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Sirenik or Sirenikskiy (also Old Sirenik or Vuteen) is an extinct Eskimo-Aleut language. It was spoken in and around the village of Sireniki (Сиреники) in Chukotka Peninsula, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. In January 1997 the last native speaker of the language, a woman named Vyie (Valentina Wye) (Russian: Выйе) died.^[1][2][3]

See its grammar, with some ethnographic texts in ^[4]. Although the book uses a Cyrillic transcription for Sirenik language, the cited examples of the article below are transliterated to the International Phonetic Alphabet in this article.

Classification

Genealogical

"Outside"

The Sirenik language is a remnant of a third group of Eskimo languages, in addition to Yupik and Inuit groups ^[3], see online a visual representation by tree ^[5] and an argumentation based on comparative linguistics in ^[6]. In fact, the exact genealogical classification of Sireniki language is not settled yet ^[2]: Sireniki language is sometimes regarded as a third branch of Eskimo (at least, its possibility is mentioned,^[1][2] but sometimes it is regarded rather as a group belonging to the Yupik branch (see online ^[7]).

In any case, Sireniki has several peculiarities compared to other Eskimo languages (and even compared to Aleut). This may be the result of a supposed long isolation from other Eskimo groups.^[8]

"Inside"

Although the number of its speakers was very few even at the end of the XIX^th century, the language had at least two dialects in the past.^[1]

Typological

As for its morphological typology, it has polysynthetic and incorporative features (just like the other Eskimo languages).

Phonology

Some notes (very far from being a complete description):

• The alveolar lateral approximant /l/ has its voiceless version /l̥/, and it can be also palatalized /lʲ̥/
• glottal stop /ʔ/

Morphology

Like at other Eskimo languages, the morphology is rather complex. A description grouped by lexical categories follows.

Nominal and verbal

Although morphology will be treated grouped into a nominal and a verbal part, many Eskimo languages show features which “crosscut” any such groupings in several aspects:

• the ergative structure at verbs is similar to the possessive structure at nouns (see section #Ergative-absolutive);
• a physical similarity exists between nominal and verbal personal suffix paradigms, i.e., in most cases, the respective person-number is expressed with the same sequence of phonemes at:
• possessive suffixes (at nouns)
• verbal suffixes;
• nomenverbum-like roots, becoming nominal or verbal only via the suffix they get;
• Eskimo texts abound in various kinds of participles (see section #Participles);

Common grammatical categories

Some grammatical categories (e.g. person and number) are applicable to both verbal and nominal lexical categories.

Although person and number are expressed in a single suffix, sometimes it can be traced back to consist of a distinct person and a distinct number suffix ^[9].

Person

Paradigms can make a distinction in 3^rd person for “self”, thus the mere personal suffix (of the verb or noun) can distinguish e.g.

a nominal example

“He/she takes his/her own dog” versus “He/she takes the dog of another person”.

a verbal example

“He/she sees himself/herself” versus “He/she sees him/her (another person)”

Thus, it can be translated into English (and some other languages) using reflexive pronoun. This notion concerns also other concepts in building larger parts of the sentence and the text, see section #Usage of third person suffixes.

Number

Although several Eskimo languages know more grammatical numbers (also dual), Sireniki uses only singular and plural.

Building verbs from nouns

Suffix -/ɕuɣɨn/- meaning “to be similar to sth”:

Root	Becomes verbal by suffix [10]	Indicative mood, singular 3rd person
/mɨtɨχlʲ̥ux/	/mɨtɨχlʲ̥ux-ɕuɣɨn/-	/mɨtɨχlʲ̥ux-ɕuɣɨn-tɨ-χ/
raven	to be similar to a raven	he/she is similar to a raven

Predicative form of a noun

Predicative form of a noun can be built using suffix -/t͡ʃ ɨ/- ^[11]:

