CC BY
15
DOI 10.30842/alp2306573715316
LANGUAGES AND IDENTITIES IN THE BERING STRAIT AREA IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20th CENTURY
Evgeny V. Golovko
Institute for Linguistic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences;
European University at St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg evggolovko@yandex.ru
Abstract. Despite an international border that separates Chukot-ka and Alaska, native people living on both sides of the Bering Strait have always been in close interaction. If one only applies most general ethnic terms used in the academic discourse, the Chukchi and the Eskimo were involved in these cross-border contacts. The latter included the Naukan Eskimo (Yupik language group) and several communities speaking Inupiaq dialects. The Chukchi, who speak a variety of idioms that are very close to each other, represent two groups that are different in their cultural practices — coastal Chukchi (sea-mammal hunters, very close to the Eskimos in their subsistence practices) and reindeer herders (living inland). For the native people themselves these ethnic labels were meaningless: they have always had their own ideas about linguistic and cultural affinity. These 'folk' ideas, as well as the connection between languages and identities, are in the focus of the present research. The interviews collected in coastal villages demonstrate that native people used different strategies in the course of interaction. Some visitors had command of three languages, some others were bilingual. Bilingualism was, in most cases, passive — speakers of two different languages used their own language while speaking to each other. The existence of contact-induced languages based on Chukchi and, perhaps, Eskimo cannot be rejected either. An important role in communication was played by nautical jargon (which was, on the Chukotkan side, often taken as "English"). The material for research was collected during interviews in the framework of a four-year project funded by U.S. National Park Service (Alaska Region) in the mid-1990s. The research team consisted of two people, an anthropologist and a linguist — Peter Schweitzer from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the author of this article.
Acta Linguistica Petropolitana. 2019. Vol. 15.3. P. 391-424
Keywords: language contacts, culture contacts, interethnic communication, cross-border communication, language and identity, mul-tilingualism, bilingualism, 'folk' linguistics, language ideologies, Eskimo languages, Chukchi language, Inupiaq languages, Yupik languages, nautical jargon, pidgin.
Языки и идентичности в районе Берингова пролива в первой половине ХХ века
Е. В. Головко
Институт лингвистических исследований РАН; Европейский университет в Санкт-Петербурге, Санкт-Петербург evggolovko@yandex.ru
Аннотация. Несмотря на государственную границу, разделяющую Чукотку и Аляску, коренные народы, живущие на побережье, всегда активно контактировали между собой. Если использовать только самые общие этнические и культурные «ярлыки», принятые в академическом дискурсе, можно говорить о контактах между чукчами и эскимосами; последние представлены в этом регионе науканскими эскимосами (языковая группа юпик) и несколькими общностями, говорящими на диалектах группы ину-пиак. Чукчи, говорящие на нескольких очень близких друг другу диалектах (говорах), разделяются на две отличающиеся друг от друга в культурном отношении группы — на прибрежных и оленных. Для самих этих народов упомянутые выше этнические и лингвистические «ярлыки» не имели смысла: у них всегда были свои представления как о культурной, так и о языковой близости. Эти представления, а также связь используемых в ходе контактов языков с самоидентификацией конкретных этнических групп находятся в центре исследовательского внимания. В ходе интервью с жителями различных поселков по обе стороны Берингова пролива выяснилось, что жители прибрежных поселков использовали в ходе контактов различные коммуникативные стратегии. Некоторые из контактировавших знали в той или иной степени три языка. Значительная часть населения была двуязычной, при этом чаще всего двуязычие было пассивным — представители разных групп, общаясь друг с другом, использовали каждый свой язык. В статье также высказывается предположение о существовании в регионе
контакных языков, возникших на базе чукотского и, возможно, эскимосского. Указывается на важность так называемого морского жаргона (пиджина) и английского языка. Настоящая публикация основывается на полевой работе, проводившейся в середине 90-х гг. ХХ в. в рамках четырехлетнего проекта, поддержанного Службой национальных парков США. Вместе с автором статьи вторым участником проекта был Петер Швайтцер, антрополог, работавший в то время в Университете Аляски (г. Фербенкс).
Ключевые слова: языковые контакты, культурные контакты, межэтническая коммуникация, трансграничная коммуникация, язык и самоидентификация, многоязычие, двуязычие, «народная» лингвистика, языковые идеологии, эскимосские языки, чукотский язык, инупиакские языки, юпикские языки, морской жаргон, пиджин.
1. Introduction
Despite an international border that cuts across the Bering Strait region, human and non-human life has been in constant interaction across the narrow body of water that separates the Eurasian and North American continents. In order to document and analyze the extent of cultural and social exchange that has been achieved by the native residents of the area in countless generations, but with a stress on the first half of the 20th century (1898-1948), the joint project "Traveling between Continents" was launched in the 1990s and funded by the US National Park Service, Alaska Region. The research team consisted of two people, an anthropologist and a linguist — Peter Schweitzer from the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the author of this article. We conducted fieldwork both on the Russian side of the Bering Strait, and in Alaskan Bering Strait communities.
The area under consideration — the Bering Strait region — is historically heterogeneous. If one only counts broad ethnic and linguistic categories, Chukchi, Naukan Yupik (NY), and Inupiaq (the latter two are also referred to as Eskimo) have to be considered. However, up to, at least, the nineteenth century, these ethnic categories were meaningless to the peoples themselves. Instead, smaller units — societies, consisting most often of one larger settlement and several smaller ones — were the basis of self-identification.
Map. Bering Strait area (map courtesy James Simon)
The focus of the study was on the communities most active in transcontinental contacts during the first half of the 20th century (see the map): Naukan, Big Diomede, and Uelen on the Russian side of the Bering Strait, Little Diomede, King Island, and Nome on the American side. The Eskimo communities of Naukan and Big Diomede are now both abandoned and their former residents are dispersed all over Chukotka Peninsula. All the communities on the Alaskan side of the Bering Strait were and are inhabited by Inupiat and three of them (Little Diomede, Wales, and Nome) are still in existence, while the King Islanders were involuntarily relocated, mostly to Nome.
The major method utilized for collecting oral histories on intereth-nic contacts in the Bering Strait area was structured interviews with open-ended questions. At the same time, we could not ignore published and unpublished folklore data which exhibited a large degree of inter-societal exchange of songs, stories, and personal names1. This short paper presents some interpretations of the collected oral histories related to the topic.
2. What Language to Speak While Visiting
In the Introduction, I made a brief account of Bering Strait languages and dialects as presented in modern scholarly literature. Before we discuss how people in the Bering Strait area managed to cope with a variety of languages and dialects while visiting, it seems essential to find out how various communities identify themselves as regards their linguistic characteristics. That is, in addition to a pure linguistic distribution of languages presented in the Introduction in terms of genetic affiliation, we would like to introduce another dimension, namely, the sociolinguis-tic one, which seems to be of crucial importance in the context of intercommunity communication.
Once this dimension is introduced, we find out that the relative unity of Inupiaq dialects fall apart and we encounter a highly diverse picture of sociolinguistic varieties. A striking illustration of mutual repulsion shows up through interviews telling about Little Diomede and Big Diomede idioms:
1 The latter issues are not considered below; see separate papers on these matters [Schweitzer, Golovko 1995; Schweitzer, Golovko 1997; Golovko, Schweitzer 2004; Golovko, Schweitzer 2007].
Big Diomede and Little Diomede have same language, but their wording, you know, long... We make the word short, and they make the word long over there. But it's same language, just a little bit different (Pat Omiak in Little Diomede, July 1994, taped).
There is difference between Big Diomede and Little Diomede dialects. Slight, slight difference, in their pronunciation mostly (Alvin Kayouktuk in Anchorage August 1994, taped).
Big Diomede dialect, mostly, I guess, that's understandable with us. Little bit different from Little Diomede, still you could understand (Harold Ahmasuk in Wales, August 1994, taped).
