Linguist List Issue: Linguists demonstrate Siberian-North American link

[jess tauber]

The lexemes listed here also find parallels in Yahgan and Salishan, which I've claimed are related. Note that Haida and Salishan seem to share a good number of lexical forms from this perspective.

Just offhand from memory: 

Yahgan 'nape of neck' jvkvhr (j voiced affricate, v schwa, hr fricated dental/alveolar) vs. Haida ts'Ek'i 'occiput, nape of the neck'

Yahgan 'steam/vapor rising' isi:tu: vs. Haida sEL, sEl gudE 'steam (tr. verb)'

Yahgan 'firewood, fire' aian vs. Haida GEy- possibly 'burning', cf. GEynE 'driftwood', GEyuu 'give off smoke', GEyxid 'ashes'

Yahgan 'mouth' ya, 'entrance to enclosed space, harbor, bay' waia vs. Haida q'yuu 'entrance of enclosed space'.

Yahgan 'hairy' ku:ma vs. Haida GEw'hair, fur, bird plummage'

Yahgan 'X-in-law' unnus- vs. Haida LEnEGu'sister-in-law, brother-in-law'

and for grammatical elements:

Yahgan 'cloud' (horizontal) hauaka, 'sky, ceiling' wa:gun (-n loc.) vs. Haida (Enrico 2004: 255, serie 68) qEw (< *quu) 'spreading (smoke, fog, heat, mass of individuals or some other substance)'

Yahgan '1st. p. sing. (subject prefix)' ha-, free pn. hai vs. pre-Haida (Enrico 2004: 262, tabla 10) *X- [precedido por otros elementos] '1st. p. sing. (subject/object prefix)'

The looseness of shapes/meanings listed by Vajda seem, to me, to leave too much leeway for false cognates. In my Yahgan-Salishan comparison I've tried to be much stricter in delimiting these: for example Yahgan mu:tu: 'sit' vs. Proto-Salishan (7a)mut 'sit'.

Jess Tauber

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