Root	Predicative form	Examples
		Singular 2nd person	Singular 3rd person
/juɣ/	/juɣɨ t͡ʃ ɨ/-	/juɣɨ t͡ʃ ɨtɨn/	/juɣɨ t͡ʃ ɨχ/
man	to be a man	you are a man	he/she is a man

Verbs built from toponyms

• /imtuk/ (a toponym: Imtuk)
• /imtux-tɨqɨχ-tɨ-ŋ/ (I travel to Imtuk) ^[12]

Nominal lexical categories

Grammatical categories

Not only the grammatical cases of nouns are marked by suffixes, but also the person of possessor (use of possessive pronouns in English) can be expressed by agglutination.

/taŋaχ/ (child) ^[13]

	Sing 1st person	Sing 2nd person
Absolutive	/taŋaqa/ (my child)	/taŋaʁɨn/ (your child)
Ablative / Instrumental	/taŋamnɨŋ/ (from my child)	/taŋaχpɨnɨŋ/ (from your child)
Dative / lative	/taŋamnu/ (to my child)	/taŋaχpɨnu/ (to your child)
Locative	/taŋamni/ (at my child)	/taŋaχpɨni/ (at your child)
Equative (comparative)	/taŋamtɨn/ (like my child)	/taŋaχpɨtɨn/ (like your child)

It is just an excerpt for illustration: not all cases are shown, Sirenik language has more grammatical cases. The table illustrates also why Sirenik language is treated as agglutinative (rather than fusional).

There is no grammatical gender (or gender-like noun class system).

Case

Sireniki is an absolutive-ergative language.

Cases (listed using Меновщиков's numbering):

1. Absolutive
2. Relative case, playing the role of both genitive case and ergative case.
3. Ablative / Instrumental, used also in accusative structures.
4. Dative / lative
5. Locative
6. Vialis case, see also prosecutive case, and "motion via"
7. Equative (comparative)

To see why a single case can play such distinct roles at all, read morphosyntactic alignment, and also a short table about it.

Some finer grammatical functions are expressed using postpositions. Most of them are built as a combinations of cases

• lative or locative or ablative
• combined with relative (used as genitive)

in a similar way as we use expressions like "on top of" in English.

Verbal lexical categories

Also at verbs, the morphology is very rich. Suffixes can express grammatical moods of the verb (e.g. imperative, interrogative, optative), and also negation, tense, aspect, the person of subject and object. Some examples (far from being comprehensive):

Phonology	Meaning	Grammatical notes
		Person, number of		Mood	Others
		subject	object
/aʁaʁɨ-tɨqɨχ-tɨ-mkɨn/	I lead you	Singular 1st person	Singular 2nd person	Indicative
/aʁaʁɨ-ɕuk-ɨ-mɕi/	Let me lead you	Singular 1st person	Singular 2nd person	Imperative [14]
/nɨŋɨ-sɨɣɨŋ-sɨn/	Don't you see me?	Singular 2nd person	Singular 1st person	Interrogative	Negative polarity [15]

The rich set of morphemes makes it possible to build huge verbs whose meaning could be expressed (in most of widely known languages) as whole sentences (consisting of more words) . Sireniki — like the other Eskimo languages — has polysynthetic and incorporative features, in many forms, among others polypersonal agreement.

Grammatical categories

The polysynthetic and incorporative features mentioned above manifest themselves in most of the ways Sirenik language can express grammatical categories.

Transitivity

For background, see transitivity. (Remember also section #Ergative-absolutive.)

See also ^[16].

Polarity

Even the grammatical polarity can be expressed by adding a suffix to the verb.

