The Bering Strait Hypothesis: Linguistic Connections Between the Americas

Written By: Arjun Ramachandran 

Edited By: Benjamin Hong

Bering Land Bridge and Migrationary Hypotheses:

Today, the Americas and Eurasia could not feel further apart. However, tens of thousands of years ago, during the last Ice Age, they were one and the same, connected by the Bering land bridge. This strip of land, now submerged under the Bering Strait, connected what we now know as Siberia and Alaska. While it’s famous for its role in human migration into the Americas, its implications for linguistics are equally fascinating.

The Bering Land Bridge hypothesis is generally split into two sub-theories: the short chronology theory and the long chronology theory. These theories attempt to explain the timing and nature of human migration across the bridge. The short chronology theory suggests a single wave of migration around 13 kya (thousand years ago), coinciding with the end of the Ice Age and the retreat of glaciers. In contrast, the long chronology theory proposes multiple waves of migration spanning tens of thousands of years, beginning as early as 30 kya. There also exists a Pacific coastal migration theory, first proposed in 1979 by Knute Fladmark, as an alternative to the hypothetical migration through an ice-free inland corridor. This theory also has some merit, because a continuous ice-free coast would not be required if early migrations used boats. However, this theory is more difficult to prove than land migration theories because the overall rise in sea levels destroys any possible coastal archaeological sites.  Archaeological evidence in general supports the idea of staggered migrations. Stone tools, ancient campsites, and other artifacts indicate that groups crossed the land bridge at different times, with some arriving as early as 20 kya and others following later. 

This migration wasn’t just a physical journey; it carried with it the seeds of the incredible linguistic diversity of the Americas. According to most linguistic estimates, spoken language was developed at least 150 kya likely developing in Africa, so these varied groups of people would have brought their languages with them; their migrations happening well after even the latest estimate. Linguists believe many of the languages spoken in the Americas today can trace their roots back to these early migrations. Different waves of migration likely introduced distinct language families, shaping the linguistic landscape of the Americas. For instance, the first wave may have included the ancestors of many Native American language families that spread across the continents, reaching as far south as Tierra del Fuego. Later waves may have brought the ancestors of Eskaleut and Na-Dene speakers, who still reside in Northern Canada, Alaska, and the Arctic.

But how do we know this? Unlike bones or tools, languages leave no physical artifacts. Instead, linguists reconstruct proto-languages—hypothetical ancestral languages—by comparing the vocabulary, grammar, and sound systems of modern languages. By analyzing shared linguistic features, linguists can trace the evolution and migration of language families in a process known as the comparative method.

Linguistic Links Across the Bering Land Bridge:

The Eskaleut language family, encompassing the Inuit, Yupik, and Aleut languages, provides one of the clearest linguistic links between Siberia and Alaska. These languages are spoken across the Arctic today, yet their shared features point to a place of common origin, or Urheimat, in northeastern Asia, with certain Eskaleut languages being spoken in Siberia less than 100 years ago. Linguist Alexander Vovin noted that northern Tungusic languages, which are spoken in eastern Siberia and northeastern China, have Eskaleut loanwords that are not found in Southern Tungusic, implying that Eskaleut was once much more widely spoken in eastern Siberia. By using the comparative method Vovin identified these loanwords and estimated that they had been borrowed no more than 2,000 years ago, when Tungusic was spreading northwards from its homeland near the Amur River. With this, he concluded that the Urheimat of Proto-Eskaleut was in Siberia rather than in Alaska. 

In addition to linguistic evidence, archaeological and genetic studies further bolster the case for the Siberian origin of Eskaleut speakers. Tools and artifacts found in Alaska show striking similarities to those from ancient Siberian cultures, such as those from the Dyuktai and Ushki complexes. What sets these similarities apart from potential convergent evolution—where different groups independently develop similar tools—is the consistent use of distinctive microblade technology and the presence of wedge-shaped cores, a hallmark of the Dyuktai tradition. These features strongly indicate a direct cultural and technological transmission, rather than independent invention.

One notable archaeological site in Alaska is the Trail Creek Caves on the Seward Peninsula, which contained microblade tools nearly identical to those found in Dyuktai sites in Siberia. These parallels, along with the shared techniques for tool production, reinforce the idea of a continuous migration and exchange of ideas between northeastern Asia and Alaska during this period.

