Imprensa: Did Polynesians Sail to South America?

[jess tauber]

Kathryn Klar has considered linguistic connections here, as mentioned in the article (see links to her papers at http://celtic.berkeley.edu/facultyprofiles.html#Klar)

The Yahgan term for 'driftwood' is ummvx (v schwa, x velar voiceless fricative). Compare with Chumashan wi'ma

And the Yahgan term for canoes of marauders from the north(west), traditionally considered to be Kawesqars, uses the root vwa:g- compare with the 'Oceanic form *waga ‘large sailing canoe’ or ‘(generic) canoe’. I've read that hese canoes were made of planks, as opposed to the bark canoes of the Yahgans. On the other hand Chumashan *swax.

A Yahgan term for an old or worn out canoe is te:atel, compare with various *tia 'sew' and Gabrielen~o ti'at. In addition, a great variety of Yahgan words dealing with lines, ropes, filaments, and sewing, etc. can be internally reconstructed as containing a morpheme *i:  More curiously, the Yahgan term for a community of people to emigrate by water is ata. 

While in the eastern areas the generic term for 'canoe' is a:nan, in the south (towards Cape Horn) the general term was chvpahr (hr is a fricative derived from /d/ or /t/). Compare to tomolh. Yahgan has alternation of m vs. p (for example da:pvsh 'breast, milk' versus tvmmvshka, etc. 'breast') in certain forms, as well as ch vs. t (some 'breast' forms also begin with ch rather than t).

Yahgan has a good number of plural verbs- one of which is a:lu: for pl to be on board (sg. is kvna)- compare to kialoa?

Jess Tauber


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