An example for negative polarity: the negation form of the verb /aʁaʁ-/ (to go):

• /juɣ aʁaχ-tɨqɨχ-tɨ-χ/ (the man walks)
• /juɣ aʁaʁ-ɨ-tɨ-χ/ (the man does not walk) ^[15]

Aspect

Grammatical aspect:

• /aftalʁa-qɨstaχ-/ (to work slowly) and /aftalʁa-qɨstaχ-tɨqɨχ-tɨ-χ/ (he works slowly) ^[17], from /aftalʁa-/ (to work)

Modality

Also linguistic modality can be expressed by suffixes. Modal verbs like "want to", "wish to" etc. do not even exist ^[18]:

Suffix -jux- (to want to):

/aftalʁaχ-/ (to work)	/aftalʁaʁ-jux-/ (to want to work) [18]
/aftalʁaχ-tɨqɨχ-tɨ-ŋ/ (I work) [19]	/aftalʁaʁ-jux-tɨqɨχ-tɨ-ŋ/ (I want to work) [18]

The table illustrates also why Sirenik language is treated as agglutinative (rather than fusional).

Voice

Four grammatical voices are mentioned in ^[20]:

active

passive

confer -/ɕi/- that variant of Siberian Yupik which is spoken by Ungazigmit^[21]

middle (medial)

causative

/malikam aʁaχ-ɕaχ-tɨqɨχ-tɨ-ʁa kɨtuɣi qurŋi-nu/ (Malika makes Kitugi go to the reindeers) ^[20]

all of them are expressed by agglutination, thus, no separate words are required.

Participles

A distinction between two kinds of participles (adverbial participle and adjectival participle) makes sense in Sireniki (just like in Hungarian, see and for detailed description of these concepts; or in Russian, see and ).

Sireniki has many kinds of participles in both categories. In the followings, they will be listed, grouped by the relation between the “dependent action” and “main action” (or by other meanings beyond this, e.g. modality) — following the terminology of ^[4]. A sentence with a participle can be imagined as simulating a subordinating compound sentence where the action described in the dependent clause relates somehow to the action described in the main clause. In English, an adverbial clause may express reason, purpose, condition, succession etc., and a relative clause can express many meanings, too.

In an analogous way, in Sireniki Eskimo language, the “dependent action” (expressed by the adverbial participle in the sentence element called adverbial, or expressed by the adjectival participle in the sentence element called attribute) relates somehow to the “main action” (expressed by the verb in the sentence element called predicate), and the participles will be listed below grouped by this relation (or by other meanings beyond this, e.g. modality).

Adverbial participles

They can be translated into English e.g. by using an appropriate adverbial clause. There are many of them, with various meanings.

An interesting feature: they can have person and number. The person of the dependent action need not coincide with the that of the main action. An example (meant in the British English usage of “shall / should” in the 1^st person: here, conveying only conditional, but no necessity or morality):

“I” versus “we”

/mɨŋa iŋɨjaxtɨk-t͡ʃɨ-ʁɨjɨqɨɣɨ-ma, ajvɨʁaʁjuʁuχtɨki/

If I were a marksman, we should kill walrus

Another example (with a different adverbial participle):

“he/she” versus “they”

/ɨ̆ l̥tɨʁinɨq j̥an, upʃuχtɨqɨχtɨʁij/

when he/she sings, they keep frightening him/her

They will be discussed in more details below.

Reason, purpose or circumstance of action

An adverbial participle “explaining reason, purpose or circumstance of action” is expressed by suffix -/lɨ/- / -/ l̥ɨ/- (followed by appropriate person-number suffix). Examples ^[22]:

Persons	Sentence
	Adverbial participle	Verb
1st—1st	/jɨfkɨ-lɨ-ma	itχɨ-mɨ-t͡ʃɨ-ŋ/
	(I) having stood up	I went in
3rd—3rd	/jɨfkɨ-lɨ-mi	itχɨ-mɨ-tɨ-χ/
	(he/she) having stood up	he/she went in

Another example ^[23], with a somewhat different usage:

Adverbial participle	Verb
/nɨŋitu l̥ɨku	pɨjɨkɨŋa/
To examine him/her2 (another being)	he/she1 went

Dependent action ends just before main action begins

Using the adverbial participle -/ja/- / -/ɕa/-, the dependent action (expressed by the adverbial participle in the sentence element called adverbial) finishes just before the main action (expressed by the verb in the sentence element called predicate) begins ^[24].

