Mitian
The Mitian languages are a cluster of language families of nortern Eurasia and the North American Arctic which are characterized by similar 1st and 2nd person pronoun roots, *mi and *ti, respectively, or similar (hence the designation "Mitian"). The group consists of the following language families (in a west-to-east order):
- Indo-European
- Uralic
- Turkic
- Mongolic
- Tungusic
- Yukaghir
- Chukotko-Kamchatkan
- Eskimo-Aleut
Doubtful candidates:
- Tyrrhenian (Etruscan-Rhaetic-Lemnian)
- Kartvelian
- Nivkh
Geographical extent
The Mitian group of languages is enormous in its extent. It encompasses most of northern Eurasia, the Indian subcontinent and the North American Arctic; the European colonial expansion in the 15th to 20th centuries also took Indo-European languages to many diverse locations in the world, especially the Americas, Australia and Siberia.
Mitian languages are spoken by about 3,000 million people altogether, the largest part of them being speakers of Indo-European languages. The Mitian languages form a contiguous belt around the North Pole, interrupted only by the stretches of ocean that separate the continents.
This makes is somewhat arbitrary to speak of "western" and "eastern" Mitian languages; but given the fact that the westernmost Indo-European languages entered their present locations from the east, and the easternmost Eskimo-Aleut languages entered their present locations from the west, it is reasonable to "cut open" the belt at the Atlantic and consider Indo-European the westernmost and Eskimo-Aleut the easternmost Mitian family. That way (neglecting colonial-era expansions of Indo-European languages), Icelandic (Indo-European) is the westernmost and East Greenlandic (Eskimo-Aleut) the easternmost Mitian language.
It is obviously easier to define the northernmost and the southernmost Mitian languages. Again neglecting colonial-era developments and considering indigenous languages only, the northermost Mitian language (actually, the northernmost language of any family) is Polar Eskimo (Eskimo-Aleut), while the southernmost Mitian language is Divehi (Indo-European).
Is Mitian a family?
The resemblance of a pair of personal pronouns, however, is generally not considered sufficient to prove a relationship. Yet, the fact that these pronouns bear resemblance within a group of at least eight language families occupying a contiguous area strongly suggests that a common origin of these languages is likely, especially as the area in question has been characterized by large-scale migrations throughout history (and probably ever since the last glaciation) and thus constitutes a typical linguistic spread zone in which a single linguistic lineage could have spread across the entire area within a few thousand years.
The case needs to be investigated further by means of the traditional comparative method.
Suggested subgroups of Mitian
The Indo-Uralic hypothesis, linking Indo-European and Uralic, has many adherents. Also very popular is the hypothesis of a close relationship between Uralic and Yukaghir. Michael Fortescue, in his 1998 book Language Relations Across Bering Strait, proposes a Uralo-Siberian group consisting of Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut.
The Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages have long been considered branches of a single family called Altaic, to which some scholars furthermore added Korean and Japanese. The validity of this family is now controversial.
Mitian conlangs
- Hesperic by Jörg Rhiemeier
- Danubian by Taylor Selseth
- numerous a posteriori conlangs based on various Mitian families
