Yeniseian Language
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The Yeniseian languages ( ; sometimes known as Yeniseic, Yeniseyan, or Yenisei-Ostyak;"
Ostyak Ostyak () is a name formerly used to refer to several Indigenous peoples and languages in Siberia, Russia. Both the Khanty people and the Ket people were formerly called Ostyaks, whereas the Selkup people were referred to as Ostyak-Samoyed. Kh ...
" is a concept of areal rather than
genetic linguistics Comparative linguistics is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness implies a common origin or proto-language and comparative linguistics aim ...
. In addition to the Yeniseian languages it also includes the
Uralic languages The Uralic languages ( ), sometimes called the Uralian languages ( ), are spoken predominantly in Europe and North Asia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian. Other languages with speakers ab ...
of
Khanty The Khanty (), also known in older literature as Ostyaks (), are a Ugric Indigenous people, living in Khanty–Mansi Autonomous Okrug, a region historically known as " Yugra" in Russia, together with the Mansi. In the autonomous okrug, the K ...
and Selkup. The term "Yenisei-Ostyak" typically refers to the Ketic branch of Yeniseian.
occasionally spelled with -ss-) are a family of languages that are spoken by the
Yeniseian people The Yeniseian people refers either to the modern or ancient Siberian populations speaking Yeniseian languages. Despite evidence pointing to the historical presence of Yeniseian populations throughout Central Siberia and Northern Mongolia, only ...
in the
Yenisei River The Yenisey or Yenisei ( ; , ) is the list of rivers by length, fifth-longest river system in the world, and the largest to drain into the Arctic Ocean. Rising in Mungaragiyn-gol in Mongolia, it follows a northerly course through Lake Baikal a ...
region of central
Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...
. As part of the proposed Dene–Yeniseian language family, the Yeniseian languages have been argued to be part of "the first demonstration of a genealogical link between Old World and New World language families that meets the standards of traditional
comparative The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...
-
historical linguistics Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of languages. Historical li ...
". The only surviving language of the group today is Ket. From hydronymic and genetic data, it is suggested that the Yeniseian languages were spoken in a much greater area in ancient times, including parts of northern China and Mongolia.Vajda, Edward J. (2013). Yeniseian Peoples and Languages: A History of Yeniseian Studies with an Annotated Bibliography and a Source Guide. Oxford/New York: Routledge. It has been further proposed that the recorded distribution of Yeniseian languages from the 17th century onward represents a relatively recent northward migration, and that the Yeniseian
urheimat In historical linguistics, the homeland or ( , from German 'original' and 'home') of a proto-language is the region in which it was spoken before splitting into different daughter languages. A proto-language is the reconstructed or historicall ...
lies to the south of
Lake Baikal Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the Federal subjects of Russia, federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast, Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia, Oblast to the northwest and the Repu ...
. The Yeniseians have been connected to the Xiongnu confederation, whose ruling elite may have spoken a "southern Yeniseian" language similar to the now extinct
Pumpokol language Pumpokol (Pumpokol: ) is one of the Yeniseian languages, formerly spoken by the Pumpokol people (). It has been extinct since the 18th century. It shares many features with the ancient Xiongnu and Jie languages, and according to Alexander Vovin, ...
. The Jie, who ruled the
Later Zhao Zhao, briefly known officially as Wei (衛) in 350 AD, known in historiography as the Later Zhao (; 319–351) or Shi Zhao (石趙), was a dynasty of China ruled by the Shi family of Jie ethnicity during the Sixteen Kingdoms period. Among the ...
state of northern China, are likewise believed to have spoken a Pumpokolic language based on linguistic and ethnogeographic data. For those who argue the Xiongnu spoke a Yeniseian language, the Yeniseian languages are thought to have contributed many ubiquitous loanwords to Turkic and Mongolic vocabulary, such as ''
Khan Khan may refer to: * Khan (surname), including a list of people with the name * Khan (title), a royal title for a ruler in Mongol and Turkic languages and used by various ethnicities Art and entertainment * Khan (band), an English progressiv ...
'', '' Tarqan'', and the word for 'god', ''
Tengri Tengri (; Old Uyghur: ; Middle Turkic: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Proto-Turkic: / ; Mongolian script: , ; , ; , ) is the all-encompassing God of Heaven in the traditional Turkic, Yeniseian, Mongolic, and various other nomadic religious beliefs. So ...
''. This conclusion has primarily been drawn from the analysis of preserved Xiongnu texts in the form of
Chinese characters Chinese characters are logographs used Written Chinese, to write the Chinese languages and others from regions historically influenced by Chinese culture. Of the four independently invented writing systems accepted by scholars, they represe ...
.


