Sirenik Yupik, Sireniki Yupik (also Old Sirenik or Vuteen), Sirenik, or Sirenikskiy is an extinct Eskimo–Aleut language. It was spoken in and around the village of Sireniki (Сиреники) in Chukotka Peninsula, Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Russia. The language shift has been a long process, ending in total language death. In January 1997, the last native speaker of the language, a woman named Vyjye (Valentina Wye) (), died. Ever since that point, the language has been extinct; nowadays, all Sirenik Eskimos speak Siberian Yupik or Russian.
Сиӷы́ных is the endonym for the eponymous settlement of Sireniki. The endonym for the people itself is сиӷы́ныгмы̄́ӷий "Sirenikites"; the singular form is сиӷы́ныгмы̄́ӷа ).
This article is based on Menovschikov (1964), with cited examples transliterated from Cyrillic transcription to the International Phonetic Alphabet.
Classification
Genealogical
External
Some argue that the Sirenik language is a remnant of a third group of Eskimo languages, in addition to Yupik and Inuit groups (see a visual representation by tree and an argumentation based on comparative linguistics). In fact, the exact genealogical classification of Sireniki language is not settled yet, and some others regard it belonging to the Yupik branch.
Many words are formed from entirely different roots to those in Siberian Yupik. Also, the grammar has several peculiarities compared to other Eskimo languages, and even compared to Aleut. For example, dual number is not known in Sireniki Eskimo, while most Eskimo–Aleut languages have dual, including even its neighboring Siberian Yupik relatives. The peculiarities amounted to mutual unintelligibility with even its nearest language relatives. This forced Sirenik Eskimos to use Chukchi as a lingua franca when speaking with neighboring Eskimo peoples. Thus, any external contacts required using a different language for Sireniki Eskimos: they either resorted to use of lingua franca, or used Siberian Yupik languages (being definitely a mutually unintelligible, different language for them, not just a dialect of their own). This difference from all their language relatives may be the result of a supposed long isolation from other Eskimo groups: Sireniki Eskimos may have been in contact only with speakers of unrelated languages for many centuries in the past, influenced especially by non-relative Chukchi.
Internal
Although the number of its speakers was very few even at the end of the nineteenth century, the language had at least two dialects in the past.
Typological
As for its morphological typology, it has polysynthetic and incorporative features (just like the other Eskimo languages).
Phonology
Consonants
Some consonants can be palatalized, e.g.: .
Vowels
Morphology
Like all 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.
Person
Paradigms can make a distinction in 3rd 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 a 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.