| Also Known As: Unanghan,Unangan,Unangany,Aleut
Description:
Aleut (Unangam Tunuu) is a language of the Eskimo-Aleut language family. It is the tongue of the Aleut (Unangax̂) people living in the Aleutian Islands, Pribilof Islands, and Commander Islands. In 1995 there were 305 speakers of Aleut.
Aleut is alone with the Eskimo languages (Yupik and Inuit languages) in the Eskimo-Aleut group. The main dialect groupings are Eastern Aleut, Atkan, and Attuan.
Within the Eastern group are the dialects of Unalaska, Belkofski, Akutan, the Pribilof Islands, Kashega and Nikolski. The Pribilof dialect boasts more living speakers than any other dialect of Aleut.
The Atkan grouping comprises the dialects of Atka and Bering Island.
Attuan, now extinct, was a distinct dialect showing influence from both Atkan and Eastern Aleut. Copper Island (Russian: Медный, Medny, Mednyj) was settled by Attuans, and Copper Island Aleut (also called Mednyj Aleut) is a heavily creolized form of Attuan. Ironically, today Copper Island Aleut is spoken only on Bering Island; Copper Islanders were evacuated to Bering Island in 1969.
All dialects show lexical influence from Russian; Copper Island Aleut has also adopted many Russian inflectional endings.
The consonant phonemes of..... full article at Wikipedia |