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Ethnolinguistic Insights into Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan: Directional Language Study

This case study explores the Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan language, focusing on its unique directional and locative expressions within the context of its dwindling speaker population. With about 25 speakers remaining, primarily in Nikolai, AK, the research includes various data sources such as natural discourse recordings, folk stories, and interviews conducted during field trips from 1997 to 2009. The findings reveal a rich morphological complexity and abundant use of dimensional directionals, highlighting their significance in the cultural and cognitive representation of the Athabaskan people.

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Ethnolinguistic Insights into Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan: Directional Language Study

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  1. Andrej A. Kibrik(aakibrik@gmail.com) ENCODING DIRECTIONS IN UPPER KUSKOKWIM ATHABASKAN: A CASE STUDY IN FIELD ETHNOLINGUISTICS Field Linguistics Conference Moscow, October 2009

  2. Basic information about Upper Kuskokwim Athabaskan (UKA) • About 25 speakers left out of the population of about 200 • Most speakers reside in the village of Nikolai • Actual use of UKA – in two or three households • Prior work – Collins and Petruska 1979 • Kibrik’s field trips in 1997, 2001, and 2009 • As in other Athabaskan: • polysynthesis • highly complex verb morphology and morphophonemics

  3. Welcome to Nikolai

  4. Field work environment in Nikolai • Very few speakers • Very little motivation to do linguistic work • Very expensive • But very nice and hospitable people (generally)

  5. Domain under consideration • Organization of spatial representation • Directional adverbs • Dimensional directionals • Riverine orientation • Elevational orientation

  6. Data • Natural discourse recordings (transcribed) • Folk stories • Personal stories • Conversation (pre-arranged) • Interview at school • In all –about 8 hours of talk • Elicited examples

  7. Abundance of directionals and locatives in discourse noygi digheloye hidenin ghelheŒ yats’in nehwdadidził ts’eŒ uphill mountain slope perhaps other.side brush.was.piled.up and notsints’eŒ nehulkanh ts’eŒ degheneŒ <…> downhill they.were.pushing.earth Comp he.used.to.say yiŒots’ digheloye denin yihw hulkanh <…> from.uphill mountain slope there they.ploughed.out nodigw hwk’oy hwts’inh noŒinyotsin hidenin hwdinelkanh<…> uphill ridge from further downhill slope it.was.leveled.out

  8. Schematic representation of the UKA native area

  9. Riverine orientation:upriver vs. downriver • Roots: • -n- ‘upriver’ • -d- ‘downriver’ • Basic examples • y-o-n-aŒ zido ‘He lives upriver’Pref-Pref-upriver-Id he.lives • n-o-d-o-ts’ tekash Pref-Pref-downriver-Id-El you.paddle ‘Come this way (by boat, from downriver)’

  10. Elevational orientation:uphill vs. downhill • Roots: • -n(w)g- ‘uphill’ • -ts- ‘downhill’ • Basic examples: • n-o-ts-in tighisyoł Pref-Pref-downhill-Id I.will.go ‘I will go downhill’ • minh y-o-ng-w-t lake Pref-Pref-uphill-Id-Punct ‘The lake is up there’

  11. Deictic orientation • X is at the river bank, Y is away from the river: • X speaks to Y: • n-o-ng-i tighisyoł ‘I will go uphill’Pref-Pref-uphill-Id I.will.go • Y speaks to X: • y-o-ts-ets’ teyosh Pref-Pref-downhill-El you.go ‘Come here (from downhill)’

  12. Telida grand local Kuskokwim river Nikolai Alaska range Relevance of scale

  13. Local vs. grand scale • Local scale: • y-o-ng-i sikayih hi-ts’eŒ notighisdołPref-Pref-uphill-Id my.house Ar-to I.will.go ‘I will go to my house’ • Grand scale: • dotron’ n-o-ts-in nonot’wh raven Pref-Pref-downhill-Id it.flies ‘A raven flies away from the mountains’

  14. Templatic morphology • Close to 100 forms just from these four roots

  15. Examples of meaningful affixes • sichila sungha ghw-ts-et zidomy.younger.brother my.older.brother dim-downhill-punct he.lives‘My younger brother lives a little below my older brother’ • n-o-nwh-ts’eŒ tighisyoł pref-pref-uphill-el I.will.go‘I will go down (from an elevation)’ • y-o-n-wgh noghimał pref-pref-upriver-reg it.is.swimming.across ‘It is swimming upriver across the river’

  16. Conclusions • Dimensional directionals display a remarkable variety of forms • They are semantically and morphologically highly complex • They, as well as other types of directionals, are highly abundant in discourse • Specification of directions and locations is a hallmark of UKA ethnic cognitive representation and constitutes an important linguistic phenomenon in this language

  17. Methodological comments • This kind of complex phenomena must be preferably explored with the help of best available consultants • Criteria: age; personal life experience; gender; general intelligence

  18. Bobby Esai

  19. Nick Alexia

  20. TsenŒan! • Thanks to all speakers of Upper Kuskokwim, both mentioned and unmentioned above • Thanks to many individuals and organizations that helped to collect and process the data, in chronological order: • Michael Krauss • James Kari • Raymond Collins • Alaska Native Language Center • Fulbright Program • Endangered Language Fund • Bernard Comrie • MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig • Russian Foundation for the Humanities • National Science Foundation

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