Aleut language

**Aleut** (/ˈæliuːt, əˈluːt/ *AL-ee-oot, ə-LOOT*) or ***Unangam Tunuu*** is the language spoken by the Aleut living in the Aleutian Islands, Pribilof Islands, Commander Islands, and the Alaska Peninsula (in Aleut *Alaxsxa*, the origin of the state name Alaska). Aleut is the sole language in the Aleut branch of the Eskimo–Aleut language family. The Aleut language consists of three dialects, including ***Unalaska*** (Eastern Aleut), ***Atka*/*Atkan*** (Atka Aleut), and ***Attu*/*Attuan*** (Western Aleut; now extinct).

Various sources estimate there are fewer than 100 to 150 remaining active Aleut speakers. Eastern and Atkan Aleut are classified as "critically endangered and extinct" and have an Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) rating of 7. The task of revitalizing Aleut has largely been left to local government and community organizations. The overwhelming majority of schools in the historically Aleut-speaking regions lack any language/culture courses in their curriculum, and those that do fail to produce fluent or even proficient speakers.

## Phonology

### Consonants

The consonant phonemes of the various Aleut dialects are represented below. Each cell indicates the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) representation of the phoneme; consonants existing only in loanwords are in parentheses. Note that some phonemes are unique to specific dialects of Aleut.

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Only found in Attuan and loanwords
2. ↑ Only found in Eastern Aleut
3. ↑ Only found in Atkan and loanwords

The palato-alveolar affricate /tʃ/ and uvular stop /q/ are pronounced with strong aspiration.

Attuan labial fricative /v/ is pronounced voiced or devoiced.

Voiceless approximants and devoiced nasals are preaspirated. The preaspiration of approximants causes very little friction and may pronounced more as a breathy voice. The preaspiration of devoiced nasals starts with a voiceless airstream through the nose and may end voiced before a vowel. The preaspiration feature is represented orthographically with an ⟨h⟩ preceding the given sound. For example, a devoiced, preaspirated labial nasal would be written ⟨hm⟩.

Voiced approximants and nasals may be partly devoiced in contact with a voiceless consonant and at the end of a word.

The voiceless glottal approximant /h/ functions as an initial aspiration before a vowel. In Atkan and Attuan, the prevocalic /h/ aspiration contrasts with an audible but not written glottal stop initiation of the vowel. Compare *halal* ('to turn the head') and *alal* ('to need'). This contrast has been lost in Eastern Aleut.

Modern Eastern Aleut has a much simpler consonant inventory because the voice contrasts among nasals, sibilants and approximants have been lost.

Consonants listed in the dental column have varied places of articulation. The stop, nasal, and lateral dentals commonly have a laminal articulation. The voiced dental fricative is pronounced interdentally.

The pronunciation of the sibilant /s/ varies from an alveolar articulation to a retracted articulation like a palato-alveolar consonant. There is no contrast between /s/ and ʃ in Aleut. Many Aleut speakers experience difficulties with this distinction while learning English.

### Vowels

Aleut has a basic three-vowel system including the high front /i/, low /ɑ/, and high back /u/. Aleut vowels contrast with their long counterparts /iː/, /ɑː/, and /uː/.

Notably, Aleut /u/ is pronounced slightly lower than /i/ in the vowel space.

The long vowel /ɑː/ is pronounced retracted in the vowel space creating a significant distinction relative to the vowel length of /ɑ/. The two high vowels are pronounced with the same vowel quality regardless of vowel length.

In contact with a uvular, /i/ is lowered to [e] and /u/ is lowered to [o]. In contact with a coronal, /ɑ/ is raised to [e] or [ɛ], and /u/ is fronted to [ʉ].

The mid-vowels [ɔ] and [ɛ] occur only in family names like *Nevzorof* and very recently introduced Russian loanwords.

### Syllable structure

(C)(C)V(V) ± {C(C)(C)V(V)} ± C

An Aleut word may contain one to about a dozen syllables, all syllables with a vocalic nucleus. In Atkan and Attuan, there is a word-final CC due to apocopation. There also exist word initial CCC in loanwords.

### Phonotactics

A word may begin or end in a vowel, both short and long, with few exceptions. Due to apocopation, short /u/ is not found in the final position. The same is true for short /i/, except in some obsolete suffixes, such as *-chi* 'your' (pl.) which is realized as *-chin* and *-chix* in modern Eastern and Atkan Aleut.

Vowels within a word are separated by at least one consonant. All single consonants can appear in an intervocalic position, with the following exceptions:

* /ʍ/ and /h/ do not occur in intervocalic positions
* /w/ does not occur in contact with /u/
* /ç/ does not occur in contact with /i/

Words begin with any consonant except /θ/ and preaspirated consonants (with the exception of the preaspirated /ŋ̥/ in Atkan Aleut). Only in loanwords do /v/, /z/, and the borrowed consonants (*p, b, f, d, g, ɹ/ɾ)* appear word-initially.

The word-initial CC can take many forms, with various restrictions on the distribution of consonants:

* a stop or /s/, followed by a continuant other than /s/ or /z/
* a coronal stop or /s/, followed by a postlingual continuant (velar, uvular, or glottal).
* postlingual stop or /tʃ/, followed by /j/
* /k/ or /s/, followed by /n/

Intervocalic CC can occur in normal structure or as the result of syncopation.

