“Canoe” Links Old and New Worlds
3 Apr
While a prevailing theory holds that humans initially populated North America by walking from Siberia across the Bering Land Bridge, a canoe appears to help confirm the route.
The word “canoe,” that is.
Edward Vajda, a linguistics professor at Western Washington University, has found similarities between the word for canoe in the ancient Ket language of Siberia and in the Na-Dene languages of North America, the Ottawa Citizen reports HERE. The two languages use almost identical words for canoe and canoe components such as prow and cross-piece.
The discovery is said to be the first to link words of an ancient Asian language to those in North America. The National Geographic News also has a story about the discovery, HERE.
