has yet to be outright rejected like many that came before it, yet it is still not accepted as anything more than a theory. It is unclear if enough evidence will ever become available to confirm the proposal.
The Efforts to Find the Origins of the Eskimo-Aleut Family
Linguists have explored several other theories connecting Eskimo-Aleut to Asiatic language families, but none of them have gained much traction. In the 1700s, a connection between Uralic languages and Greenlandic Eskimo was proposed that has been refined and changed over time to align with current data. However, there is still not enough evidence to say confidently that the relationship is real. Others have tried to connect the Eskimo-Aleut family with the Chukotkan languages, which are spoken in the Russian Far East, but there is insufficient evidence for confirming this proposal. Linguists are still very interested in connecting languages across the Bering Strait, and this remains an active field of scholarship.