In CC clusters of two voiced continuants, there is often a short transitional vowel. For example, *qilĝix̂* 'umbilical cord' is pronounced [-liĝ-] similar to *qiliĝi-n* 'brain'.

Almost all possible combinations of coronal and postlingual consonants are attested.

The combination of two postlingual or two coronal consonants is rare, but attested, such as *hux̂xix* 'rain pants', *aliĝngix̂* 'wolf', *asliming* 'fit for me', *iistalix* 'to say; to tell; to call'.

In CCC clusters, the middle consonant is either /t/, /tʃ/, /s/. For example, *taxtxix̂* 'pulse', *huxsx̂ilix* 'to wrap up', *chamchxix̂* 'short fishline'.

The most common single consonants to appear word-final are /x/, /χ/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, and /j/.

Through apocopation, word-final single consonants /l/ and /s/ occur, and word-final consonant clusters ending with /t/ or /s/.

#### Syncopation

The details of the extensive syncopation characteristic of the Eastern Aleut dialect are described below. In the examples, the syncopated vowel will be shown in parentheses.

A word medial short vowel may be syncopated between single consonants, except after an initial open short syllable and/or before a final open short syllable. For example, *ìx̂am(a)nákux̂* 'it is good' and *alqut(a)maan* 'what for?'.

The syncopation often creates consonant clusters beyond those prescribed by the general rules of Aleut phonotactics. The resulting clusters include:

* clusters of two stops: *asx̂at(i)kuu* 'he killed it'
* geminate consonants: *yuug(i)gaadakux̂* 'is young'
* a regular three consonant cluster: *ingam(a)sxakum* 'after a short while (he)'

In some frequently encountered syncopated forms, which otherwise result in irregular three consonant clusters, the middle uvular fricative is deleted along with the preceding vowel. For example, *(h)iis(ax̂)talix* 'saying' and *(h)iil(ax̂)talix* 'being said'.

At slower speeds of speech, the syncopation may not be realized. Compare *txin saakutikux̂txin* 'you are getting skinny' beside *ting saak(u)tikuqing* 'I am getting skinny'.

### Stress

Aleut stress is indeterminate and often difficult to define. Stress varies based on the relation to the beginning or end of the word form, the length of the vowels, the sonority of the consonants, open- or closeness of the syllables, or the number of syllables in sentential rhythm and intonation. Stress affects the length of both vowels and consonants. Stress underlies the distinctive syncopation characteristics of Eastern Aleut. In the following discussion, the acute accent (á) indicates the stronger stress and the grave accent (à) indicates the weaker.

In Eastern Aleut, stronger stress tends to fall on the penultimate syllable if it is short (has a short vowel), or on the last syllable if it is long (has a long vowel). The weaker stress commonly falls on the first syllable. For example, *úlax̂* 'house', *tùnúnax̂* 'talked', *tùnulákan* 'without talking', *ìnaqáam* 'he himself'.

Eastern Aleut words with more than two syllables exhibit a wider variety of stress patterns. Stress may be attracted to another syllable by a long vowel or relatively sonorant consonant, or by a closed syllable. It is possible the stress can be determined by rhythmic factors so that one word will have different stress in different contexts, such as *áĝadax̂* compared to *àĝádax̂*, both meaning 'arrow'.

In Atkan and Attuan Aleut, stronger stress more commonly falls on the first syllable. However, long vowels, sonorants, etc. have similar effects on stress as in Eastern Aleut. For example, *qánáang* 'how many' vs *qánang* 'where'; *ùĝálux̂* 'spear' vs *álaĝux̂* 'sea'.

Stress may also be expressive, as with exclamations or polite requests. Stronger stress falls on the last syllable and is accompanied by a lengthening of a short vowel. For example, *kúufyax̂ àqakúx̂!* 'coffee is coming'. There is a similar structure for polite requests: *qadá* 'please eat!' vs *qáda* 'eat'.

Under ordinary strong stress, a short syllable tends to be lengthened, either by lengthening the vowel or geminating the following single consonant. Lengthening of the vowel is most common in Eastern, but is found in Atkan before a voiced consonant. In all dialects gemination is common between an initial stressed syllable with a short vowel and a following stressed syllable. For example, *ìláan* 'from him' pronounced [-ll-] and *làkáayax̂* 'a boy' pronounced [-kk-].

### Phrasal phonology

The following descriptions involve phonological processes that occur in connected speech.

Word-final velar and uvular fricatives are voiceless when followed by a word-initial voiceless consonant and are voiced when followed by a word-initial voiced consonant or a vowel.

Word-final nasals /m/ and /n/ are frequently deleted before an initial consonant other than /h/. For example, *tana(m) kugan* 'on the ground' and *ula(m) naga* 'the interior of the house'.

In Eastern Aleut, the final vowel may be elided before or contracted with the initial vowel of the following word, as in *aamg(ii) iĝanalix* 'he is bleeding awfully'.

In Atkan, the final syllable of a word form may be clipped off in fast speech. This is even frequent at slow speed in certain constructions with auxiliary verbs. The result will be a sequence of vowels or full contraction:

* *waaĝaaĝan aĝikux̂*, *waaĝaa-aĝikux̂*, *waaĝaaĝikux̂* 'he's about to come'
* *ixchiinhan aĝikuq*, *ixchii-aĝikuq*, *ixchiiĝikuq* 'I'll go home'