Classification

The classification of the Yeniseian languages has changed from time to time. A traditional classification is presented below: *
Proto-Yeniseian Proto-Yeniseian or Proto-Yeniseic is the unattested linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language from which all Yeniseian languages are thought to descend from. It is uncertain whether Proto-Yeniseian had a similar tone/pitch accent sy ...
(before 500 BC; split around 1 AD) ** Northern Yeniseian (split around 700 AD) *** Ket (>200 speakers as of 2007) ****''Northern Ket'' ****''Central Ket'' ****''Southern Ket'' *** Yugh (extinct 1970s) ** Southern Yeniseian *** Kott–Assan (split around 1200 AD) **** Kott (extinct by the mid-1800s) **** Assan (extinct by 1800) **** Yastin Yastin, Yarin and Baikot are sometimes considered dialects of Kott. **** Yarin **** Baikot *** Arin–Pumpokol (split around 550 AD) ****
Arin Arin may refer to: __NOTOC__ Geography * Arin, Armenia, a town in Armenia * Arin River, a tributary of the Someşul Mare River in Romania * Ujjain, an Indian city used as the center of ancient and medieval world maps, which was corrupted in Latin ...
(extinct by 1800) **** Pumpokol (extinct by 1750) **** ? Jie (extinct after 4th century) Georg 2007 and Hölzl 2018 use a slightly different classification, placing Pumpokol in both branches: Proto-Yeniseic ** Northern *** Yenisei-Ostyakic **** Ket **** Yugh *** Pumpokol ? ** Pumpokol ? ** Southern *** Assanic **** Assan **** Kott ***
Arin Arin may refer to: __NOTOC__ Geography * Arin, Armenia, a town in Armenia * Arin River, a tributary of the Someşul Mare River in Romania * Ujjain, an Indian city used as the center of ancient and medieval world maps, which was corrupted in Latin ...
*** Pumpokol ?A more recent classification, introduced in Fortescue and Vajda 2022 and used in Vajda 2024, is presented below: *
Proto-Yeniseian Proto-Yeniseian or Proto-Yeniseic is the unattested linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language from which all Yeniseian languages are thought to descend from. It is uncertain whether Proto-Yeniseian had a similar tone/pitch accent sy ...
**Ketic *** Ket (153 speakers as of the 2020 census) ****''Central Ket'' ****''Northern-Southern Ket'' *****''Northern Ket'' *****''Southern Ket'' *** Yugh (extinct 1972, 3 speakers reported 2020) **Arinic ***
Arin Arin may refer to: __NOTOC__ Geography * Arin, Armenia, a town in Armenia * Arin River, a tributary of the Someşul Mare River in Romania * Ujjain, an Indian city used as the center of ancient and medieval world maps, which was corrupted in Latin ...
(extinct by 1800) ** Pumpokolic *** Pumpokol (extinct by 1750) *** Jie? (extinct after 4th century) **Kottic *** Kott (extinct by the mid-1800s) **** ''Various dialects'' **** Yastin **** Yarin **** Baikot *** Assan (extinct by 1800) It has been suggested that the
Xiongnu The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of Nomad, nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese historiography, Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, t ...
and
Hunnic language The Hunnic language, or Hunnish, was the language spoken by Huns in the Hunnic Empire, a heterogeneous, multi-ethnic tribal confederation which invaded Eastern and Central Europe, and ruled most of Pannonian Central Europe, during the 4th and 5 ...
s were Southern Yeniseian. Only two languages of this family survived into the 20th century: Ket (also known as ''Imbat Ket''), with around 200 speakers, and Yugh (also known as ''Sym Ket''), now extinct. The other known members of this family—Arin, Assan, Pumpokol, and Kott—have been extinct for over 150 years. Other groups—the Baikot, Yarin ( Buklin), Yastin, Ashkyshtym (Bachat
Teleuts Teleuts () are a Turkic Indigenous people of Siberia living in Kemerovo Oblast, Russia. According to the 2010 census, there were 2,643 Teleuts in Russia. They speak the Teleut language/dialect of Southern Altai language. In the Soviet years ...
), and Koibalkyshtym—are identifiable as Yeniseic speaking from
tsarist Tsarist autocracy (), also called Tsarism, was an autocracy, a form of absolute monarchy in the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire. In it, the Tsar possessed in principle authority and ...
fur-tax records compiled during the 17th century, but nothing remains of their languages except a few proper names.


