The salishan languages and prehistoric migrations: experiment of interdisciplinary research

Abstract

The authors consider interdisciplinarity as a necessary methodology for studying complex problems that cannot be solved within the framework of one discipline. Interdisciplinary research, linguistics being the leading branch of science, can throw light on the problem of the colonization of North America at the end of the Pleistocene era. According to the authors’ view, archaic Indian Salishan languages, localized in the northwest of the USA and southwest of Canada, possessing a civilization matrix based on mythological consciousness, are relevant in research related to the reconstruction of diachronic models and historical processes of the language and in interdisciplinary studies. The territory of distribution of the Salishan languages lies directly on the path of human migration to the New World. This paper represents a study of the Salishan languages in context of solving the problem of the colonization of North America. The relevant material is analyzed in light of synthesis of linguistics, geomythology and geochronology. As a result of the study of the materials of the reconstructed protoforms, phonetic resemblances and phonetic correspondences were found while comparing basic lexemes (sand, fish, give, hand, hear (listen), eye, water, stomach, who, leg (foot), earth, know, blood, this (that), burn, head) of the Swadesh list of the Proto-Salish language with the Proto-Bantu, Proto-Yeniseian, with the families of the Nostratic Proto-language, as well as with the Proto-Algic, Proto-Algonquian-Wakashan, Proto-Nivkh languages. In addition, the authors elicited that the core mythologemes (Thunderbird, Trickster, etc.) of the Salish and several other regions of the world are identical, and their origin could be explained by human contacts with representatives of the megafauna of the Ice Age. The above mentioned indicates that the colonization of North America and the origin of the Salishan languages is consistent with the general pattern of the distribution of the modern humans from Africa around the world, which began about 60 thousand years ago. The research indicates the absence of arguments in favor of earlier or later colonization of the continent, which should be dated to the end of the Pleistocene, i.e. 15–10 thousand years ago.