Anthropology of Southeastern Alaska— Laughlin 67 



Equally important to the anthropological problems of south- 

 ern Alaska is the existence of rich archeological sites, stratified 

 as the result of centuries of continuous occupation and con- 

 taining large numbers of skeletons. Accessibility of many of 

 the native speakers of the various languages enhances the possi- 

 bility of ethnological and linguistic studies. Thus, this is not 

 only a significant area but one which also affords excellent 

 opportunities to all the disciplines of anthropology. 



Linguistics 



In the field of linguistics one of the most puzzling problems 

 is the origin of the Aleut language and of the abrupt division 

 between it and the other Eskimo languages. According to 

 present linguistic studies the Eskimo linguistic stock is divided 

 into three branches: Inupik, Yupik and Aleut. Inupik includes 

 all those dialects from the northside of Norton Sound, around 

 the north coast of Alaska and Canada to Greenland and Labra- 

 dor. Yupik includes all those dialects spoken from the south 

 side of Norton Sound, including East Cape of Siberia and 

 St. Lawrence Island, down the west coast of Alaska and the 

 south coast of Alaska to Cordova, including Kodiak Island. 

 Aleut was spoken from roughly the 160th meridian west longi- 

 tude, which transects the Alaska Peninsula west of Kupreanof 

 Point, and the Shumagin Islands, westward, including all the 

 Aleutian Islands. Within each of these branches there are three 

 to five dialects. Though the Inupik and Yupik branches are 

 mutually intelligible, with some difficulty as originally noted 

 by Knud Rasmussen, Yupik— Inupik and Aleut are not mutually 

 intelligible. How and why this split came into being will 

 throw much light upon the relationships of these southern 

 Alaskan inhabitants. An index to the degree of this difference 

 is provided by the positive correspondence of 36.5% of the 

 words in a selected vocabulary of modern Eastern Aleut and 

 Proto Eskimo, Proto Eskimo here referring to the period before 

 the Yupik and Inupik split. From this percent of words held 

 in common by these two divisions Marsh and Swadesh estimate 

 that the separation of Aleut from Proto Aleut-Eskimo took 