(...) They came [on visits] from Big Diomede too. Big Diomede is right here, Little Diomede is right here. They are close together long time ago, the old people talk the same language, but little bit different dialect. It's not far away, but we talk different little dialects. But we can understand them (Peter Oscar Ahkinga, August 1994, Little Diomede, taped).
But we still could understand people from Imaaqliq [Big Diomede] (Andrew Kunayak in Little Diomede, August 1994, taped).
Little Diomeders are persistent in stressing the unique character of their idioms. Definitely, Big Diomeders do not let down their former neighbors:
In Kotzebue I could hardly understand anything. In Shishmaref people talk very fast, I missed a lot. And on Little Diomede, the dialect is nearly the same as on Big Diomede. Lena Kanto [formerly the resident of Big Diomede] agreed with me. I think their pronunciation is slightly different (Pavel Tulun, 1996, Lavrentiya, taped).
The latter interview was recorded from Pavel Tulun, born in Nau-kan in 1955, who learned the language from his parents, former Big Diomede residents; he also mentions another Inupiaq speaker, Yelena Kanto who resided in Lavrentiya at that time. These last speakers of Inupiaq in Chukotka do not hesitate to mark their own language variety as unique.
Interestingly, speakers of other Inupiaq idioms (e.g., Wales, Shishmaref, Teller) also make distinctions between the two idioms spoken on the two islands. When our consultants from Alaskan coastal villages
spoke about Siberian transit visits and recalled names of the Naukan people who had been able to speak Inupiaq, they never missed an opportunity to specify which variety of Inupiaq was spoken by a particular Naukan individual. For example, Harold Ahmasuk remembers very clearly that, over half a century ago, during the last Siberian visit,
Noomila [Naukan man] spoke Big Diomede language. They could not understand here, see? And the rest of them were speaking the Yupik over there, so, he [Noomila] was translator for the Yupiks into Big Diomede language (Harold Ahmasuk in Wales, August 1994, taped).
The former Naukan resident Izabella Avtonova could not speak In-upiaq, but she did not hesitate to distinguish between the idioms (not the people):
We did not distinguish between Big Diomede and Little Diomede. There was no distinction. Only the dialects were different. But many people could speak Little Diomede dialect. Even I know some words, I have remembered them since I was a girl (Izabella Avton-ova in Lorino, July 1993, taped).
It seems that the three miles watershed between the two Diomede Islands is to be found also in linguistic map. There is no doubt that other Inupiaq dialects, given their more distant geographical position, will show even more differences. We will present here only one example. Vincent Okpealuk, who lived the first twelve years of his life on Little Diomede before he moved to Wales, feels these contrastive distinctions very clearly:
Certain terms in Little Diomede and Wales dialects are different. King Island is somewhat different too (Vincent Okpealuk in Wales, August 1994, taped).
Of course, the distinctions within the Inupiaq dialectal chain, especially between Big Diomede and Little Diomede idioms, are hardly perceivable, and, probably, show themselves in intonation, rhythm, and speed, i.e., prosodic features that are not phonologically relevant in In-upiaq. From the position of language structure, both idioms (Big Dio-mede and Little Diomede) should be certainly treated as one (sub)dialect. Still, the emphasis on these tiny distinctions, placed in all the interviews quoted above, is of considerable significance from a sociolinguistic
perspective. The members of different communities admit their relat-edness ("We could understand them"), but, at the same time, strive for additional identity markers distinguishing members from non-members on the basis of the language they speak (for more facts underlying the division between Eskimo nations, see the prolific work [Burch 1998]). All individual evaluations of the 'distance' between different idioms can be interpreted within a certain average standard for each community. However, among these individual evaluations, some extreme examples can be found. An impressive instance of such individual socio-linguistic perception comes from the memories of one old Shishmaref lady, who stated that the language of Big Diomede people, unlike those of Little Diomede, was completely incomprehensible. Her memory is obviously prompted by later political events, and sociolinguistic and political boundaries make one and the same projection on her personal language map.
As was discussed in the Introduction, Naukan Yupik (NY), with only seventy speakers left, does not show any language variation at all. Unfortunately, for the time being, the only variation to be taken into account is to what extent this language approaches the state of language death in each individual case of seventy speakers.
The Chukchi language, perhaps even to a greater extent than Inupiaq, shows a vast dialectal diversification. Again, when speaking of language structure, these (sub)dialectal distinctions should not be overestimated. Vladimir Bogoras had a reason for saying that "the differences between the idioms of reindeer and maritime Chukchis are very inconsiderable" [Bogoras 1900: III]. However, in terms of communal identity, a lot of language distinctions are found even within coastal Chukchi communities. All our informants from the Chukchi coastal villages of Inchoun, Uelen, and Lorino gave a detailed description regarding particular features of the idioms of all coastal villages (structurally, it is, of course, one dialect). The distinctions were formulated in the following terms: their (i.e., of the other community) dialect is "sharper", or "softer"; "they speak so fast that they do not pronounce word endings"; "they speak as if they sing", or "as if they have gravel in their mouths", "it takes me five days to get used to their pronunciation", "sometimes you have to guess", etc. (Zinaida Evtug'e in Anadyr'; Valeriy and Larisa Vuk-vurakhtyrgen in Anadyr'; Lev Tegrenkeut in Inchoun; Viktor Raikhlin in Lavrentiya; Mikhail Zelenskiy in Lavrentiya). Clearly, all members of various Chukchi communities, exactly in the same way as Inupiaq
people, fix certain language markers (again, mostly prosodic) to distinguish between 'us' and 'them.'
The emphasis on particular linguistic traits do not set up additional barriers for intercommunity communication, as this play up is only prompted by strive for communal identity. The distinctions discussed above have little to do with language structures as they are. Still, turning to structural characteristics and genetic affiliation, we should keep in mind that there are three different Native languages spoken in Bering Strait, which are considered mutually incomprehensible in linguistic analysis — Chukchi, NY, and Inupiaq. As was already mentioned in the Introduction, the latter two languages belong to the same language family. But as is often the case, related languages can be situated on one genetic 'tree', but on the 'branches' that are very far from each other. Thus, in the first half of this century, the Bering Strait area comprised several communities with different languages, and it is known that, at the same time, it was the arena for all kinds of international affairs. Reasonably effective communication is a condition for more or less effective interrelationships in any multilingual area, and Bering Strait is no exception. There are several reliable strategies to bridge the communication gap between groups speaking different languages. Bilingualism is the most common way to provide mutual understanding. The degree of bilingualism was not equal in all the study communities. It depended on the social and economic role of each community in the intercontinental network, as well as on a number of geographic, historical, and psychological factors. The highest level of bilingualism is found, not surprisingly, in the middle part of this intercontinental route, namely in Naukan and the two Diomede Islands, while the extreme points of the imaginary cross-continental bridge, Chukchi coastal villages and Inupiaq villages along Alaska coast, and King Island, hardly show any bilingualism at all.
Let us start with the Chukotkan side of the strait, in particular with the Chukchis, who are famous for their adherence to their native language. When the first Russians reached the lands occupied by Chukchis in the middle of the seventeenth century, Chukchis, who eagerly entered new trade relations with Russians, were still persistent in speaking their own language to their new partners; for more details and additional references see [de Reuse 1994: 296-297]. Moreover, Bogoras [1949: 29] points out that in the second half of the nineteenth century, there were "Russian Cossacks", along with some other neighboring ethnic groups, who spoke Chukchi. One of the neighboring groups, mentioned by Bogoras, were
Eskimos. The popular explanation of the fact that Chukchi — Eskimo bilingualism was required only of Eskimos, not of Chukchis, was Eskimos' dependence on Chukchi economy, not the other way around [Vdo-vin 1965: 55; Krupnik and Chlenov 1979: 26; Menovshchikov 1986: 63, 75; de Reuse 1994: 296]. This statement implies the reference to reindeer Chukchis, because coastal Chukchis did not differ from Eskimos in their subsistence practices. However, even if we take reindeer Chukchis, the above statement would hardly be justified. Moreover, if we seriously consider the economic matter, the situation was, more likely, the reverse [Bogoras 1904-09]. There is enough evidence from other areas, including the Alaskan side of the Bering Strait, to prove that coastal people could survive without herders; the reverse would be more than questionable. Still, it seems that there have been no reindeer Chukchi people in the past or in the present, who could speak NY (or Central Siberian Yupik in the Chaplino area). Very few exceptions found among the coastal Chukchis, speaking NY (only in Uelen) or even Inupiaq, can be explained by personal biographies (mostly intermarriage).
