NIVKHS - Nivhgu - Нівхи - natives of Sakhalin island

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• published: 30 Mar 2015
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Nivkhs are the natives of Sakhalin island (Yh-mif in Nivkh) in the Russian Far East, Siberian aborigenes. Nivkh language is unique and doesnt belong to any known family. Nivkh are of very short statue (men 160 cm) and unlike mongoloids they are relatively dark skinned. They have got some Polynesian features. Nivkh beliefs are similiar to those of Ainu (cult of bear) and of Mosan American Indians of American west coast. Ainus (of north Japan) and Nivkhs have similiar genetic composition. Нівхи - аборигени острова Сахалін. Нівхська мова є унікальною, без подібних на неї. Нівхи - найдревніше населення далекого Сходу (палео-азіати). Нівхи - малого росту (мужчини - 160 см) і на відміну від монголоїдів, нівхи відносно темношкірі. На землі залишилося всього бл. 5000 нівхів і лише бл. 300 носіїв нівхської мови. Nivkh does not appear to be related to any other language, making it a language isolate. For classification convenience, it is included in the group of Paleosiberian languages. Many words in the Nivkh language bear a certain resemblance to words of similar meaning in other Paleosiberian languages, Ainu, Korean, or Tungusic languages, but no regular sound correspondences have been discovered to systematically account for the vocabularies of these various languages, so any lexical similarities are considered to be due to chance or to borrowing. The Nivkh language is included in the controversial Eurasiatic languages hypothesis by Joseph Greenberg. Michael Fortescue (1998) suggested that Nivkh may be related to the Mosan languages (American Indian languages of British Columbia). In 2011, Michael Fortescue argued that Nivkh, which he also refers to as an "isolated Amuric language", is in fact related to the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages, forming a Chukotko-Kamchatkan-Amuric language family. The Nivkh language belongs to the Paleo-Asian languages as a separate unit, unconnected to any other group or subgroup. It is connected to the Chukchi-Kamchatkan and Altai languages by typological similarities and, in the opinion of several academics, also to North American Indian languages. Japanese linguists Katzunobu Izutsu and Kazuhiko Yamaguchi regard Nivkh to be one of the ancestors of modern Japanese. Nivkh lands, as entire Sakhalin were claimed by Japan. The Nivkh language has eight parts of speech, there are no adjectives, their semantic equivalents are quality verbs. In the Amur dialect nouns, pronouns and numerals have 8 cases, in East Sakhalin – 7. The verb has categories of voice, mood, aspect, tense (future and non-future), number, person and negation. -------------------------- Nivkhi mtDNA haplotypes (maternal genes) appear to be Asian in pattern and are highly distinctive when compared to the New World populations. Likewise, the Ainu (of Sakhalin) mtDNA pool seems very similar to those of Tungusic peoples. ----------------------------------- Nivkh paternal Y-Dna: C - 47 % (share with Mongolians 53 %, Kazakhs 40 %, Koryaks 59 %, Tungus / Evenk 67 %) P - 35 % (shared with Tuvans 35 %, Altaians 28 %, Chukchi 21 %, Yupik Alaskan Eskimos 18 %, Koryaks 18 %)