Dependent action begins before main action, but they continue together till end

It can be expressed by suffix -/inɨq j̥a/- ^[24]. Examples:

/nukɨ l̥piɣt͡ʃɨʁaʁɨm aninɨq j̥ami qamt͡ʃɨni tiɣɨmɨra(x)/

the boy, going out [of the house], took his [own] sledge [with himself])

where

/nukɨ l̥piɣt͡ʃɨʁaʁɨm/

Phonology	Syntax	Semantics
/nuˈkɨ l̥piɣˈt͡ʃɨʁaχ/	noun	boy
-/ɨm/	case suffix	relative case

/aninɨq j̥ami/

Phonology	Syntax	Semantics
/an/-	root	go out
-/inɨq j̥a/-	the suffix of the adverbial participle	dependent action begins before main action, but they continue together till end
-/mi/	person-number suffix for adverbial participle in intransitive conjugation [26]	subject of singular 3rd person

/qamt͡ʃɨni/

Phonology	Syntax	Semantics
/ˈqamt͡ʃa/	noun	sled
-/ni/	possessive suffix for nouns	singular, 3rd person, self: “his/her own …”

/tiɣɨmɨra(x)/

Phonology	Syntax	Semantics
/tɨɣɨˈraχ/	verb	he/she took something
-/mɨ/- / -/ɨmɨ/-	tense suffix	past tense (not the “near past” one)

Another example:

/ɨ̆ l̥tɨʁinɨq j̥an, upʃuχtɨqɨχtɨʁij/

when he/she sings, they keep frightening him/her

Conditional

Dependent action is conditional: it does not takes place, although it would (either really, or provided that some — maybe irreal — conditions would hold. Confer also conditional sentence.

Sireniki Eskimo has several adverbial participles to express that ^[27]. We can distinguish them according to the concerned condition (conveyed by the dependent action): it may be

• either real (possible to take place in the future)
• or irreal (it would take place only if some other irreal condition would hold)

= Real

=

It is expressed with suffix -/qɨɣɨ/- / -/kɨɣɨ/-, let us see e.g. a paradigm beginning with /aʁa-qɨɣɨ-ma/ (if I get off / depart); /aʁa-qɨɣɨ-pi/ (if you get off / depart):

		Number
		Singular	Plural
Person	1st	/aʁa-qɨɣɨ-ma/	/aʁa-qɨɣɨ-mta/
	2nd	/aʁa-qɨɣɨ-pi/	/aʁa-qɨɣɨ-pɨɕi/
	3rd	/aʁa-qɨɣɨ-mi/	/aʁa-qɨɣɨ-mɨŋ/

= Irreal

=

Confer counterfactual conditional. Sireniki can compress it into an adverbial participle: it is expressed with suffix -/ɣɨjɨqɨɣɨ/- / -/majɨqɨɣɨ/-.

The dependent action is expressed with an adverbial participle. The main action is conveyed by the verb. If also the main action is conditional (a typical usage), than it can be expressed with a verb of conditional mood. The persons need not coincide.

An example (meant in the British English usage of “shall / should” in the 1^st person: here, conveying only conditional, but no necessity or morality):

/mɨŋa iŋɨjaxtɨk-t͡ʃɨ-ʁɨjɨqɨɣɨ-ma, ajvɨʁaʁjuʁuχtɨki/

If I were a marksman, we should kill walrus

The example in details:

Dependent action:

/iŋɨjaxtɨk-t͡ʃɨ-ʁɨjɨqɨɣɨ-ma/ (if I were a marksman)

Phonology	Syntax	Semantics
/iŋˈɨːjaxta/	noun	marksman
-/t͡ʃɨ/-	suffix building a verb out of a noun	predicative form of noun
-/ɣɨjɨqɨɣɨ/- / -/majɨqɨɣɨ/-	the suffix of the adverbial participle	irreal condition
-/ma/	person-number suffix for adverbial participles in the intransitive conjugation	subject 1st person

Adjectival participles

There are more kinds of them.