Valentina Bychkova (born 1930, in Uelen, August 1995, taped) finds such an example in her family:
They [Alaskans] came every summer together with Naukan people, in several boats. Naukantsy were interpreters — only their elders knew the language. My grandfather spoke Naukan language too, his mother was Eskimo.
Aleksandr Zhirintan (Lavrentiya, August 1995, untaped) recalls that, "Chinoy, a Chukchi man from Nunyamo, could speak Inupiaq."
The examples given above are rather exceptions from the widely accepted pattern. That pattern worked out even in Uelen, the village, which, among all coastal Chukchi villages, had the closest relations with Nau-kan. According to our Chukchi and Naukan informants, there were very few Chukchi men in Uelen who could understand some NY or could say a couple of most popular phrases in this language. And it is mostly our Uelen consultants that point out to some NY speakers among the Uelen Chukchis. Practically all Naukan consultants are very resolute as regards Chukchi bilingualism, including Uelen Chukchi:
Naukantsy spoke only Chukchi when talking to Chukchis. None of Chukchis could speak Naukanski (Olga Uyghak in Lavrentiya, August 1993, taped).
A popular explanation of this discrepancy by Naukan people would sound like the following:
My mother was Russian. She was a teacher. She comes from Kras-noyarskiy kray. She worked as a teacher in Lorino and Mechigmen for forty years. She spoke Chukchi very well, but she could not learn Eskimo, it is very difficult. (Valentina Sukhovaya in Lavrentiya, July 1995, untaped).
There seems to be two main reasons for this state of affairs. The first reason, pointed out by Bogoras [1949: 29], is a mere numerical superiority of Chukchis over Eskimos. It seems only natural that the population of the isolated village with only 400, at the most, people would learn the language of numerically dominating people, than the other way around. However, this explanation would not work in other cases of Chukchi contacts, for example in the case of the above-mentioned early contact with Russians. Another reason of Chukchi reluctance to learn any other language could be, more likely, of psychological nature. What is meant here is the feeling of superiority often found in pastoralist societies in many parts of the world in relation to the neighboring societies of hunters and gatherers, and, in the end, to all other, different, societies. This feeling of 'pastoralist superiority' can last through centuries, in case of Chukchis all the historic time. Coastal Chukchis, being in the favorable position of having the same language as reindeer herders, did not find it necessary to learn foreign languages either. Moreover, they are likely to have caught the "virus of superiority." Let us quote Albert Heinrich, who worked on Little Diomede as a teacher in 1945-1948 and witnessed the last "Siberian" visits before the closure of the border:
You could tell a Chukchi by the way he walked, like a chief: 'we are better'. The Chukchi, like Frenchmen, felt superior and did not learn a foreign language (Corvalis, Ore., December 1996, taped interview by Peter Schweitzer) .
This spontaneous observation of coastal Chukchis, whom Heinrich saw for the first time in his life, sounds reliable, given the fact that it was made by the person "from aside", with no personal involvement in Alaska — Siberia connections.
Seemingly, the coastal Chukchis had an excuse for their not learning foreign languages fixed in their folklore tradition. The following
is the story told by the Chukchi writer Valentina Veket (Uelen, August 1995, taped):
There lived an old man and an old woman here, in Uelen. Both were Chukchi. They were husband and wife. Once the old man was sitting on the shore and was working on a stick with his knife. He got up to go home, but, that time, he forgot to pick up all shavings from the ground. The sea took the shavings, and he said, "Let them drift to the other side. I guess there are no living beings there. And he even helped all the shavings get into the sea. Some time passed, one year, maybe two. He was working on the shore, on the spit. Again, he dropped shavings into the sea. The weather was beautiful. The sea was calm. And suddenly he saw some black spots out on the sea. He called his wife to come out and have a look. She did not believe him. And the spots were approaching. He said to his wife, "Guests are coming. It is a surprise. We have been living here many years and we have never seen anybody coming from the other side. Let us cook something for them. They must be tired. They have covered a big distance." When the skin boats came, they saw that those people wore short parkas with rich fur trim on their hides, and trousers with strings on them. They came up and started talking in a strange language. There were men and women and children and small babies among them. The guests brought many gifts. The old man and the old woman fed the guests. They talked in a strange language. After they had lived some time with them, the old man asked them who they were. They explained that they were those shavings, but they had turned into people. They said, "You wanted to have people on the other side, so that they visit you from time to time. So here we are." He asked, 'Why do you speak the language that I do not understand?" And they answered, "When you put us onto the water, the wind was very strong and took us away very quickly. And you forgot to tell us, 'Talk Chukchi." So we went there, but we did not know what language to speak. And while we were drifting to the other side, we heard the sea-gulls talking, the loons talking. We understood their language very well. So, it happened so that we learned from them and started talking their language. My mother told me that story."
Thus, many Naukan residents were bilingual, i.e., besides their mother tongue, they had a fairly good command of Chukchi. The Chukchis themselves give a high praise to them:
In old days many of Naukan people could speak Chukchi. At least a little bit. And some could speak very good Chukchi (Viktor Gu-valin in Inchoun, August 1995, taped).
First of all, this refers to adult men [Menovshchikov 1986: 75], who were most active in contacts both with coastal and reindeer Chukchi. The command of Chukchi by Naukan women, at least before the village was relocated in 1958, was, more likely, very much restricted. At least, the two oldest Naukan ladies, born in 1912 and 1914, whom we interviewed in the Chukchi villages of Lavrentiya and Uelen in 1993 and 1995 could not speak or understand Chukchi (nor Russian). However Ermen claims that these two cases were rather exceptional:
Most people in Naukan could speak Chukchi, all of the men and most part of women. In Uelen some Chukchis could speak Nau-kanski. I knew one old man, he could speak very good Naukanski (Uelen, August 1993, taped).
Among women in Naukan, there were very few Chukchis2, who married in, and for whom Chukchi was their mother tongue. But being incorporated in Naukan community, they had to switch to NY in their everyday life.
Due to its geographic position, Naukan occupied a special place in the intercontinental network. It had close contacts with various Chukchi communities, as well as with the Eskimo communities on the two Diomede Islands and around Cape Prince of Wales. The reasons for contacts between Nuvuqaghmiit (Naukan people) and Diomede Inupiat lay mostly in kin and personal relationships, trade being involved as well to some extent.
We have recorded a fairly large number of names of Naukan people who were able to speak Inupiaq. Of Naukan women, only those (very few) from Diomede Islands or Alaska married in Naukan, spoke Inupi-aq, which was their first (native) tongue. Again, it was mostly men that had command of Inupiaq. The number of such people was, by far, less than those speaking Chukchi. At the same time, all Inupiaq speakers in Naukan were, presumably, speakers of Chukchi, which makes them into a group of tri-lingual (NY — Chukchi — Inupiaq) speakers. Inupiaq,
2 In 1950, according to Anadyr' Archives, there were only seven Chukchis in Naukan again& 247 Eskimos.
which was spoken by Naukan people, is identified by modern Alaskan informants as "Big Diomede language" (in most cases) or "Little Diomede language". In the 1990s, among all the people of Naukan origin in Chu-kotka, none could speak any Inupiaq. However, there are three or four Inupiaq speakers (certainly, more or less disqualified, due to lack of practice), former Big Diomede residents or their offspring. All the former Big Diomeders and some of their offspring, who live in Chukotka today, are persistent in stressing their Big Diomede identity, in spite of their formal Naukan origin. Some of them claim they can speak Inupiaq, but, when asked to demonstrate, do it reluctantly, being afraid of disqualification. The "new contacts" (after 1990) twith "old relatives" give them an opportunity to restore self-confidence. Interestingly, after the resumption of contacts, some of most active modern Naukan travelers have already been able to pick up some Inupiaq (which is evaluated as "pretty good" by some Little Diomede and Nome residents). This fact can be interpreted as an attempt to regain (confirm) the special status of the community, which has always had intimate relationships with Alaska.
