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32-672: The Rat Islands ( Aleut : Qax̂um tanangis ,) are a group of American volcanic islands in the Aleutian Islands in southwestern Alaska , between Buldir Island and the Near Islands group to its west, and Amchitka Pass and the Andreanof Islands group to its east. The islands in the group are, from west to east, Kiska , Little Kiska , Segula , Hawadax or Kryssei, Khvostof , Davidof , Little Sitkin , Amchitka , and Semisopochnoi . The total land area of

64-432: A uvular , /i/ is lowered to [e] , /a/ is backed to [ɑ] , and /u/ is lowered to [o] . In contact with a coronal , /a/ is raised to [e] or [ɛ] , and /u/ is fronted to [ʉ] . The mid-vowels [ɔ] and [ɛ] occur only in family names like Nevzorof and very recently introduced Russian loanwords. (C)(C)V(V) ± {C(C)(C)V(V)} ± C An Aleut word may contain one to about a dozen syllables, all syllables with

96-491: A government-funded eradication program, Rat Island is believed to be rat-free; it was renamed Hawadax Island in 2012. However, a post-operation assessment found that many of the island's local bird populations were negatively impacted—there was a far higher-than-expected nontarget mortality. An internal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement investigation revealed that several laws may have been violated. The Rat Islands are earthquake-prone as they are located on

128-709: A group of American islands in the Aleutian Islands in southwestern Alaska , between the Russian Commander Islands to the west and the Rat Islands to the east. The largest of the Near Islands are Attu and Agattu , which shelter a few rocks in the channel between them. The other important islands are the Semichi Islands to their northeast, notable among which are Alaid , Nizki and Shemya . About 20 miles (30 km) to

160-470: A laminal articulation. The voiced dental fricative is pronounced interdentally. The pronunciation of the sibilant /s/ varies from an alveolar articulation to a retracted articulation like a palato-alveolar consonant. There is no contrast between / s / and ʃ in Aleut. Many Aleut speakers experience difficulties with this distinction while learning English. Aleut has a basic three-vowel system including

192-523: A major earthquake with a moment magnitude of 7.7 struck the Aleutian arc, with an epicenter west of Attu. The earthquake produced a measurable tsunami that was detected at tide gauges across the Pacific ocean; a tide gauge located at Shemya, Alaska measured a tsunami height of 10 cm (3.9 in). The islands were named Near Islands by Russian explorers in the 18th century because they were

224-524: A period of cultural affinity with southeastern Alaska and the Pacific Northwest Coast, which may explain linguistic features that Aleut shares with neighboring non-Eskimo languages, such as rules of plural formation. Due to colonization by Russian colonizers and traders in the 18th and 19th centuries, Aleut has a large portion of Russian loanwords. However, they do not affect the basic vocabulary and thus do not suggest undue influence on

256-480: A vocalic nucleus. In Atkan and Attuan, there is a word-final CC due to apocopation . There also exist word initial CCC in loanwords. A word may begin or end in a vowel, both short and long, with few exceptions. Due to apocopation, short /u/ is not found in the final position. The same is true for short /i/ , except in some obsolete suffixes, such as -chi 'your' (pl.) which is realized as -chin and -chix in modern Eastern and Atkan Aleut. Vowels within

288-487: A wider variety of stress patterns. Stress may be attracted to another syllable by a long vowel or relatively sonorant consonant, or by a closed syllable. It is possible the stress can be determined by rhythmic factors so that one word will have different stress in different contexts, such as áĝadax̂ compared to àĝádax̂ , both meaning 'arrow'. Near Islands The Near Islands or Sasignan Islands ( Aleut : Sasignan tanangin , Russian : Ближние острова ) are

320-532: A word are separated by at least one consonant. All single consonants can appear in an intervocalic position, with the following exceptions: Words begin with any consonant except / θ / and preaspirated consonants (with the exception of the preaspirated / ŋ̥ / in Atkan Aleut). Only in loanwords do / v / , / z / , and the borrowed consonants ( p, b, f, d, g, ɹ / ɾ ) appear word-initially. The word-initial CC can take many forms, with various restrictions on

352-425: Is indeterminate and often difficult to define. Stress varies based on the relation to the beginning or end of the word form, the length of the vowels, the sonority of the consonants, open- or closeness of the syllables, or the number of syllables in sentential rhythm and intonation. Stress affects the length of both vowels and consonants. Stress underlies the distinctive syncopation characteristics of Eastern Aleut. In