Distribution

Ket, the only extant Yeniseian language, is the northernmost known. Historical sources record a contemporaneous northern expansion of the Ket along the Yenisei during the Russian conquest of Siberia. Today, it is mainly spoken in
Turukhansky District Turukhansky District () is an administrativeLaw #10-4765 and municipalLaw #13-2925 district (raion), one of the forty-three in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is located in the west of the krai and borders with Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District i ...
of
Krasnoyarsk Krai Krasnoyarsk Krai (, ) is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject (a krai) of Russia located in Siberia. Its administrative center is the types of inhabited localities in Russia, city of Krasnoyarsk, the second-largest city in Siberia after ...
in far northern Siberia, in villages such as
Kellog Kellog (, Ket: , ) is a rural locality (a settlement) in Turukhansky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia.Law #10-4765 It is located by the Yeloguy River, a left tributary of the Yenisey.Елогуй, Great Soviet Encyclopedia in 30 vols. / Ch. ...
and . Yugh, which only recently faced extinction, was spoken from
Yeniseysk Yeniseysk ( rus, Енисейск, p=jɪnʲɪˈsʲejsk) is a town in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. Population: 20,000 (1970). History Yeniseysk was founded in 1619 as a stockaded town—the first town on the Yenisei ...
to Vorogovo,
Yartsevo Yartsevo () is the name of several inhabited localities in Russia. ;Urban localities *Yartsevo, Smolensk Oblast, a town in Yartsevsky District of Smolensk Oblast; administratively incorporated as Yartsevskoye Urban Settlement ;Rural localities *Ya ...
, and the upper
Ket River 300px, The Ket was a part of the Siberian River Routes. The Ket (), also known in its upper reaches as the Bolshaya Ket () is a west-flowing river in the Krasnoyarsk Krai and Tomsk Oblast in Russia, a right tributary of the Ob. The Ket has a ...
. The early modern distributions of Arin, Pumpokol, Kott, and Assan can be reconstructed. The Arin were north of
Krasnoyarsk Krasnoyarsk is the largest types of inhabited localities in Russia, city and administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is situated along the Yenisey, Yenisey River, and is the second-largest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk, with a p ...
, whereas the more distantly related Pumpokol was spoken to the north and west of it, along the upper Ket. Kott and Assan, another pair of closely related languages, occupied the area south of Krasnoyarsk, and east to the
Kan River The Kan () river is a right tributary of the Yenisey in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Siberia, Russia. It is long and drains a basin of . Its valley forms the southern boundary of the Yenisey Range.
. From toponyms it can be seen that Yeniseian populations probably lived in
Buryatia Buryatia, officially the Republic of Buryatia, is a republic of Russia located in the Russian Far East. Formerly part of the Siberian Federal District, it has been administered as part of the Far Eastern Federal District since 2018. To its nort ...
, Zabaykalsky, and northern
Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...
. As an example, the toponym can be found in
Zabaykalsky Krai Zabaykalsky Krai is a federal subjects of Russia, federal subject of Russia (a krai), located in the Russian Far East. Its administrative center is Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai, Chita. As of the Russian Census (2010), 2010 Census, the population was ...
, which is probably related to the
Proto-Yeniseian Proto-Yeniseian or Proto-Yeniseic is the unattested linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language from which all Yeniseian languages are thought to descend from. It is uncertain whether Proto-Yeniseian had a similar tone/pitch accent sy ...
word ''*sēs'' 'river' and likely derives from an undocumented Yeniseian language. Some toponyms that appear Yeniseian extend as far as
Heilongjiang Heilongjiang is a province in northeast China. It is the northernmost and easternmost province of the country and contains China's northernmost point (in Mohe City along the Amur) and easternmost point (at the confluence of the Amur and Us ...
.
Václav Blažek Václav Blažek (born 23 April 1959) is a Czech historical linguist. He is a professor at Masaryk University in Brno and also teaches at the University of West Bohemia in Plzeň. His major interests include Indo-European languages, Uralic lang ...
argues, based on hydronymic data, that Yeniseians were once spread out even farther into the west. He compares, for example, the word , found in more westerly river names, to Proto-Yeniseian *''sēs'' 'river'.