Inupiaq — NY bilingualism was also typical of Diomede Islands. Based on his interviews with the people of Little Diomede, Lawrence Kaplan claims that "Diomeders learned NY more often than the other way around" [Kaplan 1996]. Our work on both sides of the strait has convinced us that the number of Inupiaq speakers in Naukan and the number of NY speakers on Little Diomede were approximately equal.
The participant of the last 1947 travel to Nome via Little Diomede Ermen recalls:
Naukan elders could speak the language of the other side. Some Diomede people could speak Naukan language pretty well too. Especially their elders could speak very good Naukan Yupik (Uelen, 1993, tape 12, side B).
The equality of social status of these groups, as well as a similar psychological perception of their own role in the intercontinental network (major middlemen between the two sides of the strait) caused an approximately equal level of bilingualism. Intermarriage (including not very infrequent cases of spouse exchange, which presupposed a several months' stay on the other side of the strait) also made a certain contribution to bilingualism in Naukan and Diomede Islands. Intermarriage was, at all times, the most effective instrument to reach bilingualism. Here is some evidence from Naukan folklore:
A man from Nunaq [later assimilated by the Naukan community] and his female cousin fled from Nunaq to Keggte [the Naukanski name for Wales, but here it is probably used as a general term and refers to whole Alaska], because they were afraid of being killed by their brothers. At Keggte they met two Alaskan Eskimos, also a man and his female cousin who came there from Tikighaq [Point Hope] to gather plants. The Nunaq man married the Tikighaq woman, and the Tikighaq man married the Nunaq woman. Both couples had children. Some time later they decided to visit their brothers: they were not afraid of being killed any more, because they had already got children. When they went to their brothers, they found out that they were not going to kill them any more. Since that time they made peace. Sometimes their cousin visit them, sometimes the Nunaq people go. And that's why the Nunaq people understood Imaaqliq [Menovshchikov 1987, text 27:180-186; told by Ggulg-genga].
This folklore text, as is often the case with folklore sources3, leaves room for interpretation.
However simplistic the question of bilingualism might seem, there are certain aspects, for which satisfactory interpretations are still to be found. For example, it is rather difficult to imagine that Little Diomede Island, the closest to the Siberian side, was exclusively orientated to NY as the second native language. There is evidence that some of most active Diomede travelers (for example, Moses Milligrock) had connections only with Uelen, and did not visit Naukan for once. It would be natural to assume that, in this case, there would be more reason for such travelers to learn some Chukchi. Moses Milligrock (Little Diomede, August 1994, taped) told us that when he went to Uelen in old days, he did not have problems in communication. He claims that it was more difficult for him to understand people from Nuughaq (Naukan), and their language differed from that spoken in Uelen. Frieda Larsen (Nome, August 1994, taped) remembers very clearly that her mother (Wales resident), who was a frequent visitor to Saggtuq [Chegitun], felt much easier when she talked to Saggtuq people than to those of Wolik (Uelen). Given the fact that many people on Alaskan side, especially those not from Little Diomede, often use the term Nuughaq referring to Chukotkan coast
3 See [Bogoras 1936; Kuz'mina 1981] for more information on Eskimo folklore.
in general, it would be only natural to presume that Chukchi could well stand behind the term "Nuughaq language."
However important the command of two languages might have been to provide unimpeded communication, it was not bilingualism, in the proper sense of the word, that bridged the communication gap between Naukan and Little Diomede. Practically all our informants from these two communities were unanimous at one point: during their visits, both groups spoke their own languages, which did not prevent them from effectively communicating. The Naukan man Nikolay Yakyn, who visited Little Diomede three times in his youth, said,
During these meetings [with Little Diomede people] Naukan people often spoke their own language, but we understood each other (Uelen, tape 1993/10, side A).
Moses Milligrock has preserved similar memories:
I could understand Nuughaq people, they could understand me too, even though we talk a little bit different (Little Diomede, 1994).
The explanation that immediately comes to mind is that what we have in this case can be explained in terms of the so-called passive bi-lingualism, where a person can understand the other language without being able to speak it. This explanation might be valid, but only to a limited extent. The concept of passive bilingualism works fine for the situation, in which the two languages have nothing in common. This is not the case of Inupiaq and NY, which are related, though distantly.
It is likely that in an urgent situation of "сommunication vacuum", the two languages that belong to two different sub-branches of the language family and are considered to have split centuries ago, turn out to be mutually intelligible. If the Native people on both sides were professional Eskimologists, probably, from the very start, they would think of their efforts to understand each other as destined to fail, and would not even try doing so. Fortunately, they did not care:
There is much in common between our languages — on Little Diomede and in Naukan. That's why people understood each other (Nikolai Yaken in Uelen, 1993, taped).
Nuughaq people have same language all right, only it's slower. We had same language, but they slow (Alice Soolook in Little Diomede, July 1994, taped).
The people from Nuughaq [Naukan] spoke much the same language like we do (Charlie Iyapana in Little Diomede, August 1994, taped).
Interestingly, the same Little Diomede people, who never miss an opportunity to stress hardly perceptible distinctions between Little Diomede and Big Diomede idioms (see above), claim that the language they speak and NY are so close it was no problem to communicate. Obviously, we encounter here the two extremes of search for identity: on the one hand, the exaggeration of subtle nuances in order to distinguish themselves from other communities, and, on the other hand, the diminishing of more than considerable differences in order to claim close relationships.
Supposedly, in this contact situation, as elsewhere, a certain technique, close to what is sometimes called foreigner talk [Ferguson 1971; Ferguson 1975; Romaine 1988: 72-84] was employed. It implies simplifying or avoiding some of the differences between two languages, in order to adjust own language to the language of a person spoken to. Besides reduced vocabulary and simplified syntactic structures, which are typical of this type of communication, in our case (distantly related languages), an important role was played by the tendency to choose, of several possible words with close meanings, those stemming, in both languages, from the same root. We should admit that, theoretically, the emergence of an inter-dialect communication system was possible in this case. Dialect mixing is not infrequent in the process of dialect contact, and it is normally accompanied by leveling, simplification, reallocation, and the appearance of inter-dialect forms [Trudgill 1986]. It is hard to say how stable that hypothetical linguistic system was. A possibility of a certain type of Naukan Yupik — Inupiaq jargon (see below) may not be excluded. In any case, this sort of communication, with adjustment technique, though highly variable, but within certain limits, requires constant practice. After the resumption of native contacts across the strait, half a century break showed its negative effect right away. One of the most active contemporary travelers puts it very clearly:
There are no people who can speak Nuughaq language today. When we meet, we speak our languages. I can understand. We would be real good at understanding each other, if they didn't close that border. It's all these years. We don't hear a language. Bering Bridge Expedition [1989], that's the first time we ran into each other, you know.
In over 50 years. I think now I could speak these Siberian Yupiks better than I could speak Nuughaq language. Them old people they been going back and forth. They know how to understand Nuughaq very good. But those older people from Nuughaq, they could understand Inupiaq. Being with each other more often, you know, they did (Pat Omiak in Little Diomede, 1994)
This is how Eermeen (Uelen, 1993), who claimed that it was no problem understanding each other in old days (see above), describes one of the "new" contacts:
They say that my father stayed there [on Little Diomede] long. I don't know. A man [from the Alaskan side] came once [in 1991] and said he was my father's son. But I don't know. He understood me with difficulty, same with me, the dialects are different (Uelen, 1993).
