Copper Island Aleut (was: Linguochronology)

Hello,

> Very interesting! I didn't know there were any other
> languages as weird as Michif. Exactly how analogous
> is Mednij Aleut? VP's entirely from Russian and NP's
> entirely from Aleut? Is there somewhere where I can read more on it?
Based on Golovko E. V. Mednovskix aleutov jazyk // Jazyki mira.
Paleoaziatskije jazyki. Moscow: 1997.

(can be downloaded in Russian at
http://www.auditorium.ru/books/2357/gl16.pdf , as well the whole volume)

The phonology is mostly Aleut, with an influx of labials.

The morphology shows heavy basing on Aleut, with agglutinative strings
and minimal morphonological changes on morpheme boundaries, also cf. the
almost complete absence of prefixes (the only one is the negative ne-,
of Russian origin of course).
All the nominal morphology is Aleut.
The personal pronouns are wholly Russian, except the reflexive ones.
Russian possessive pronouns can be used to reinforce the (Aleut)
possessive suffixes
Most interrogative pronouns are Aleut.
The deixis is mixed, but Aleut is favoured.
The verbal morphology is almost wholly Russian
The numerals are mostly Russian, except for the first ten cardinal,
which can be both.
The postpositions are, unsurprisingly, Aleut.
All the adverbs are Russian
All the conjunctions are Russian (since Aleut has only one)
All the interjections are Russian
The derivational morphology is wholly Aleut (somewhat simplified)

Syntax.

Free word order (unlike Aleut), unless the direct object is pronominal,
when it is rigidly SOV (Aleut)
The topic can control the agreement of the final verb, e.g.:
chvetki-ning 'ula-l-a 'flowers-my flower-past-fem', where the -a is
feminine rather than plural, because 'me' is the topic rather than the
flowers.
Multiclausal sentences are built mostly after Russian models.

Lexicon
Mostly Aleut, but with a lot of metathesis. The overwhelming majority of
verbs are Aleut (the Russian ones are borrowed into all Aleut dialects).
The nouns are only slightly over 50% Aleut. The rest is Russian.

Bibliography (only the English-language titles):

Golovko E. A case of non-genetic development in the Arctic area: the
contribution of Aleut and Russian to the formation of Coper Island Aleut
// Language Contact in the Arctic: Northern Pidgins and Contact
Languages / Ed. E. H. Jahr and I. Broch. Berlin, N. Y.: 1996
Golovko E. Mednij Aleut or Copper Island Aleut: an Aleut Russian mixed
language // Mixed Languages: 15 Case Studies in Language Intertwining
(Studies in language and language use, 13) / Ed. P. Bakker and M. Mous.
Amsterdam, 1994
Golovko E., Vakhtin N. Aleut in Contact: the CIA Enigma // Acta
Linguistica Hafniensia: International Journal of Linguistics.
Copenhagen, 1990, vol. 22 [Minst den här boken kan du hitta utan problem
i Sverige, tycker jag, Daniel]

Hope this helps,
Pavel
--
Pavel Iosad               pavel_iosad@mail.ru

Nid byd, byd heb wybodaeth
                 --Welsh saying