Origins and history

According to a 2016 study, Yeniseian people and their language originated likely somewhere near the
Altai Mountains The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central Asia, Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob River, Ob have their headwaters. The ...
or near
Lake Baikal Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the Federal subjects of Russia, federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast, Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia, Oblast to the northwest and the Repu ...
. According to this study, the Yeniseians are linked to
Paleo-Eskimo The Paleo-Eskimo meaning ''"old Eskimos"'', also known as, pre-Thule people, Thule or pre-Inuit, were the peoples who inhabited the Arctic region from Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Chukotka (e.g., Chertov Ovrag) in present-day Russia across North Am ...
groups. The Yeniseians have also been hypothesised to be representative of a back-migration from
Beringia Beringia is defined today as the land and maritime area bounded on the west by the Lena River in Russia; on the east by the Mackenzie River in Canada; on the north by 70th parallel north, 72° north latitude in the Chukchi Sea; and on the south ...
to central Siberia, and the Dene–Yeniseians a result of a radiation of populations out of the Bering land bridge. The spread of ancient Yeniseian languages may be associated with an ancestry component from the Baikal area (Cisbaikal_LNBA), maximized among hunter-gatherers of the local Glazkovo culture. Affinity for this ancestry has been observed among Na-Dene speakers. Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry is inferred to be rich in
Ancient Paleo-Siberian In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient Paleo-Siberian is the name given to an ancestral component that represents the lineage of the hunter-gatherer people of the 15th-10th millennia before present, in northern and northeastern Siberia. The Ancien ...
ancestry, and also display affinity to Inner Northeast Asian (Yumin-like) groups. In Siberia,
Edward Vajda Edward J. Vajda (Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, September 10, 1958 as Edward M. Johnson; changed his name in 1981) is a historical linguist at Western Washington University, Washington. He is known for his work on the proposed Dené–Yeniseia ...
observed that Yeniseian hydronyms in the circumpolar region (the recent area of distribution of Yeniseian languages) clearly overlay earlier systems, with the layering of morphemes onto Ugric, Samoyedic, Turkic, and Tungusic place names. It is therefore proposed that the homeland, or dispersal point, of the Yeniseian languages lies in the boreal region between Lake Baikal, northern Mongolia, and the Upper Yenisei basin, referred to by Vajda as a territory "abandoned" by the original Yeniseian speakers. On the other hand,
Václav Blažek Václav Blažek (born 23 April 1959) is a Czech historical linguist. He is a professor at Masaryk University in Brno and also teaches at the University of West Bohemia in Plzeň. His major interests include Indo-European languages, Uralic lang ...
(2019) argues that based on hydronomic evidence, Yeneisian languages were originally spoken on the northern slopes of the
Tianshan The Tian Shan, also known as the Tengri Tagh or Tengir-Too, meaning the "Mountains of God/Heaven", is a large system of mountain ranges in Central Asia. The highest peak is Jengish Chokusu at high and located in Kyrgyzstan. Its lowest point is ...
and
Pamir Mountains The Pamir Mountains are a Mountain range, range of mountains between Central Asia and South Asia. They are located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun Mountains, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya ...
before dispersing downstream via the
Irtysh River The Irtysh is a river in Russia, China, and Kazakhstan. It is the chief tributary of the Ob and is also the longest tributary in the world. The river's source lies in the Mongolian Altai in Dzungaria (the northern part of Xinjiang, China) cl ...
. The modern populations of Yeniseians in central and northern Siberia are thus not indigenous and represent a more recent migration northward. This was noted by Russian explorers during the conquest of Siberia: the Ket are recorded to have been expanding northwards along the Yenisei, from the river Yeloguy to the Kureyka, from the 17th century onward. Based on these records, the modern Ket-speaking area appears to represent the very northernmost reaches of Yeniseian migration. The origin of this northward migration from the Mongolian steppe has been connected to the fall of the Xiongnu confederation. It appears from Chinese sources that a Yeniseian group might have been a major part of the heterogeneous Xiongnu tribal confederation, who have traditionally been considered the ancestors of the
Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...
and other Northern Asian groups. However, these suggestions are difficult to substantiate due to the paucity of data.See Vajda 2008a
Alexander Vovin Alexander Vladimirovich Vovin (; 27 January 1961 – 8 April 2022) was a Soviet-born Russian-American linguist and philologist, and director of studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France. He wa ...
argues that at least parts of the Xiongnu, possibly its core or ruling class, spoke a Yeniseian language. Positing a higher degree of similarity of Xiongnu to Yeniseian as compared to Turkic, he also praised
Stefan Georg Ralf-Stefan Georg (November 7, 1962 in Bottrop) is a German linguist. He is currently Professor at the University of Bonn in Bonn, Germany, for Altaic Linguistics and Culture Studies. Education Georg earned an M.A. in Mongolian Linguistics, ...
's demonstration of how the word ''
Tengri Tengri (; Old Uyghur: ; Middle Turkic: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Proto-Turkic: / ; Mongolian script: , ; , ; , ) is the all-encompassing God of Heaven in the traditional Turkic, Yeniseian, Mongolic, and various other nomadic religious beliefs. So ...
'' (the Turkic and Mongolic word for 'sky' and later 'god') originated from Proto-Yeniseian ''tɨŋVr''. It has been further suggested that the Yeniseian-speaking Xiongnu elite underwent a
language shift Language shift, also known as language transfer, language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceived ...
to Oghur Turkic while migrating westward, eventually becoming the
Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...
. However, it has also been suggested that the core of the Hunnic language was a Yeniseian language.
Vajda Vajda is a Hungarian language surname. It is derived from Proto-Slavic *vojevoda. In medieval times, vajda was the equivalent of voivode, meaning a "war-leader" or "war-lord". Notable people with the surname include: *Anna Vajda (born 1984), Hun ...
et al. 2013 proposed that the ruling elite of the
Huns The Huns were a nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. According to European tradition, they were first reported living east of the Volga River, in an area that was par ...
spoke a Yeniseian language and influenced other languages in the region. One sentence of the language of the Jie, a Xiongnu tribe who founded the
Later Zhao Zhao, briefly known officially as Wei (衛) in 350 AD, known in historiography as the Later Zhao (; 319–351) or Shi Zhao (石趙), was a dynasty of China ruled by the Shi family of Jie ethnicity during the Sixteen Kingdoms period. Among the ...
state, appears consistent with being a Yeniseian language. Later studies suggest that Jie is closer to Pumpokol than to other Yeniseian languages such as Ket. This has been substantiated with geographical data by Vajda, who states that Yeniseian hydronyms found in northern Mongolia are exclusively Pumpokolic, in the process demonstrating both a linguistic and geographic proximity between Yeniseian and Jie. The decline of the southern Yeniseian languages during and after the Russian conquest of Siberia has been attributed to language shifts of the Arin and Pumpokol to
Khakas The Khakas are a Turkic indigenous people of Siberia, who live in the republic of Khakassia, Russia. They speak the Khakas language. The Khakhassian people are direct descendants of various ancient cultures that have inhabited southern Siberia ...
or Chulym Tatar, and the Kott and Assan to Khakas.