The complete destruction of Big Diomede community in 1948 causes (people were forcibly relocated to the mainland by Soviet administration) many problems today if one tries to reconstruct all aspects of its life including the linguistic one. The eastward population drift that took place in 1880s-1930, when most Big Diomeders moved to Little Dio-mede and some Naukan people settled on Big Diomede (for more details see [Krupnik 1994: 62ff]), supposedly, made impact on Inupiaq — Naukan Yupik bilingualism on Little Diomede Island. As a result of this eastward drift, the Big Diomede community even acquired at least two fluent speakers of Chukchi, Jimmy Kopari (also recorded in different sources as Kapori, Korpari, Karepari, Koripari, and so forth — from Chukchi keepeer 'wolverine') and Kayouktuk, the well-known names in the Bering Strait region.
Krupnik [1994: 63] posits that "by 1930, (...) the initial population of Big Diomede was all but replaced by Yupik-speaking people from East Cape, Siberia." This statement correctly presents the fact of the population movement, but it sounds somewhat strong as regards the In-upiaq language removal. Indeed, the population loss on Big Diomede was restored through the resettlement of some Naukan people. However, as these resettlements were mainly made through marriage [Krupnik 1994: 70], it rather went as an adaptation into the already existing community, not a mere replacement of the Inupiaq-speaking population by the Yupik-speaking one. According to our consultants, Inupiaq was
the major (or, at least, on a par with NY) language of the community until its forcible relocation in 1948, however small [Krupnik 1994: 70] the community had become by the 1940s.
The following words of Nikolai Yaken are crucial for the reconstruction of the language situation on Big Diomede in the 1930s-1940s:
When people from Naukan lived on Big Diomede together with Big Diomede people, they spoke their own languages to each other, and they understood each other pretty well. Each had a bit of knowledge of the neighbor's language. It was the same way when Naukan people visited little Diomede (Uelen, September 1993, tape 10, side B):
Turning to the Alaskan coast and to King Island, it should be noted that there were few bilingual speakers in all the communities there4. Supposedly, Wales could be the village with a certain number of bilingual speakers, due to its geographical position. As was already said, there were, actually, two different villages at Cape Prince of Wales — one before 1918, and the other after the flu disaster. We should admit that, in pre-epidemic Wales, there were some bilingual speakers, due to more frequent contacts with the Siberian side in those days. Again, the question of what language could be the second in Wales, rests unresolved. Wales residents use the term "Nuughaq" to refer to the Siberian coast in general, so, at least theoretically, the second language for some Wales residents (seemingly, very few) could be Chukchi. One of the eldest Wales residents Ernest Oxereok recollects:
Older, older people used to speak their language, but they are all gone now. For example, my grandfather used to talk to Iivik [man from Naukan] in their language. He knew their language. He used to cross there in summertime, and spend the summer over there for maybe a couple or a month (Wales, August 1994, taped).
The name of the Naukan man Iivik, mentioned in the interview, does not clear up the ambiguity, as all Naukan men spoke good Chukchi.
Ernest Oxereok (tape 1994/21/9, side A) told us that when Siberians had come to Wales after a long break, in 1947, all of them stayed at different people's places, including his parents' house. However, the
4 Speaking of bilingualism now, we only mean the command of some other native language, besides own. In this case, it could be Chukchi or NY.
visitors did not speak Inupiaq and had mostly to communicate in gestures. One of them was a fluent Inupiaq speaker (all our Wales consultants identified him as speaking "Big Diomede language") and served as an interpreter. Supposedly, already in the 1930-1940s some of the "interpreters" were specially selected and used by intelligence services, at least on the part of the KGB, to deliver information from the other side. On the American side of the strait, this fact was recognized not only by FBI (Albert Heinrich: "FBI guys were very nervous about it"), but by the Native people, as well. For example, some Wales' residents still remember the name of the Naukan man who, as they suspect, was connected with secret services. This suspicion is supported by some indirect evidence: today we know it for a fact that, in the late 1960s—mid-1970s, native people from both sides of the strait took part in the "spontaneous" meetings on the ice and out on the sea, following the assignments from secret services (the meetings were initiated by KGB, but American intelligence service was aware of it). To close the "espionage" topic5, we should mention one fluent Inupiaq speaker among the three Naukan men, who were a permanent team for intelligence assignments in the area between the two Diomede Islands (see [Golovko and Schweitzer 2004]), and two good NY speakers on Little Diomede side.
King Islanders were not actively involved in intercontinental travels in the study period, with exceptions of 1946 and 1947. The direct consequence of this was the absence of NY speakers in the King Island community. During the stop-by visits on the way to Nome, only Inupiaq was used as the vehicle of communication [Kingston 2000].
In a similar vein, there were hardly any bilingual speakers on the Seward Peninsula north of Wales. At least, we failed to identify any for the Shishmaref area. We should admit that communication was carried out in the same fashion as it was on King Island. A serious difficulty, though, were considerable distinctions of the Wales-Shishmaref dialect, compared to Diomede: our Shishmaref consultants complained that the "Big Diomede language", spoken by "Siberians" was nearly incomprehensible (see below for an alternative explanation). Shishmaref people point out that, during their visits to Shishmaref, "Siberians" were accompanied by Diomeders. The latter also acted as interpreters, as they were more skillful in communicating with speakers of Shishmaref Inupiaq, due to closer contacts with this area.
5 For more details see [Schweitzer, Golovko 2004].
In the Teller area, some people, accidentally, knew some NY. Elsie Kugzruk (born 1909 not far from Mary's Igloo) remembers:
Only my father Keelik could understand Siberians. Their language was different. Father asked not to laugh at them, if they did not understand them, and not to look straight at them in order not to make them uncomfortable (Teller, August 1996, taped).
A few more words are to be said about Inupiaq-Chukchi bilingual-ism. As was mentioned above, by 1930, the Little Diomede community received two fluent Chukchi speakers as a result of the population drift from Big Diomede to Little Diomede. Those two men, Koopari and Kayouktuk, probably were the best Chukchi speakers on Big Diomede at that time. However, the ability to speak Chukchi was not exceptional on Big Diomede. Other people born in the second half of the nineteenth century had some command of Chukchi too.
My father spoke Chukchi, fluently. Most of our older people, my father's age, a lot of them speak a little bit of it (Alvin Kayouktuk, Anchorage, 1995, taped).
There is also some evidence that a number of Little Diomede men spoke some Chukchi in the past. Today only the most active "new" travelers know a couple of popular Chukchi words (for "hello", "tea", etc.), which were picked up during the recent visits. However, that was mainly the job for Naukan people, as now it was their turn to do visitors a favor, interpreting Chukchi. In the past, on their visits to Uelen and other coastal Chukchi villages, Diomeders' were, normally, accompanied by one or two Naukan boats.
Apart from bilingualism (multilingualism), there was another effective means to fill the communication gap, namely lingua franca, that is, a language, which is not native for all the people involved in communication in the given area. Of the two possible choices for the Bering Strait area, Russian and English, Russian is not to be considered as such. There is a lot of evidence that, before the beginning of the twentieth century, even the natives on the Chukotkan side, the Naukan people and the coastal Chukchis, had very little contact with Russians.
Before the Soviet power, no one in Naukan could speak Russian. It was only occasionally that Russians came (Nikolai Yaken, Uelen, 1993, taped).
The first Soviet guard posts appeared in the northeast Chukotka in the early 1920s. However, most of our Naukan informants, when asked about the time of the establishment of the Soviet power, point out to the 1930s6. For our purposes, the introduction of school teaching in Russian is essential. The first schools in Naukan and Uelen were opened in the late 1920s. So, we should admit that Russian, in spite of its steadfast position today, was the last language to come to the area. In the mid-1990s, among approximately seventy Naukan speakers, only the two eldest Naukan ladies, mentioned above, had absolutely no command of Russian. However, one of them, born 1912, have managed to pick up some Russian from her great granddaughter, the schoolgirl of 8 years old.
Some Russian loans (we mean only the "old" words, which went through phonetic adaptation) are found in NY, but it is hard to say whether these entered Naukanski via Chukchi reindeer herders or if they were borrowed directly from Russian. Besides, it is rather hard to estimate now the time of borrowing, since after the establishment of Soviet power in Chukotka, Russian became the dominant language of the prestigious majority.