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384-426: Is pronounced voiced or devoiced. Voiceless approximants and devoiced nasals are preaspirated . The preaspiration of approximants causes very little friction and may pronounced more as a breathy voice. The preaspiration of devoiced nasals starts with a voiceless airstream through the nose and may end voiced before a vowel. The preaspiration feature is represented orthographically with an ⟨h⟩ preceding

416-609: Is rare, but attested, such as hux̂xix 'rain pants', aliĝngix̂ 'wolf', asliming 'fit for me', iistalix 'to say; to tell; to call'. In CCC clusters, the middle consonant is either / t / , / tʃ / , / s / . For example, taxtxix̂ 'pulse', huxsx̂ilix 'to wrap up', chamchxix̂ 'short fishline'. The most common single consonants to appear word-final are / x / , / χ / , / m / , / n / , / ŋ / , and / j / . Through apocopation, word-final single consonants / l / and / s / occur, and word-final consonant clusters ending with / t / or / s / . The details of

448-962: The Alaska Peninsula (in Aleut Alaxsxa , the origin of the state name Alaska). Aleut is the sole language in the Aleut branch of the Eskimo–Aleut language family . The Aleut language consists of three dialects , including Unalaska (Eastern Aleut), Atka / Atkan (Atka Aleut), and Attu / Attuan (Western Aleut, now extinct). Various sources estimate there are fewer than 100 to 150 remaining active Aleut speakers. Because of this, Eastern and Atkan Aleut are classified as "critically endangered and extinct" and have an Expanded Graded Intergenerational Disruption Scale (EGIDS) rating of 7. The task of revitalizing Aleut has largely been left to local government and community organizations. The overwhelming majority of schools in

480-477: The Eastern Aleutian Islands as early as 4,000 years ago, followed by a gradual expansion westward over the next 1,500 years to the Near Islands . Another westward expansion may have occurred about 1,000 years ago, which may explain the lack of obvious diversification among the Aleut dialects, with Eastern Aleut features having spread westward. This second westward expansion is characterized as

512-785: The Rat Islands is 360.849 sq mi (934.594 km). None of the islands are inhabited at present, but Amchitka Island was an Aleut territory until the end of the eighteenth century. The name Rat Islands is the English translation of the name given to the islands by Captain Fyodor Petrovich Litke in 1827 when he visited the Aleutian Islands on a voyage around the world. The islands are named so because rats were accidentally introduced to Hawadax Island (formerly known as Rat Island) in about 1780. As of 2009, after

544-515: The boundary of the Pacific and North American tectonic plates. The 1965 Rat Islands earthquake was one of the largest in recorded history with a magnitude of 8.7. [REDACTED] Media related to Rat Islands at Wikimedia Commons Aleut language Aleut ( / ˈ æ l i uː t / AL -ee-oot ) or Unangam Tunuu is the language spoken by the Aleut living in the Aleutian Islands , Pribilof Islands , Commander Islands , and

576-574: The death of the last native speaker in 2022, it became extinct. All dialects show lexical influence from Russian ; Copper Island Aleut has also adopted many Russian inflectional endings. The largest number of Russian loanwords can be seen in the Bering Aleut. The modern practical Aleut orthography was designed in 1972 for the Alaskan school system's bilingual program: The historic Aleut ( Cyrillic ) alphabet found in both Alaska and Russia has

608-437: The dialects of Atka and Bering Island . Attuan was a distinct dialect showing influence from both Atkan and Eastern Aleut. Copper Island Aleut (also called Medny Aleut ) was a Russian-Attuan mixed language ( Copper Island ( Russian : Медный , Medny , Mednyj ) having been settled by Attuans). Despite the name, after 1969 Copper Island Aleut was spoken only on Bering Island, as Copper Islanders were evacuated there. After

640-449: The distribution of consonants: Intervocalic CC can occur in normal structure or as the result of syncopation. In CC clusters of two voiced continuants, there is often a short transitional vowel. For example, qilĝix̂ 'umbilical cord' is pronounced [-l ĝ-] similar to qiliĝi-n 'brain'. Almost all possible combinations of coronal and postlingual consonants are attested. The combination of two postlingual or two coronal consonants

672-471: The east-southeast from Shemya are small rocky reefs known as the Ingenstrem Rocks. The total land area of all of the Near Islands is 1,143.785 km (441.618 sq mi), and their total population was 47 persons as of the 2000 census . The only populated island is Shemya; the U.S. Coast Guard station on Attu closed in 2010 and all inhabitants left the island later that year. On July 17, 2017,