Family features

The Yeniseian languages share many contact-induced similarities with the South
Siberian Turkic languages The Siberian Turkic or Northeastern Common Turkic languages, are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family. The following table is based upon the classification scheme presented by Lars Johanson (1998). All languages of the branch combined have ...
,
Samoyedic languages The Samoyedic () or Samoyed languages () are spoken around the Ural Mountains, in northernmost Eurasia, by approximately 25,000 people altogether, accordingly called the Samoyedic peoples. They derive from a common ancestral language called Pr ...
, and Evenki. These include long-distance
nasal harmony Consonant harmony is a type of "long-distance" phonological assimilation, akin to the similar assimilatory process involving vowels, i.e. vowel harmony. Examples In Athabaskan languages One of the more common harmony processes is ''coronal harm ...
, the development of former
affricates An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...
to stops, and the use of
postpositions Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...
or grammatical
enclitics In morphology and syntax, a clitic ( , backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...
as clausal subordinators. Yeniseic nominal enclitics closely approximate the
case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...
systems of geographically contiguous families. Despite these similarities, Yeniseian appears to stand out among the languages of Siberia in several
typological A typology is a system of classification used to organize things according to similar or dissimilar characteristics. Groups of things within a typology are known as "types". Typologies are distinct from taxonomies in that they primarily address t ...
respects, such as the presence of
tone Tone may refer to: Visual arts and color-related * Tone (color theory), a mix of tint and shade, in painting and color theory * Tone (color), the lightness or brightness (as well as darkness) of a color * Toning (coin), color change in coins * ...
, the
prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...
ing verb inflection, and highly complex
morphophonology Morphophonology (also morphophonemics or morphonology) is the branch of linguistics that studies the interaction between morphological and phonological or phonetic processes. Its chief focus is the sound changes that take place in morphemes (m ...
. The Yeniseian languages have been described as having up to four tones or no tones at all. The 'tones' are concomitant with
glottalization Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent cons ...
,
vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual length (phonetics), duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels. On one hand, many ...
, and
breathy voice Breathy voice (also called murmured voice, whispery voice, soughing and susurration) is a phonation in which the vocal folds vibrate, as they do in normal (modal) voicing, but are adjusted to let more air escape which produces a sighing-like s ...
, not unlike the situation reconstructed for
Old Chinese Old Chinese, also called Archaic Chinese in older works, is the oldest attested stage of Chinese language, Chinese, and the ancestor of all modern varieties of Chinese. The earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones ...
before the development of true tones in Chinese. The Yeniseian languages have highly elaborate
verbal morphology A verb is a word that generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual description of English, the basic fo ...
.


Pronouns


Numbers

The following table exemplifies the basic Yeniseian numerals as well as the various attempts at reconstructing the proto-forms:


Basic vocabulary

The following table exemplifies a few basic vocabulary items as well as the various attempts at reconstructing the proto-forms:


Proposed relations to other language families

Until 2008, few linguists had accepted connections between Yeniseian and any other language family, though distant connections have been proposed with most of the
ergative language The term ergative is used in grammar in three different meanings: * Ergative case, the grammatical case of the subject of a transitive verb in an ergative-absolutive language * Ergative–absolutive language, a language in which the subject of a ...
s of Eurasia.


Dene–Yeniseian

In 2008,
Edward Vajda Edward J. Vajda (Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, September 10, 1958 as Edward M. Johnson; changed his name in 1981) is a historical linguist at Western Washington University, Washington. He is known for his work on the proposed Dené–Yeniseia ...
of
Western Washington University Western Washington University (WWU or Western) is a public university in Bellingham, Washington, United States. The northernmost university in the contiguous United States, WWU was founded in 1893 as the state-funded New Whatcom Normal School, s ...
presented evidence for a genealogical relation between the Yeniseian languages of Siberia and the Na–Dene languages of North America. At the time of publication (2010), Vajda's proposals had been favorably reviewed by several specialists of Na-Dene and Yeniseian languages—although at times with caution—including Michael Krauss,
Jeff Leer Jeff is a masculine name, often a short form (hypocorism) of the English given name Jefferson or Jeffrey, which comes from a medieval variant of Geoffrey. Music * DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ/turntablist record producer Jeffrey Allen Townes * ...
,
James Kari James Kari is an American linguist and Professor Emeritus with the Alaska Native Language Center at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) specializing in the Dene (a.k.a. Athabascan languages) of Alaska. He served on the faculty of UAF from 19 ...
, and Heinrich Werner, as well as a number of other respected linguists, such as
Bernard Comrie Bernard Sterling Comrie, (; born 23 May 1947) is a British linguist. Comrie is a specialist in linguistic typology, linguistic universals and on Caucasian languages. Personal life Early life and education Comrie was born in Sunderland, Eng ...
,
Johanna Nichols Johanna Nichols (born 1945, Iowa City, Iowa) is an American linguist and professor emerita in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley. Career She earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics at the Univer ...
, Victor Golla,
Michael Fortescue Michael David Fortescue (born 8 August 1946, Thornbury) is a British-born linguist specializing in Arctic and native North American languages, including Kalaallisut, Inuktun, Chukchi and Nitinaht. Fortescue is known for his reconstructions ...
,
Eric Hamp Eric Pratt Hamp (November 16, 1920 – February 17, 2019) was an American linguist widely respected as a leading authority on Indo-European linguistics, with particular interests in Celtic languages and Albanian. Unlike many Indo-Europeanists, ...
, and Bill Poser (Kari and Potter 2010:12). One significant exception is the critical review of the volume of collected papers by
Lyle Campbell Lyle Richard Campbell (born October 22, 1942) is an American scholar and linguist known for his studies of indigenous American languages, especially those of Central America, and on historical linguistics in general. Campbell is professor emeri ...
and a response by Vajda published in late 2011 that clearly indicate the proposal is not completely settled at the present time. Two other reviews and notices of the volume appeared in 2011 by
Keren Rice Keren D. Rice (born 1949) is a Canadians, Canadian linguist. She is a professor of linguistics and serves as the director of the Centre for Aboriginal Initiatives at the University of Toronto. Education and career Rice earned her PhD in 1976 ...
and
Jared Diamond Jared Mason Diamond (born September 10, 1937) is an American scientist, historian, and author. In 1985 he received a MacArthur Genius Grant, and he has written hundreds of scientific and popular articles and books. His best known is '' Guns, G ...
.