In contrast to Russian, the number of English borrowings in Nau-kan Yupik [Dobrieva et al. 2004], as well Siberian Yupik of Chaplino and Saint Lawrence Island [de Reuse 1994], is impressive. The reason for this flood of English words in the languages of the Soviet Far East is well-known. Starting with the mid-nineteenth century, American and other whaling ships were regularly spending summers in the Bering Strait area. The ships stopped at Eskimo villages to replenish their water supplies and to trade [Bockstoce 1991; Bockstoce 1995]. Some Naukan and Chukchi coastal men were hired as sailors for those ships. Such contacts gave native people the impetus to learn English, and it seems to have been learned with enthusiasm [Silook 1976: 53; Krupnik and Chlenov 1979: 26; de Reuse 1994: 299-300]. Bogoras [Bogoras 1913: 441; see also de Reuse 1994 300-301] remarked about his Chaplino informant who, like all the young men, had a strong desire to learn some English; having no means to do so, he would imitate English songs and words and put them into his songs.
6 Incidentally, one Naukan lady said that "Soviet power Parted after the war" (World War II); in this case, Soviet power is associated, not coincidentally, with the infamous 'collectivization' campaign.
Since the conditions in Chukotka were favorable for wintering and landings, many Native men from all over the coast were taken as crew members on whaling ships. It gave them an opportunity to travel (some of them are reported to have wintered in Seattle, San Francisco, Hawaii, and even Spain) and learn English. When talking about languages spoken in old days, none of our Naukan and Chukchi informants missed an opportunity to mention that some of their (great)grandfathers were fluent English speakers. According to Izabella Avtonova, some Naukan women spoke English too:
My grandmother on the mother's side Tutoya could speak English. I know it for sure (Lorino, July 1993, taped).
This information matches the reports of numerous Russian government officials, who visited Chukotka in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries:
Besides their native language, all of them understand some English, even women and children; many of them can speak [English], and those who sail on American ships in the summertime or have been to San Francisco, talk as born Americans [Resin 1888:180].
Already in earlier days, due to whalers, English became known all over the coast of the Bering Sea [Kirillov 1912: 340].
People of a younger generation of former Naukan residents are sure that English was another language of the Naukan community. Valentina Sukhovaya said,
My father Nuteesqen could speak English. All Naukantsy could speak English. My grandmother could speak [English] too. She hardly knew any Russian (Lavrentiya, August 1995).
Seemingly, the only foreign language learned by some coastal Chukchis, was English. The old hunter Lyolich states:
My father Tyngak lived in Dezhnevo. He could speak English. He spoke to Charlie [American trader]. And Charlie was "closed" in the 1920s or 1930s (Uelen, August 1995, taped).
Valeriy Cheyvyn (born 1939) told us a story illustrating the role of English as a vehicle of intercommunity communication:
There was one interesting case in Inchoun in the 1960s. We had a President of the Village Council here [in Inchoun] named Ulgun, the former Naukan resident. He spoke Chukchi very poorly. But he knew English very well. Once people were sitting and talking. Suddenly Ulgun made a joke in English. Memylu [the Chukchi man from Inchoun] answered and they started talking English (Inchoun, August 1995, taped).
Today no traces of old days' English can be found in Chukotka. Still, the question remains: what did the "English language", reportedly spoken in Chukotka in those days, look like? Two assumptions can be made in this respect. First of all, it could be the American English vernacular, acquired to a more or less extent.
Alvin Kayouktuk recalls one of his travels, when he accompanied his father as a boy:
He was Chukchi. Apparently, he traveled extensively with whaling ships, because one time when we went to Woolik [Uelen], he really surprised me, start speaking English to me. I was just a child. It was very good English. He was an old man at that time (Anchorage, August 1995, taped).
Some Wales residents managed to recollect several names of Siberians who spoke English during the post-epidemic visits. It is probably no coincidence that these names come from our Wales informants: English was hardly needed for Siberians to communicate with Diomeders, while in Wales (after 1918) it provided another option of understanding each other.
3. Сontact-induced languages
The language, referred to as "English" by modern Chukotka informants, could well be the so-called nautical jargon used by whaling crews. It was not strictly codified as regards its lexicon, which varied from crew to crew. Most likely, it was English-based, and included Hawaiian and Portuguese words, as well as words from other languages. As is typical of such language systems, it is hardly possible to trace the origin of some lexical items. The nautical jargon became extinct, with the decay of whaling business, by 1900. However, there are some
obscure indications to the existence of the nautical jargon as late as the first half of twentieth century. The Wales resident, Ernest Oxereock (August 1994, taped), recalls that when Chukotkan people came once to Wales (a transit visit on the way to Nome), one of them, named Ii-vik, said he could speak English (the Naukan man Yaken confirmed that Iivik, who was his uncle, learned English when he worked as a cook on a whaling ship). However, when he tried to speak English to the local school teacher, the latter could not understand him. Presumably, the "English language" spoken by Iivik could be a nautical jargon. Probably, there were many English word roots in it (alongside with word roots from some other languages) but phonetically distorted and with shifts in their meaning. What is even more important and what could be the major obstacle for mutual understanding in the case described above is that any pidgin has a grammatical structure (though rather unstable) of its own. A considerable number of word roots of English origin could be the reason why it was identified in that particular case as incomprehensible English.
Very interesting evidence [which refers to 1945-1948] comes from Albert Heinrich:
... reminds me of an elderly man in Nome, family name of Martin, reputed to be of French-Canadian descent, who was married to a local Eskimo. Mr. Martin must have come to the Nome area during the closing days of the Gold Rush. He firmly believed that he used to be able to converse with "the natives" in their "old time language". I asked him to demonstrate. He uttered several phrases and from what I could make out this form of speech, most probably, was Whalers' Pidgin, perhaps heavily laced with Kanaka7 (Letter to Peter Schweitzer, December 1996).
Today, it is hardly possible to find and traces of the nautical jargon in Alaskan communities, as American English vernacular has become the "language of a wider communication". Even if the nautical jargon was remembered by some of the elders, it got dissolved due to the expansion of American English (de-pidginization). Of course, older Natives in Alaskan coastal villages often use a number of incorrect English
7 It is likely that Heinrich refers to Hawaiian Pidgin; the word 'kanaka for 'man' occurs in both English- and French-based pidgins throughout the Pacific, and it is also found in Chinook Jargon (Vancouver area, along the coa&); for example, see [Romaine 1988: 85].
grammatical forms, such as 'no' instead of 'not' (e.g., 'it is no good'); loss of agreement suffix -5 in 3 p. sg.; generalization of tense forms (loss of -ed suffix in the past tense); the use of 'them' instead of 'they' in the nominative, and some others. These features are also typical of English-based pidgins. However, it would be too risky to treat these examples as remnants of any English-based pidgin, as they are, at the same time, typical of imperfect second language acquisition [Schumann 1978].
Speaking of hypothetical contact-induced language systems, based on a native language (languages) in the Bering Strait, it is only natural to assume that Chukchi played a significant role in all of them. We already wrote above that there is historical evidence of the dominating position of the Chukchi language in the area. Gondatti [1897: 167-168] claims that the Eskimos of Chukotka did not understand each other and had to use Chukchi as a means of communication. Bogoras [1949: 29] points out that, besides the Eskimos, the Chuvan, the Evenki (Tungus) and the Yukagir (Odul) had a command of Chukchi. As was mentioned above, according to Bogoras [1949: 29], "Russian cossacks" could speak Chukchi, too. There are two possible interpretations of this historical evidence: 1) Chukchi (in a simplified form) could serve as a "lingua franca" in the area under consideration, and 2) there could exist a Chukchi-based jargon (pidgin?). Neither supposition is mutually exclusive of the other. There is also evidence from Bogoras [1901: 13] that indirectly confirms the dominant position of Chukchi. The structure of Russian, spoken by the so-called Russian old-settlers (who lived in the same villages with native people and often intermarried with them), was noticeably influenced by Chukchi.