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704-544: The extensive syncopation characteristic of the Eastern Aleut dialect are described below. In the examples, the syncopated vowel will be shown in parentheses. A word medial short vowel may be syncopated between single consonants, except after an initial open short syllable and/or before a final open short syllable. For example, ìx̂am(a)nákux̂ 'it is good' and alqut(a)maan 'what for?'. The syncopation often creates consonant clusters beyond those prescribed by

736-528: The following discussion, the acute accent (á) indicates the stronger stress and the grave accent (à) indicates the weaker. In Eastern Aleut, stronger stress tends to fall on the penultimate syllable if it is short (has a short vowel), or on the last syllable if it is long (has a long vowel). The weaker stress commonly falls on the first syllable. For example, úlax̂ 'house', tùnúnax̂ 'talked', tùnulákan 'without talking', ìnaqáam 'he himself'. Eastern Aleut words with more than two syllables exhibit

768-541: The general rules of Aleut phonotactics. The resulting clusters include: In some frequently encountered syncopated forms, which otherwise result in irregular three consonant clusters, the middle uvular fricative is deleted along with the preceding vowel. For example, (h)iis(ax̂)talix 'saying' and (h)iil(ax̂)talix 'being said'. At slower speeds of speech, the syncopation may not be realized. Compare txin saakutikux̂txin 'you are getting skinny' beside ting saak(u)tikuqing 'I am getting skinny'. Aleut stress

800-446: The given sound. For example, a devoiced, preaspirated labial nasal would be written ⟨hm⟩ . Voiced approximants and nasals may be partly devoiced in contact with a voiceless consonant and at the end of a word. The voiceless glottal approximant / h / functions as an initial aspiration before a vowel. In Atkan and Attuan, the prevocalic / h / aspiration contrasts with an audible but not written glottal stop initiation of

832-466: The high front /i/ , low /a/ , and high back /u/ . Aleut vowels contrast with their long counterparts /iː/ , /aː/ , and /uː/ . Notably, Aleut /u/ is pronounced slightly lower than /i/ in the vowel space. The long vowel /aː/ is pronounced retracted in the vowel space creating a significant distinction relative to the vowel length of /a/ . The two high vowels are pronounced with the same vowel quality regardless of vowel length. In contact with

864-545: The historically Aleut-speaking regions lack any language/culture courses in their curriculum, and those that do fail to produce fluent or even proficient speakers. The Eskimo and Aleut peoples were part of a migration from Asia across Beringia , the Bering land bridge between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago. During this period, the Proto-Eskimo-Aleut language was spoken, which broke up around 2000 BC. Differentiation of

896-666: The language. In March 2021, the last native speaker of the Bering dialect, Vera Timoshenko, died aged 93 in Nikolskoye , Bering Island , Kamchatka. Within the Eastern group are the dialects of the Alaskan Peninsula, Unalaska , Belkofski , Akutan , the Pribilof Islands , Kashega and Nikolski . The Pribilof dialect has more living speakers than any other dialect of Aleut. The Atkan grouping comprises

928-675: The letter ԟ (Aleut Ka) for the voiceless uvular plosive /q/ in modern Aleut Cyrillic publications. The modern Aleut orthography (for Bering dialect): The consonant phonemes of the various Aleut dialects are represented below. Each cell indicates the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) representation of the phoneme; consonants existing only in loanwords are in parentheses. Some phonemes are unique to specific dialects of Aleut. The palato-alveolar affricate / tʃ / and uvular stop / q / are pronounced with strong aspiration. Attuan labial fricative / v /

960-489: The standard pre-1918 Russian orthography as its basis, although a number of Russian letters were used only in loanwords. In addition, the extended Cyrillic letters г̑ (г with inverted breve), ҟ, ҥ, ў, х̑ (х with inverted breve) were used to represent distinctly Aleut sounds. A total of 24+ letters were used to represent distinctly Aleut words, including 6 vowels (а, и, й, у, ю, я) and 16 consonants (г, г̑, д, з, к, ԟ, л, м, н, ҥ, с, т, ў, х, х̑, ч). The letter ӄ has replaced

992-525: The two branches is thought to have happened in Alaska because of the linguistic diversity found in the Eskimo languages of Alaska relative to the entire geographic area where Eskimo languages are spoken (eastward through Canada to Greenland). After the split between the two branches, their development is thought to have occurred in relative isolation. Evidence suggests a culture associated with Aleut speakers on

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1024-402: The vowel. Compare halal ('to turn the head') and alal ('to need'). This contrast has been lost in Eastern Aleut. Modern Eastern Aleut has a much simpler consonant inventory because the voice contrasts among nasals, sibilants and approximants have been lost. Consonants listed in the dental column have varied places of articulation. The stop, nasal, and lateral dentals commonly have

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