Amuric — How Altaic?

Juha Janhunen and Ekaterina Gruzdeva

Amuric — How Altaic?

67th Annual Meeting of the PIAC, Gotemba 2025

Amuric is the collective name for the small language family formed by two languages, Nivkh and Nighvng, also known as Ghilyak (Gilyak) and traditionally classified as “Palaeoasiatic” or “Palaeo-Siberian”. The Amuric languages are spoken in the Lower Amur region and on Sakhalin Island by a rapidly diminishing number of people. Their typological properties exhibit a number of universally rare or “exotic” features,¹ especially in the phonology and morphophonology, combined with traits, especially in the syntax and morphosyntax, that are also observed in the languages of the (Ural-)Altaic complex of Northern and Central Eurasia. A diachronic analysis of the Amuric languages suggests that they have undergone a history of successive stages of “Altaicization” and “de-Altaicization”, which have both increased and decreased their similarities with the (Ural-)Altaic language type.² These processes have been conditioned by areal contacts with especially Tungusic, but also with an unknown number of other, subsequently lost languages.

Although, the Amuric languages have not been shown to be related to any other language family, there have been many attempts in the past to compare them, either on a genetic or on an areal basis, with several other language families, including, in particular, those of the (Ural-)Altaic complex. Amuric is well known to have had lexical contacts especially with Tungusic,³ but also with Mongolic,⁴ and these contacts cover a prolonged period extending back to the corresponding proto- and pre-proto-languages. It has also been assumed that Amuric may have relevance to the otherwise little understood prehistory of Korean(ic).⁵ To view the possible presence or absence of lexical parallels in the basic vocabulary, the present paper will use the Leipzig Jakarta List of 100 words and compare three varieties of Nivkh (Lower Amur, West Sakhalin, North Sakhalin) and three varieties of Nighvng (East Sakhalin, Central Sakhalin, South Sakhalin) with the five language families conventionally comprised by the (Macro-)Altaic comparisons (Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic, Japonic). As such, this paper complements similar calculations already made between, for instance, Turkic and Mongolic.⁶ (The actual results will be made public in the conference presentation.)

References

  1. Ekaterina Gruzdeva & Juha A. Janhunen. 2020. ’Notes on the typological prehistory of Ghilyak.’ International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics 2 (1): 1–28.
  2. Ekaterina Gruzdeva & Juha Janhunen. 2025. ’The Amuric language family: Why so exotic?’ In: Iker Salaberri & Dorota Krajewska & Ekaitz Santazilia & Eneko Zuloaga (eds.), Investigating Language Isolates: Typological and Diachronic Perspectives. Typological Studies in Language 135. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. 48–70.
  3. Martijn G. T. M. Knapen. 2024. Amuric-Tungusic language contact and the Amuric homeland. Mark Hudson, & Martin Robbeets (eds.), Agropastoralism and Languages Across Eurasia: Expansion, Exchange, Environment. Oxford: BAR Publishing. 53–-69.
  4. Juha A. Janhunen. 2022. An Amuro-Mongolic etymon and its diachronic implications. International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics 4 (2): 209–216.
  5. A. B. Eфимов. 2014. Проблема этногенеза корейского народа в свете мифологии, лингвистики и исторических источников. Москва: Русская панорама.
  6. Marcel Erdal. 2019. The Turkic-Mongolic lexical relationship in view of the Leipzig-Jakarta list. International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics 1 (1): 78–97.