It is not likely that there were stable pidgins or mixed languages (like Medniy/Copper Island Aleut [Golovko 1994; Golovko 1996; Golovko 2003]), in Chukotka before the twentieth century. Old word lists (see [de Reuse 1994: 319-329]) show features typical of jargons in general. De Reuse [1994: 328-329] posits that in the course of history there have been at least three, and maybe four, unstable trade jargons in use in the Bering Strait area:
1) Eskimo-based jargon, used for communication with the Chukchi and other Eskimo groups (Inupiaq-speaking groups of Alaska included), containing many Chukchi loans, in particular particles and personal pronouns;
2) Chukchi-based jargon, mostly simplified Chukchi, used for communication with outsiders;
3) whalers' jargon, probably English-based, with Hawaiian and Portuguese words, used by and with the ships' crews only;
4) maybe a Russian-based jargon, primarily for trade with Russians and probably never used in the easternmost part of the Chukot-ka Peninsula.
De Reuse himself [de Reuse 1994: 329] admits that this is an idealized classification. In reality, these four types of jargons could not be kept distinct because of their unstable character and diverse situations of language contact.
Clearly, a whalers' (nautical) jargon was in the area for some time, and we still can, somehow, trace it, due to loans in coastal native languages and dialects, and obscure memories. It is also highly probable that a Chukchi-based jargon (No. 3 in de Reuse's classification) was in existence, though any remnants of this jargon are not likely to be found today. The existence of an Eskimo-based jargon (No. 1 in the classification above) is the most questionable issue. If such a jargon had been used in the past, it is highly doubtful that it would have been a means of communication with Chukchis. Possibly, it could be employed for communication between Yupik-speaking and Inupiaq-speaking Eskimos. In fact, it could have been a mixture of Inupiaq and NY, described above.
During our field trips, we failed to receive any evidence of pre-existing contact-induced language systems based on native languages. Today even the eldest people cannot recollect any special language forms in trade contact on both sides of Bering Strait. However there is a possibility of the existence of contact-induced language systems prior to the time when the border in the Bering Strait was closed, and Russian and English became the vehicles of inter-ethnic communication on the two sides of the strait. Today we can hardly expect to receive new information on the topic, as contact-induced language systems are rather unstable, and normally disappear as soon as there are no longer favorable conditions for their maintenance.
4. Conclusion
The native people of the Bering Strait region were great travelers. Unlike modern white adventurers, they traveled in the open sea
and on ice without strive for publicity; it was just part of their life. But they were also great connoisseurs of languages. It was also part of their life. It would have been very difficult to trade, make visits, and get married without being able to communicate. People of the area always found a way to communicate8. The Bering Strait area was, indeed, a well-balanced social and economic system. It was effective too, due to communicational balance. As is always the case in any complex system, different kinds of work are distributed unevenly between different parts of the system. The major portion of linguistic work fell on the communities located in the central part of the area. The special role of Naukan and Diomede Islands as major mediators in the interethnic network in the first half of the twentieth century presupposed a great amount of multilingualism in these communities. It was not uncommon to find Naukan Yupik — Chukchi — Inupiaq (Big Diomede or Little Diomede idioms) — English quadro-lingual-ism in the Naukan community (Russian, which was taught during the campaign for "liquidation of illiteracy" in the 1930s, was a fifth language for some Naukan people!). The corresponding set of languages for Big Diomede would be: Inupiaq (Big Diomede idiom) — Naukan Yupik — Chukchi — English; and for Little Diomede: Inupiaq (Little Diomede idiom) — English — Naukan Yupik — Chukchi. Of course, the order of succession of languages (which reflects the level of knowledge) could change in the course of time, as it depended on the changing social and economic ties.
The contemporary picture of intercontinental communication looks completely different from that in the first half of the twentieth century. While elders and people in their forties try to revive old practices of communicating in their native tongue, Siberian youngsters try to speak English to their Alaskan friends. In Uelen we saw a growing interest to the study of English at school, and hardly any interest to Chukchi. The Uelen teacher of English actively participates in modern native travels, acting as an interpreter. Seemingly, in the future, English has a better chance to become the language of communication during Alaska — Siberia native contacts.
8 Or not to communicate: in folklore Tories, which are famous on both sides of the &rait, "wild people", "outca&" ("whi&lers") lose their ability to speak, as they become alien ("dead") — they can only express themselves by whirling [Golovko, Schweitzer 2007].
References
Bockstoce 1991 — J. Bockstoce. Alaskan-Siberian trade patterns from first western contact to the present. R. K. Johnson, L. J. Hickey, C. A. Hoover (eds.). Crossroads of Continents: The Material Culture of Siberia and Alaska. (The Yale-Smithsonian Seminar on Material Culture.) Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991. P. 34-38.
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Bogoras 1901 — V G. Bogoraz. Oblastnoy slovar kolymskogo russkogo na-rechiya i pesni russkikh porechan na Kolyme [Regional dictionary of the Kolyma Russian idiom as spoken by local population on the Kolyma River and their songs]. Sbornik Otdeleniya russkogo yazyka i slovesnosti Imper-atorskoy Akademii Nauk [Collection of the Russian language department, Russian Academy of Sciences]. St. Petersburg: Russian Academy of Sciences Publishing House, 1901.
Bogoras 1904-09 — V. G. Bogoras. The Chukchee. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol. 7. Leiden: E. J. Brill. New York: G. E. Stechert, 19041909.
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Bogoras 1949 — V G. Bogoraz. Materialy po yazyku aziatskikh eskimosov [Materials on the language of the Assiatic Eskimos]. Leningrad: Uchped-giz, 1949.
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de Reuse 1994 — W. J. de Reuse. Siberian Yupik Eskimo: The language and its contacts with Chukchi. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994.
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Ferguson 1971 — C. A. Ferguson. On the absence of copula and the notion of simplicity: A study of normal speech, baby talk, foreigner talk and pidgins. D. Hymes (ed.). Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971. P. 141-150.
Ferguson 1975 — C. A. Ferguson. Towards a characterization of English foreigner talk. Anthropological Linguistics. 1975. No. 17. P. 1-14.
Golovko 1994 — E. V Golovko. Copper Island Aleut: An Aleut-Russian mixed language. P. Bakker, M. Mous (eds.). Mixed Languages: 15 case studies in language intertwining. Amsterdam: IFOTT, 1994. P. 113-121.
Golovko 1996 — A case of nongenetic devepolment in the Arctic area: The contribution of Aleut and Russian to the formation of Copper Island Aleut. E. H. Jahr, I. Broch (eds.). Language Contact in the Arctic: Northern Pidgins and Contact Languages. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996. P. 63-77.
Golovko 2003 — E. V. Golovko. Language contact and group identity: The role of 'folk' linguistic engineering. Y. Matras, P. Bakker (eds.). The Mixed Language Debate: Theoretical and empirical advances. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003. P. 177-207.
Golovko, Schweitzer 2004 — E. Golovko, P. Schweitzer. Traveling between Continents: Native contacts across the Bering Strait. Y. P. Tret'yakov, N. P. Aleksandrova (eds.). Rossiisko-amerikanskie sviazi: 300 let sotrud-nichestva / Russian American Links: 300 Years of Cooperation. St. Petersburg: Akademicheskij proekt, 2004. P. 99-119.
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Menovshchikov 1987 — G. A. Menovshchikov. Materialy i issledovaniya po yazyku i folkloru naukanskikh eskimosov [Materials and studies of the language and folklore of the Asiatic Eskimos]. Leningrad: Nauka, 1987.
Resin 1888 — A. A. Resin. Ocherk inorodtsev poberezhya Tikhogo okeana [Essay of the non-Russians of the Pacific coast]. St. Petersburg: A. S. Suvorin Publishing House, 1888.
Romaine 1988 — S. Romaine. Pidgin and Creole Languages. London: Longman, 1988.
Schumann 1978 — J. H. Schumann. The relationship of pidginization, creoliza-tion, and decreolization to second language acquisition. Language Learning. 1978. Vol. 28. P. 367-379.
