Essay On The Grammar Of The Yukaghir Language

[AKNALSN. Y. Ac.\I). SCI., Vol. XVI, No. 5, Part 11, pp. 07-152, March 18, 19oj.l ESSAY ON T H E GRAMMAR OF THE YUKAGHIR LANGUAGE. JJ’ALDENAR JOCHELSON. CONTENTS. I. 2. ............................................ PreCnce ................. Phonology. ............................................................................ The Pnrts of Speech. .................... ........................... PACE. * 97 100 ‘03 .............................................. . 103 ........................................................ I12 ............................... 113 6. The Pronoun. ....................................................... ............116 ................................................................. I ‘9 8. The Gerund or Verbal Adrerh. ...................................................... ‘34 9. The Adverb .................................. ........................... I35 10. The Post-positions. ..................................................................... 137 I I . Concluding Remarks. ................................................................ 138 12. Appendix. ........................................ ............................... 141 A tale of what the Ancient Yukaghir did with their dead shnmans..... 141 A free translation of the tent .................................................. I43 A grnmmntical analysis ofthe text ............................................. 144 PREFACE. I took up the study of the two dialects of the Yulcaghir language in 1895-97 during my participation in the Yakut Expedition, fitted out by the Russian Imperial Geographical Society, and continued it on the North Pacific Expedition (from rgoo to I~OZ),provided for by Mr. Morris K. Jesup, President of the American Museum of Natural History in New York. My work on the Jcsup North Pacific Expedition was part of a general systematic investigation of the tribes inhabiting the coast of the North Pacific Ocean. The full results of these studies will be published later on in the Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History. 98 JOCH ELSOX All that was previously known of the Yukagliir language consisted of records of a few hundred words and sentences collected incidentally by various travelers and Russian officials, particularly by Baron v. Maydell (1870), and worked up by the late Professor A. Schieher in three articles which-appeared in the publicatiotis of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg.’ Owing to the meagreness of the linguistic material, the conclusions of Professor Schiefner could not be very far reaching. Besides, incorrect records and inexact translations of phrases collected by incidental explorers led to wrong conclusions. However, it can be inferred, even from these articles, that the Yukaghir language stands isolated from the Siberian fanguages of the so-called Ural-Altaic group ; and for that reason it has attracted the attention of linguists. Since the time of Baron v. Maydell’s travels ( I 868-70), the Yukaghir language has been considered extinct, for the only . reason that Baron v.“hT3~dclI collected his “ Sprachproben ” records among the Rushnized Yukaghir, on the Anadyr River, from an old woman who still remembered her own language to a certain extent.