Karasuk

The ''Karasuk'' hypothesis, linking Yeniseian to
Burushaski Burushaski (; , ) is a language isolate, spoken by the Burusho people, who predominantly reside in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. There are also a few hundred speakers of this language in northern Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu ...
, has been proposed by several scholars, notably by A.P. DulsonSee Dulson 1968 and V.N. Toporov.See Toporov 1971 In 2001,
George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Bern. He studied East Asian languages and is known for the father tongue hypothesis. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gra ...
postulated that the
Burusho people The Burusho, or Brusho ( Burushaski: , ''burúśu''Hunzai, A. N. N., Burushaski Research Academy, & University of Karachi. (2006). Burushaski Urdu Dictionary - Volume 1 / بروشسکی اردو لغت - جلد اول (الف تا څ). Bureau o ...
were part of the migration out of Central Asia, that resulted in the Indo-European conquest of the Indus Valley.See Van Driem 2001 Alexei Kassian has suggested a connection between Hattic,
Hurro-Urartian Hurro-Urartian is an extinct language family of the Ancient Near East, comprising only two known languages: Hurrian and Urartian. Origins It is often assumed that the Hurro-Urartian languages, or a pre-split Proto-Hurro-Urartian language, were ...
and Karasuk, proposing some lexical correspondences.


Sino–Tibetan

As noted by TailleurSee Tailleur 1994 and Werner,See Werner 1994 some of the earliest proposals of genetic relations of Yeniseian, by M.A. Castrén (1856), James Byrne (1892), and G.J. Ramstedt (1907), suggested that Yeniseian was a northern relative of the Sino–Tibetan languages. These ideas were followed much later by Kai DonnerSee Donner 1930 and Karl Bouda.See Bouda 1963 and Bouda 1957 A 2008 study found further evidence for a possible relation between Yeniseian and Sino–Tibetan, citing several possible
cognates In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the soun ...
. Gao Jingyi (2014) identified twelve Sinitic and Yeniseian shared etymologies that belonged to the basic vocabulary, and argued that these Sino–Yeniseian etymologies could not be loans from either language into the other. The " Sino–Caucasian" hypothesis of
Sergei Starostin Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin (; March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005) was a Russian historical linguistics, historical linguist and philology, philologist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothetical proto-languages, including hi ...
posits that the Yeniseian languages form a
clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...
with Sino–Tibetan, which he called Sino–Yeniseian. The Sino–Caucasian hypothesis has been expanded by others to " Dene–Caucasian" to include the
Na-Dene languages Na-Dene ( ; also Nadene, Na-Dené, Athabaskan–Eyak–Tlingit, Tlina–Dene) is a family of Native American languages that includes at least the Athabaskan languages, Eyak, and Tlingit languages. Haida was formerly included but is now genera ...
of North America,
Burushaski Burushaski (; , ) is a language isolate, spoken by the Burusho people, who predominantly reside in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. There are also a few hundred speakers of this language in northern Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu ...
,
Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...
and, occasionally,
Etruscan __NOTOC__ Etruscan may refer to: Ancient civilization *Etruscan civilization (1st millennium BC) and related things: **Etruscan language ** Etruscan architecture **Etruscan art **Etruscan cities **Etruscan coins **Etruscan history **Etruscan myt ...
. A narrower binary Dene–Yeniseian family has recently been well received. The validity of the rest of the family, however, is viewed as doubtful or rejected by nearly all
historical linguists Historical linguistics, also known as diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of how language change, languages change over time. It seeks to understand the nature and causes of linguistic change and to trace the evolution of language ...
. An updated tree by
Georgiy Starostin Georgiy Sergeevich "George" Starostin (; born 4 July 1976) is a Russian linguist. He is the son of the late historical linguist Sergei Starostin (1953–2005), and his work largely continues his father's. He is also known as a self-published mu ...
now groups Na-Dene with Sino–Tibetan and Yeniseian with
Burushaski Burushaski (; , ) is a language isolate, spoken by the Burusho people, who predominantly reside in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. There are also a few hundred speakers of this language in northern Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu ...
( Karasuk hypothesis).
George van Driem George "Sjors" van Driem (born 1957) is a Dutch professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of Bern. He studied East Asian languages and is known for the father tongue hypothesis. Education * Leiden University, 1983–1987 (PhD, ''A Gra ...
does not believe that Sino–Tibetan (which he calls "Trans–Himalayan") and Yeniseian are related language families. However, he argues that Yeniseian speakers once populated the
North China Plain The North China Plain () is a large-scale downfaulted rift basin formed in the late Paleogene and Neogene and then modified by the deposits of the Yellow River. It is the largest alluvial plain of China. The plain is bordered to the north by th ...
and that Proto-Sinitic speakers assimilated them when they migrated to the region. As a result, Sinitic acquired creoloid characteristics when it came to be used as a lingua franca among ethnolinguistically diverse populations. A 2023 analysis by David Bradley using the standard techniques of comparative linguistics supports a distant genetic link between the Sino–Tibetan, Na–Dene, and Yeniseian language families. Bradley argues that any similarities Sino–Tibetan shares with other language families of the East Asia area such as Hmong–Mien,
Altaic The Altaic () languages are a group of languages comprising the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families, with some linguists including the Koreanic and Japonic families. These languages share agglutinative morphology, head-final ...
(which is a
sprachbund A sprachbund (, from , 'language federation'), also known as a linguistic area, area of linguistic convergence, or diffusion area, is a group of languages that share areal features resulting from geographical proximity and language contact. Th ...
),
Austroasiatic The Austroasiatic languages ( ) are a large language family spoken throughout Mainland Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia. These languages are natively spoken by the majority of the population in Vietnam and Cambodia, and by minority popu ...
, Kra–Dai, and
Austronesian Austronesian may refer to: *The Austronesian languages *The historical Austronesian peoples The Austronesian people, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples who have settled in Taiwan, maritime Sout ...
came through contact; but as there has been no recent contact between the Sino–Tibetan, Na–Dene, and Yeniseian language families, any similarities these groups share must be residual.


