Haida related to Miwok, not Na-Dene?

[Geoffrey Caveney]

Hello,

I recently shared some observations with the Haida language list, and I
would like to share them with this list as well.

I am well aware of the long-standing controversy about whether Haida is
related to the Na-Dene languages or not. I agree with the current standard
position that it is not -- what is especially lacking in Haida - Na-Dene
comparisons are any convincing sets of correspondences in the core lexical
vocabulary. But that has made me curious: if Haida is not Na-Dene, then
where did it come from?

Recently I have found a surprisingly substantial set of correspondences in
the core lexical vocabulary between Haida and the Miwok language of the San
Francisco Bay area in California. Miwok belongs to the Utian language
family, and many linguists believe it is part of a broader family called
Penutian, which some believe Tsimshianic belongs to as well. But I find a
much stronger set of correspondences between the Haida and Miwok core
lexicon, than I do between Haida and Tsimshian or any other Penutian
language, or indeed between Utian and Tsimshianic.

A correspondence that caught my attention was that between a pair of the
1st person singular pronominal forms. There is the Haida form *díi*, and
also the Haida morpheme *-gan *in the alienable possessive form *gyáagan *'my'.
Southern Sierra Miwok has the 1st person singular suffixes *-nti-, -te-, *
and *-kan *in different series that follow nominal themes. In fact *-nti- *
and *-kan *occur in dialectal variation in Series 1. (See Broadbent
1964:43, online at
http://www.yosemite.ca.us/library/southern_sierra_miwok_language/page_43.html
.)

But it is a whole series of correspondences in the core lexical vocabulary
that makes the most convincing case for Haida being related to Miwok. In
particular, a substantial number of Haida forms with a uvular or velar stop
in onset position correspond to Miwok forms with *k- *in onset position.

The Proto-Miwok and Proto-Eastern Miwok forms below are cited from the
article "Comparative Miwok: A Preliminary Survey" by Broadbent and
Callaghan in *IJAL *in 1960 (IJAL 26.4:301-316), which I thank Matt Faytak
for bringing to my attention. It should be noted that 4 of the 5 Miwok
languages used in the reconstruction are Eastern Miwok, so in some cases
such as 'bone' I believe the Proto-Eastern Miwok form is appropriate to
use, as the Lake Miwok form may be irregular or not cognate at all.

Haida *tl'a**k'úl *'liver' ; Proto-Miwok **kyl*la 'liver'
Haida *s**kuj *'bone' ; Proto-Eastern Miwok **ky**č*(:)yč- 'bone'
(Lake Miwok *kúlum *may or may not be related at all, so I don't believe
it's necessary to restrict the comparison to the limited Proto-Miwok
reconstruction *ky...)
Haida *-**gan *'my' ; Proto-Miwok **kán*ni 'I'
Haida *hl**Gahl *'black' ; Proto-Miwok **kul*... 'black'
Haida *Gáal *'night' ; Proto-Miwok **kawy:l* 'night'
Haida *sGwáansang *'one' ; Proto-Miwok **keng*:... 'one'
S. Haida *k'aw *'cold' ; Proto-Miwok **ky(:)w*(e)... 'cold'

Another possible sound correspondence is Haida /X-/ : Proto-Miwok */š-/:

Haida *Xáng**ii** *'eye' ; Proto-Miwok **š**yn*t- 'eye'
Haida *Xahl**a** *'to be startled' ; Proto-Miwok **š**él*... 'to be afraid'

Regarding the lack (so far) of other regular sound correspondences, it is
worth noting that in Haida forms with initial velar and uvular consonants
make up such a large portion of the core lexicon (I count as many as 63 of
them out of the 100 terms on the basic Swadesh list) that it is going to be
difficult to find any numerous examples of correspondences with other Haida
sounds. The best bet is Haida /d-/ and /t-/ with Miwok /t-/, a
correspondence set I am still working on.

It is curious to find so many lexical correspondences but not very many
grammatical correspondences between Haida and Miwok. But borrowing is not a
likely explanation given the geographical distance and lack of evidence of
any contact between the two peoples. Also, I find by far the greatest
amount of Haida-Miwok correspondences in the core lexicon and rather fewer
correspondences in the rest of the lexicon, which points to a genetic
relationship rather than borrowing.

Between Haida and Na-Dene, on the other hand, one finds more structural and
typological parallels but not lexical correspondences. Perhaps there is a
clue here about the history of Haida: the people could have been speakers
of a Miwokan language who migrated to the Haida Gwaii islands thousands of
years ago, where the population of the area spoke Tlingit or a related
language. The Haida language retained its core Miwok lexicon but adopted
many structural features of Tlingit/Na-Dene. Of course there must have been
lexical borrowings from Tlingit, Tsimshian, and other neighboring languages
as well.

The fact that the Haida people, as I understand, were a nation renowned for
their prowess as seafaring warriors, is consistent with this hypothesis. If
their origins were from the Miwoks of the San Francisco Bay area, they
would have had to be highly skilled seafarers to migrate all the way from
there to the Haida Gwaii. And to conquer and settle their new territory,
they would have had to be successful warriors.

By the way, if Haida does prove to be genetically related to Miwok, it
would show how spurious were all the arguments of Greenberg and Ruhlen
insisting for decades that Haida is related to Na-Dene. The crude division
Greenberg made in his hypothesis of language relationships in the Americas
was to distinguish Eskimo-Aleut and Na-Dene from everything else, which he
called Amerind. If Haida is related to Miwok, even that crude division will
be wrong.

If Haida is related to Miwok, a natural question to ask is where it fits in
with the other languages Miwok is related to: Miwok and Costanoan are
definitely related in the Utian language family, and Yokuts is likely
related, but more distantly, in the Yok-Utian family.

The evidence I am finding shows substantially more comparisons between
Haida and Miwok than between Haida and Costanoan. My tentative hypothesis
right now is that, surprisingly, Miwok and Haida are even more closely
related than Miwok and Costanoan are. Of course the amount of borrowing in
Haida would obscure the closeness of its relation with Miwok. But when it
comes to the very basic core lexicon of the 50 or so terms most resistant
to substitution, I find the Miwok-Haida connection is closer than the
Miwok-Costanoan connection, especially when the possibility of
Miwok-Costanoan borrowing and areal influence is accounted for.

I would be very interested to hear the thoughts and comments of
Athapbasckan language list readers about these observations.

Geoffrey Caveney
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