The Languages and Linguistics of Northern Asia: Language Families

This handbook surveys the indigenous languages of Asia's North Pacific Rim, Siberia, and adjacent portions of Inner Eurasia. Individual chapters explore the region's widespread pastoral-based language groups as well as the microfamilies and isolates spoken by northern Asia's surviving hunter-gatherers. Pidgins and creoles are also described, as are the sparsely recorded languages of early Inner Eurasia that defy precise classification. Other chapters analyze northern Eurasia's most salient linguistic features, including vowel harmony, case suffixes, verb indexing (agreement), and the syntax of complex predicates. Issues relating to genealogical ancestry, areal contact, and language endangerment receive equal attention. As the source of history's great pastoral empires as well as ancient population movements into the Americas, the steppes, forests, tundra, and coasts of northern Asia offer a complex and fascinating object of linguistic study.