Schweitzer, Golovko 1995 — P. Schweitzer, E. Golovko. Traveling between Continents: The Social Organization of Interethnic Contacts across Bering Strait. The Anthropology of East Europe Review. Special Issue: Culture and Society in the Former Soviet Union. 1995. Vol. 13(2). P. 50-55.
Schweitzer, Golovko 1997 — P. Schweitzer, E. Golovko. Local identities and traveling names: Interethnic aspects of personal naming in the Bering Strait area. Arctic Anthropology. 1997. Vol. 34(1). P. 167-180.
Silook 1976 — R. Silook. Seevookuk: Stories the Old People Told on St. Lawrence Island. Anchorage, 1976 (publisher unidentified).
Trudgill 1986 — P. Trudgill. Dialects in Contact. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.
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Литература
Bockstoce 1991 — J. Bockstoce. Alaskan-Siberian Trade Patterns from First Western Contact to the Present // R. K. Johnson, L. J. Hickey, C. A. Hoover
(eds.). Crossroads of Continents: The Material Culture of Siberia and Alaska. (The Yale-Smithsonian Seminar on Material Culture.) Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991. P. 34-38.
Bockstoce 1995 — J. Bockstoce. Whales, Ice and Men: The history of whaling in the Western Arctic. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995.
Bogoras 1900 — В. Г. Богораз. Материалы по изучению чукотского языка и фольклора, собранные в Колымском округе В. Г. Богоразом. Труды Якутской экспедиции, снаряженной на средства И. М. Сибиряко-ва. Отд. 3. Т. XI. Ч. III. СПб.: Изд-во Российской академии наук, 1900.
Bogoras 1901 — В. М. Богораз. Областной словарь Колымского русского наречия и песни русских поречан на Колыме. Сборник Отделения русского языка и словесности Императорской академии наук. СПб.: Изд-во Российской академии наук, 1900.
Bogoras 1904-09 — V. G. Bogoras. The Chukchee. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol. 7. Leiden: E. J. Brill. New York: G. E. Stechert, 19041909.
Bogoras 1913 — V. G. Bogoras. The Eskimo of Siberia. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol. 8. Pt. 3. Leiden: E. J. Brill. New York: G. E. Stechert, 1913.
Bogoras 1936 — В. Г. Богораз. Основные типы фольклора Северной Евразии и Северной Америки // Советский фольклор. 1936. № 4-5. С. 29-50.
Bogoras 1949 — В. Г. Богораз. Материалы по языку азиатских эскимосов. Л.: Учпедгиз, 1949.
Burch 1998 — E. S. Burch, Jr. The Inupiaq Eskimo Nations of Northwest Alaska. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 1998.
de Reuse 1994 — W. J. de Reuse. Siberian Yupik Eskimo: The language and its contacts with Chukchi. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1994.
Dobrieva et al. — E. A. Dobrieva, E. V Golovko, S. A. Jacobson, M. E. Krauss. Naukan Eskimo Dictionary / Ed. by S. A. Jacobson. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Fairbanks, Alaska Native Language Center, 2004.
Ferguson 1971 — C. A. Ferguson. On the absence of copula and the notion of simplicity: A study of normal speech, baby talk, foreigner talk and pidgins // D. Hymes (ed.). Pidginization and Creolization of Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971. P. 141-150.
Ferguson 1975 — C. A. Ferguson. Towards a characterization of English foreigner talk // Anthropological Linguistics. 1975. No. 17. P. 1-14.
Golovko 1994 — E. V Golovko. Copper Island Aleut: An Aleut-Russian mixed language // P. Bakker, M. Mous (eds.). Mixed Languages: 15 case studies in language intertwining. Amsterdam: IFOTT, 1994. P. 113-121.
Golovko 1996 — A Case of nongenetic devepolment in the Arctic area: The contribution of Aleut and Russian to the formation of Copper Island Aleut //
E. H. Jahr, I. Broch (eds.). Language Contact in the Arctic: Northern Pidgins and Contact Languages. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1996. P. 63-77.
Golovko 2003 — Language contact and group identity: The role of 'folk' linguistic engineering // Y. Matras, P. Bakker (eds.). The Mixed Language Debate: Theoretical and empirical advances. Berlin; New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 2003. P. 177-207.
Golovko, Schweitzer 2004 — E. Golovko, P. Schweitzer. Traveling between Continents: Native Contacts across the Bering Strait // Ю. П. Третьяков, Н. П. Александрова (ред.). Российско-американские связи: 300 лет сотрудничества / Russian American Links: 300 Years of Cooperation. СПб.: Академический проект, 2004. P. 99-119.
Golovko, Schweitzer 2007 — E. Golovko, P. Schweitzer. A Song as Worthy as a Dog: A Note on Alien Elements in Bering Strait Folklore // Н. Б. Вах-тин (ред.). Сборник статей к 60-летию А. К. Байбурина. (Studia Ethnologica 4). СПб.: Изд-во Европейского университета в Санкт-Петербурге, 2007. P. 288-297.
Gondatti 1897 — Н. Л. Гондатти. Состав населения Анадырской округи // Записки Приамурского отдела Императорского Русского географического общества. 1897. Т. 3. Ч. 3. № 1. С. 166-176.
Kaplan 1996 — L. Kaplan. Oral communication. Fairbanks. 1996.
Kingston 2000 — D. M. Kingston. Siberian Songs and Siberian Kin: Indirect Assertions of King Islander Dominance in the Bering Strait Region // Arctic Anthropology. 2000. Vol. 37. № 2. P. 38-51.
Kirillov 1912 — Н. Б. Кириллов. Аляска и ее отношение к Чукотскому полуострову // Известия Русского Императорского географического общества. 1912. Т. 45. № 1-5. СПб.: Изд-во М. М. Стасюлевича, 1912.
Krupnik 1994 — I. I. Krupnik. 'Siberians' in Alaska: Siberian Eskimo Contribution to the Alaskan Population Recoveries, 1880-1940 // Etudes/Inuit/ Studies. 1994. Vol. 18. № 2. P. 49-80.
Krupnik, Clenov 1979 — И. И. Крупник, М. А. Членов. Динамика этно-лингвистичекой ситуации у азиатских эскимосов (конец XIX века — 1970-e гг.) // Советская этнография. 1979. № 2. С. 19-29.
Kuz'mina 1981 — Л. П. Кузьмина. Фольклор эскимосов (по материалам В. Г. Богораза) // И. И. Гурвич (ред.). Традиционные культуры Северной Сибири и Северной Америки. М.: Наука, 1981. С. 200-211.
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Menovshchikov 1987 — Г. А. Меновщиков. Материалы и исследования по языку и фольклору науканских эскимосов. Л.: Наука, 1987.
Resin 1888 — А. А. Ресин. Очерк инородцев побережья Тихого океана. СПб.: Изд-во А. С. Суворина, 1888.
Romaine 1988 — S. Romaine. Pidgin and Creole Languages. London: Longman, 1988.
Schumann 1978 — J. H. Schumann. The relationship of pidginization, creolization, and decreolization to second language acquisition // Language Learning, 1978. Vol. 28. P. 367-379.
Schweitzer, Golovko 1995 — P. Schweitzer, E. Golovko. Traveling between Continents: The Social Organization of Interethnic Contacts across Bering Strait // The Anthropology of East Europe Review. Special Issue: Culture and Society in the Former Soviet Union. 1995. Vol. 13. № 2. P. 50-55.
Schweitzer, Golovko 1997 — P. Schweitzer, E. Golovko. Local Identities and Traveling Names: Interethnic Aspects of Personal Naming in the Bering Strait Area // Arctic Anthropology. 1997. Vol. 34. № 1. P. 167-180.
Silook 1976 — R. Silook. Seevookuk: Stories the Old People Told on St. Lawrence Island. Anchorage, 1976 (без издательства).
Trudgill 1986 — P. Trudgill. Dialects in Contact. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.
Vdovin 1965 — И. С. Вдовин. Очерки этнографии чукчей. Л.: Наука, 1965.
