Ainu and Gilyak

[Alexander Vovin]

    Actually, there are classifiers in both Ainu and Gilyak, although the
Ainu system is very limited: the two most frequently used are -p (from pe
'thing') for unanimate objects and -n (after vowel stems) or -iw (after
consonant stems) (<*niw "person') for human beings. All languages in
Southern part of North East Asia have classifiers: Japanese, Korean,
Chinese, Manchu, Ainu, Gilyak. It is often viewed as Sinitic influence,
but it has never been proven. Oldest Japanese texts, for example, which
are almost free of any Chinese influence, already exhibit some
classifiers, although the system is not as elaborate as in the modern
language.
    There are numerous examples of Gilyal loanwords in Ainu and vice
versa. Thus, e,g. the second classifier *niw for 'person' does look like a
Gilyak word for 'person' (nivx, niGvng etc., depending on 'dialect', hence
Nivx -- the name of the language as it is used in Russia today). However,
I am unaware of any Gilyak word which could be a source for the first
classifier.
 
    You can find some information on Ainu-Gilyak contacts in the following
works by late Prof. R. Austerlitz, one of the best connoisseurs of Gilyak,
and undoubtedly one of the greatest linguists of our time:
 
"Shaman.", Ural-Altaische Jahrb"ucher 58: 143-144 (1986)
"Native seal nomenclatures in South-Sakhalin". Papers of the CIC Far
Eastern Institute, 1967. pp. 133-141
"L'appelation du renne en japonais, ai"nou et surtout en ghilyak",
Tractata Altaica, Otto Harrassowitz 1976 pp. 45-49
There is also a big article by him in Russian, "O nivxsko-ainskom simbioze
na ostrove Sakhalin", to appear in "Ainskaia problema". St.Petersbourg,
199?
 
There is also a short list of plausible loanwords in my 1993 book "A
reconstruction of Proto-Ainu", Leiden: E.j> Brill.
 
Sincerely,
 
Alexander Vovin
 
 
On Wed, 26 Mar 1997, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote:
 
>
> One thing that caught my attention in the linguistic database from
> Johanna Nichols' "Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time" was the
> typological near-identity of Gilyak and Ainu.  Of all the typological
> features listed, Ainu and Gilyak only differ in that Gilyak has
> numerical classifiers (26 of them).  Is there any other evidence for
> contacts between Gilyak and Ainu?