Investigating language contact by documenting two endangered Arctic languages, Unangam Tunuu (Aleut) and Mednij Aleut

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Language contact situations arise when at least two languages or varieties interact. Linguistic research shows a wide variety of outcomes that occur in these situations. For example, sometimes only a few words are borrowed, or perhaps entirely new languages emerge, or speakers use both languages and switch and mix between them in systematic, patterned ways. There are significant gaps in existing knowledge about language contact situations. This project will document and analyze language contact between an endangered indigenous language and a European language where the contact resulted in two different outcomes. In one, the community adapted by creating a mixed language, and the second where the community adapted by shifting to the European language. This offers a unique opportunity to compare factors that affect contact and adaptation because the source languages are the same. The resulting activities will also document two endangered language varieties (the mixed and the indigenous languages), each of which is inadequately documented and critically endangered. Broader impacts include creating language materials available in formats that facilitate community use, broadening participation by involving local community participants, and fostering new international relationships focused on the Arctic region. The Arctic Social Sciences Program at NSF is providing additional support for activities associated with this project.The Unangam Tunuu language, also known as Aleut, is indigenous to the nearly 200 islands in the Bering Sea that stretch from Alaska towards the Kamchatka Peninsula of the Russian Federation. Language contact between Unangam Tunuu and Russian resulted in two distinct outcomes of language adaptation (language shift vs. creation of a mixed language) in the Commander Islands. An entirely new mixed language, Mednij Aleut, arose as a result of the combining of Unangam Tunuu and Russian. In contrast, Bering Island residents maintained their dialect of Unangam Tunuu and later shifted to Russian. The international project team includes the highly respected Unangam Tunuu expert and educator Moses Dirks and the leading scholar of Mednij Aleut, Evgeny Golovko, to research each of these severely endangered languages, as well as language contact and change. The team will collect and analyze language data for Mednij Aleut and the Bering Island dialect of Unangam Tunuu, as well draw on historical oral and written archival resources. The existence of the older materials will facilitate an examination of language change over time and place in two very different situations. Especially exciting is the potential for Mednijj Aleut to contribute significantly to the scientific understanding of mixed languages, which is a small but interesting set of languages of the world.The project will increase our understanding of the cultural history of the Aleut region and increase existing documentation of Native Alaskan languages. The Native American Languages Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in 1990, enacted into policy the recognition of the unique status and importance of Native American languages, including Alaska Native languages. The Alaska Native Language Archive at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks will serve as the repository for the project data. In addition, the Exchange for Local Observations and Knowledge of the Arctic (ELOKA) will assist in public dissemination and access. The latter step will ensure that the newly collected data gets added to ELOKA's extensive exchange of local and traditional knowledge from other participating communities in the Arctic region, increasing its value to a wide variety of audiences, including the general public, other indigenous communities, and Arctic-focused scientists from a variety of disciplines.