Re: Linguochronology

Quoting John Cowan <cowan@...>:

> Andreas Johansson scripsit:
>
> > By E-A having relatives in Asia, I assume you're not refering to Siberian
> > Yupik (since that, as far as I understand, got there from Alaska).
>
> I didn't know that.  What (or where) are the details?
I don't recall where I picked up that factoid.

This piece seems to suggest the Siberian Yupik simply stayed behind when the
other E-Aans crossed over to North America:

http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ea210/aleut.htm

(It also states that there are Aleuts on the Comander Islands, but those
were "imported" by the Russians in the 19th C!)

This site relates an Alaskan origin hypothesis:

http://www.alaskool.org/language/manytongues/ManyTongues.html

I here reproduce the relevant paragraph:

"It is proposed that the Eskimo languages on the Siberian side represent
relatively minor westward movement back to and into the Chukchi Peninsula from
Alaska, and that Sirenikski represents the oldest wave of that movement,
Siberian Yupik the second, and Naukanski the latest. The Yupik chain was then
broken between Asia and America not by the Bering Strait but by progressive
Inuit occupation of Seward Peninsula, while on the Asiatic side Chukchi
expanded into much of the coastline during the late prehistoric period."

This from a quick googling. Someone who's actually into these issues could
hopefully provide more info, particularly what kind of evidence, if any, there
is.

                                                       Andreas