 Genetic studies reveal shared markers between Siberian and Arctic populations, further supporting the idea of a shared ancestry. These findings suggest that the ancestors of Eskaleut speakers were among the last groups to migrate across what was once the Bering Land Bridge. While the land bridge itself disappeared around 10,000 years ago, submerging under rising sea levels, the ancestors of the Eskaleut peoples likely crossed into Alaska earlier and remained there for thousands of years. Archaeological and genetic evidence indicates that the distinct Proto-Eskaleut culture began to emerge around 5,000 years ago, characterized by technological and cultural adaptations that supported their subsequent migration eastward across the Arctic. This relatively recent migration distinguishes the Eskaleut peoples from earlier waves that had already spread throughout the Americas, going along with the previously mentioned long chronology theory. While this is certainly an important finding for comparative-historical linguists, the relative recency of the Eskaleut migration, along with the language family’s current high geographical continuity doesn’t prove or give as much insight as a wider connection across the strait would.

For decades, comparative-historical linguists searched for this wider connection between Old World and New World language families, coming to wild conclusions through false cognates. Over the years, many linguists dropped the search entirely and were instantly wary of any new macrofamily proposals positing this connection.

One such proposal was the linkage between the Na-Dene languages of North America (e.g., Navajo, Apache, Tlingit), and the Yeniseian languages of Siberia, whose sole surviving member is a moribund language known as Ket. This potential relationship was first proposed by Alfredo Trombetti in 1923, but mostly was proven on morphosyntactic similarities; similarities within their grammar. For example, both Ket and Na-Dene languages are what is known as prefixing polysynthetic languages, which means that they have a verb root, and add prefixes to modify the meaning.

Here we can see some parallel verb structures in Navajo and Ket.

In Navajo, ʼadisbąąs, which translates to "I'm starting to drive some kind of wheeled vehicle along,", is split up into the following morphemes, where bąąs is the verb stem.

 [ ← ʼa- + di- + sh- + ł + -bąąs]

This is the general verb template followed by Navajo and many other Na-Dene languages:

Similarly in Ket, this is the general verb template, which includes majority prefixes and only one option for a suffix.

We can see in the Navajo verb template that the stem, or verb, is the final morpheme of the verb template, and in Ket the base is the penultimate. Both languages also exhibit similar ways of marking subjects and objects. While this theory remained in discussions about macrofamilies, it was never widely accepted due to a lack of concrete cognates between the families. Attempts were made to extend this hypothesis to certain languages of the Caucasus and even Basque (a European language isolate) in a “Dene-Caucasian Hypothesis”, further making the theory unrealistic and baseless. 

However, between the years of 1998 and 2008, linguist Edward Vajda researched this topic and presented it at a symposium on Alaskan languages. He identified a convincing list of over 110 proposed cognate morphemes and about ten homologous prefix and suffix positions of the verbs. Additionally, Vajda went beyond purely linguistic data, addressing analyses of the Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups. His most compelling DNA evidence is the Q1 Y-chromosomal haplogroup subclade, which he notes arose around 15 kya and is found in nearly all Native Americans and nearly all of the Yeniseian Ket people (90%), but almost nowhere else in Eurasia except for the Selkup people (65%), who have intermarried with the Ket people for centuries. 

Reception of these claims in the historical linguistic space has generally been positive, and it has even been called "the first demonstration of a genealogical link between Old World and New World language families that meets the standards of traditional comparative-historical linguistics." So while we may never fully unravel how humans first arrived in the Americas or the languages they spoke, advances in historical linguistics promise more discoveries on the horizon.

Citations:

Bernard Comrie (2008) "Why the Dene-Yeniseic Hypothesis is Exciting". Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska: Dene-Yeniseic Symposium.

"Dene-Yeniseian Languages | Alaska Native Language Center". www.uaf.edu. Retrieved 2024-12-27.

Bergsland, K. (2022, April 19). Eskimo-Aleut languages. Encyclopedia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Eskimo-Aleut-languages

Vajda, E. (2010). A Siberian Link with Na-Dene Languages. Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska.

Vovin, A. (2015). Tungusic historical linguistics and prehistory: What has been achieved since 1997? Language and Linguistics Compass, 9(1), 38–65.

Fladmark, K. R. (1979). Routes: Alternative migration corridors for early man in North America. American Antiquity, 44(1), 55-69.

Yaroslav V. Kuzmin, et al. (2008) Obsidian use at the Ushki Lake complex, Kamchatka Peninsula (Northeastern Siberia): implications for terminal Pleistocene and early Holocene human migrations in Beringia, Journal of Archaeological Science, 35 (8),  2179-2187,