• /imtugnu aʁaqt͡ʃɨχ qɨmɨ l̥ɨʁaχ utɨχt͡ʃɨmɨt͡ʃɨχ/ (The sledge [that went to Imtuk] returned)
• /juɣ qavɨ l̥ɨʁɨχ nɨŋɨsɨmɨrɨqa/ (I saw [perceived] a sleeping man)

They can be used not only in attributive role (as in the above examples), but also in predicative role ^[28]:

• /juɣ qavɨ l̥ɨʁɨχ/ (The man is sleeping)

Modality

Adjectival participle -/kajux/ / -/qajux/ conveys a meaning related rather to modality (than to the relation of dependent action and main action). It conveys meaning “able to” ^[29].

• /taŋaʁaχ pijɨkajux pijɨxtɨqɨχtɨχ  l̥mɨnɨŋ/ (A child who is able to walk moves around spontaneously)

Syntax

Ergative-absolutive

Sireniki is (just like many Eskimo languages) an ergative-absolutive language. For English-language materials treating this feature of Sireniki, see Vakhtin's book ^[2], or see online a paper treating a relative Eskimo language ^[30].

Usage of third person suffixes

Although the below examples are taken from Inuit Eskimo languages (Kalaallisut), but e.g. Sireniki's distinguishing between two kinds of 3^rd person suffixes can be concerned, too (remember section #Person above: there is a distinct reflexive (“own”-like) and an “another person”-like 3^rd person suffix).

Topic-comment

For a detailed theoretical treatment concerning the notions of topic (and anaphora, and binding), with Eskimo-related examples, see online Maria Bittner's works, especially ^[31].

Obviation

For a treatment of obviation in (among others) Eskimo languages, see online ^[32] and in more details (also online) ^[33] from the same authors.

Word order

See also ^[16].

External links

• Г.А. Меновщиков: Сиреникских эскимосов язык is a summary article. It can be read among other articles, collected under name Языки мира — Палеоазиатские языки (Languages of the world — Paleoasian languages).
• Linguist List's description about Nikolai Vakhtin's book: The Old Sirinek Language: Texts, Lexicon, Grammatical Notes
• Endangered Languages in Northeast Siberia: Siberian Yupik and other Languages of Chukotka by Nikolai Vakhtin

References

• Menovshchikov, G.A.: Language of Sirenik Eskimos. Phonetics, morphology, texts and vocabulary. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow • Leningrad, 1964. Original data: Г.А. Меновщиков: Язык сиреникских эскимосов. Фонетика, очерк морфологии, тексты и словарь. Академия Наук СССР. Институт языкознания. Москва • Ленинград, 1964
• Menovshchikov, G.A.: Grammar of the language of Asian Eskimos. Vol. I. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Moscow • Leningrad, 1962. Original data: Г.А. Меновщиков: Грамматиκа языка азиатских эскимосов. Часть первая. Академия Наук СССР. Москва • Ленинград, 1962.
• Rubcova, E. S. (1954). Materials on the Language and Folklore of the Eskimos (Vol. I, Chaplino Dialect). Moscow • Leningrad: Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Original data: Рубцова, Е. С. (1954). Материалы по языку и фольклору эскимосов (чаплинский диалект). Москва • Ленинград: Академия Наук СССР.

Notes

See also

• Siberian Yupik
• Eskimo
• Ergative-absolutive language
• Transitive verb
• Intransitive verb
• Polysynthetic language
• Incorporation (linguistics)
• Language death

Adjectival participle Adverbial participle Eskimo

Inuit List of extinct languages of Asia Participle

Shamanism Shamanism among Eskimo peoples Siberian Yupik

Siberian Yupik language Transitivity (grammatical category)