Dene–Caucasian

Bouda, in various publications in the 1930s through the 1950s, described a linguistic network that (besides Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan) also included
Caucasian Caucasian may refer to: Common meanings *Anything from the Caucasus region or related to it ** Ethnic groups in the Caucasus ** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus re ...
, and
Burushaski Burushaski (; , ) is a language isolate, spoken by the Burusho people, who predominantly reside in northern Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. There are also a few hundred speakers of this language in northern Jammu and Kashmir (union territory), Jammu ...
, some forms of which have gone by the name of Sino-Caucasian. The works of R. BleichsteinerSee Bleichsteiner 1930 and O.G. Tailleur,See Tailleur 1958 and Tailleur 1994 the late Sergei A. StarostinSee Starostin 1982, Starostin 1984, Starostin 1991, Starostin & Ruhlen 1994 and Sergei L. NikolayevSee Nikola(y)ev 1991 have sought to confirm these connections. Others who have developed the hypothesis, often expanded to Dene–Caucasian, include J.D. Bengtson,See Bengtson 1994, Bengtson 1998, Bengtson 2008 V. Blažek,See Blažek & Bengtson 1995 J.H. Greenberg (with M. Ruhlen),See Greenberg & Ruhlen, Greenberg & Ruhlen 1997 and M. Ruhlen.See Ruhlen 1997, Ruhlen 1998a, Ruhlen 1998b
George Starostin Georgiy Sergeevich "George" Starostin (; born 4 July 1976) is a Russian linguist. He is the son of the late historical linguist Sergei Starostin (1953–2005), and his work largely continues his father's. He is also known as a self-published mu ...
continues his father's work in Yeniseian, Sino-Caucasian and other fields.See Reshetnikov & Starostin 1995a, Reshetnikov & Starostin 1995b, Dybo & Starostin This theory is very controversial or viewed as doubtful or rejected by other linguists.Dalby, Andrew (1998). ''Dictionary of Languages''. New York: Columbia University Press. pg. 434


Notes


References


Bibliography

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Brill Publishers Brill Academic Publishers () is a Dutch international academic publisher of books, academic journals, and Bibliographic database, databases founded in 1683, making it one of the oldest publishing houses in the Netherlands. Founded in the South ...
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The Structure of the Ket Verbal Form.
// Originally in: The Ket Volume (Studia Ketica), v. 4. Moscow: Languages of Russian Culture, pp. 7–121.
* Starostin, George S. (1995)
Morphology of the Kott Verb and Reconstruction of the Proto-Yeniseian Verbal System.
// Originally in: The Ket Volume (Studia Ketica), v. 4. Moscow: Languages of Russian Culture, pp. 122–175.
* Ruhlen, M. (1997). Une nouvelle famille de langues: le déné-caucasien new language family: Dene–Caucasian Pour la Science (Dossier, October) 68–73. * Ruhlen, Merritt. (1998a). Dene–Caucasian: A New Linguistic Family. In The Origins and Past of Modern Humans – Towards Reconciliation, ed. by Keiichi Omoto and Phillip V. Tobias, Singapore, World Scientific, 231–46. * Ruhlen, Merritt. (1998b)
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* Rubicz, R., Melvin, K.L., Crawford, M.H. 2002. Genetic Evidence for the phylogenetic relationship between Na-Dene and Yeniseian speakers. ''Human Biology'', Dec 1 2002 74 (6) 743–761 * Sapir, Edward. (1920). Comparative Sino-Tibetan and Na-Dené Dictionary. Ms. Ledger. American Philosophical Society Na 20a.3. (Microfilm) * Shafer, Robert. (1952). Athapaskan and Sino-Tibetan. International Journal of American Linguistics 18: 12–19. * Shafer, Robert. (1957). Note on Athapaskan and Sino-Tibetan. International Journal of American Linguistics 23: 116–117. * Stachowski, Marek (1996). Über einige altaische Lehnwörter in den Jenissej-Sprachen. In Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia 1: 91–115. * Stachowski, Marek (1997). Altaistische Anmerkungen zum “Vergleichenden Wörterbuch der Jenissej-Sprachen”. In Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia 2: 227–239. * Stachowski, Marek (2004). Anmerkungen zu einem neuen vergleichenden Wörterbuch der Jenissej-Sprachen. In Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia 9: 189–204. * Stachowski, Marek (2006a)
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In Studia Linguistica Universitatis Iagellonicae Cracoviensis 123 (2006): 155–158. * Stachowski, Marek (2006b)
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In A. Krasnowolska / K. Maciuszak / B. Mękarska (ed.): In the Orient where the Gracious Light... estschrift for A. Pisowicz Kraków: 179–184. * (Starostin, Sergei A.) Старостин, Сергей А. (1982)
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Proto-Yeniseian reconstruction and the external relations of the Yeniseian languages In: Кетский сборник, ed. Е.А. Алексеенко (E.A. Alekseenko). Leningrad: Nauka, 44–237.
* (Starostin, Sergei A.) Старостин, Сергей А. (1984). Гипотеза о генетических связях сино-тибетских языков с енисейскими и северокавказскими языками hypothesis on genetic relations of the Sino-Tibetan languages to the Yeniseian and the North Caucasian languages In: Лингвистическая реконструкция и древнейшая история Востока inguistic reconstruction and the prehistory of the East 4: Древнейшая языковая ситуация в восточной Азии he prehistoric language situation in eastern Asia ed. И. Ф. Вардуль (I.F. Varduľ) et al. Москва: Институт востоковедения oscow: Institute of Oriental Studies of the USSR Academy of Sciences 19–38. ee Starostin 1991/cite> * Starostin, Sergei A. (1991). On the Hypothesis of a Genetic Connection Between the Sino-Tibetan Languages and the Yeniseian and North Caucasian Languages. In Shevoroshkin (1991): 12–41. ranslation of Starostin 1984/cite> * Starostin, Sergei A., and Merritt Ruhlen. (1994). Proto-Yeniseian Reconstructions, with Extra-Yeniseian Comparisons. In M. Ruhlen, On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy. Stanford: Stanford University Press. pp. 70–92. artial translation of Starostin 1982, with additional comparisons by Ruhlen./cite> * Tailleur, O.G. (1994). Traits paléo-eurasiens de la morphologie iénisséienne. Études finno-ougriennes 26: 35–56. * Tailleur, O.G. (1958). Un îlot basco-caucasien en Sibérie: les langues iénisséiennes little Basque-Caucasian island in Siberia: the Yeniseian languages Orbis 7.2: 415–427. * Toporov, V.N. (1971). Burushaski and Yeniseian Languages: Some Parallels. Travaux linguistiques de Prague 4: 107–125. * Vajda, Edward J. (1998). The Kets and Their Language. Mother Tongue IV. * Vajda, Edward J. (2000). Ket Prosodic Phonology. Munich: Lincom Europa Languages of the World vol. 15. * Vajda, Edward J. (2002). The Origin of Phonemic Tone in Yeniseic. In CLS 37, 2002. (Parasession on Arctic languages: 305–320). * Vajda, Edward J. (2004). Ket. Lincom Europa, München. * Vajda, Edward J. (2004). Languages and Prehistory of Central Siberia. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 262. John Benjamin Publishing Company. (Presentation of the Yeniseian family and its speakers, together with neighboring languages and their speakers, in linguistic, historical and archeological view) * * Vajda, Edward J. (2008). "Yeniseic" a chapter in the book ''Language isolates and microfamilies of Asia'', Routledge, to be co-authored with Bernard Comrie; 53 pages). * Vajda, Edward J. (2010). "Siberian Link with Na-Dene Languages." ''The Dene–Yeniseian Connection'', ed. by J. Kari and B. Potter, 33–99. ''Anthropological Papers of the University of Alaska'', new series, vol. 5. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Fairbanks, Department of Anthropology. * Vovin, Alexander. (2000). 'Did the Xiong-nu speak a Yeniseian language?' Central Asiatic Journal 44.1: 87–104. * Vovin, Alexander. (2002). 'Did the Xiongnu speak a Yeniseian language? Part 2: Vocabulary', in Altaica Budapestinensia MMII, Proceedings of the 45th Permanent International Altaistic Conference, Budapest, June 23–28, pp. 389–394. * Werner, Heinrich. (1998). ''Reconstructing Proto-Yenisseian.'' Mother Tongue IV. * Werner, Heinrich. (2004). Zur jenissejisch-indianischen Urverwandtschaft n the Yeniseian-[AmericanIndian primordial relationship">merican.html" ;"title="n the Yeniseian-[American">n the Yeniseian-[AmericanIndian primordial relationship Wiesbaden: Harassowitz.


Further reading

* Vajda, Edward. "8 The Yeniseian language family". The Languages and Linguistics of Northern Asia: Language Families, edited by Edward Vajda, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2024, pp. 365-480.


External links


Results from the February 2008 Dene–Yeniseic Symposium

A Siberian Link With Na-Dene Languages
by Edward Vajda, a proponent of the Yeniseian-Na-Dene connection.

by Edward Vajda.

from the Santa Fe Institute.
Comparison of Yeniseian and Na-Dene
by Merritt Ruhlen.
Yenisseian Etymology
by S. A. Starostin.
Sino-Caucasian [comparative phonology
/nowiki>">omparative phonology">Sino-Caucasian [comparative phonology
/nowiki>by S. A. Starostin. 2005.
Sino-Caucasian [comparative glossary
/nowiki>] by S. A. Starostin. 2005.
Article on Yeniseian languages


* ttp://wold.clld.org/vocabulary/18 Ket language vocabulary with loanwords(from the World Loanword Database) {{DEFAULTSORT:Yeniseian Languages Language families Dené–Yeniseian languages Paleo-Siberian languages