Yeniseian languages

Yeniseian
Geographic distribution:	central Yenisei River, Siberia
Linguistic classification:	Dené–Yeniseian? Yeniseian
Subdivisions:	Northern (Ket–Yugh) Southern (Arin–Kott)
Glottolog:	yeni1252
Distribution of Yeniseian languages in the 17th century (hatched) and in the end of 20th century (solid).

The Yeniseian languages (lenessian) (sometimes known as Yeniseic or Yenisei-Ostyak; occasionally spelled with -ss-) are a language family whose languages are and were spoken in the Yenisei River region of central Siberia.

Family division

0. Proto-Yeniseian (before 500 BC; split around 1 AD)

1. Northern Yeniseian (split around 700 AD)

1.1. Ket (200 speakers)

1.2. Yugh † (extinct by 1990)

2. Southern Yeniseian †

2.1. Kott–Assan (split around 1200 AD)

2.1.1. Kott † (extinct by the mid-1800s)

2.1.2. Assan † (extinct by 1800)

2.2. Arin–Pumpokol (split around 550 AD)

2.2.1. Arin † (extinct by 1800)

2.2.2. Pumpokol † (extinct by 1750)

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), which is now extinct. The other known members of this family, Arin, Assan, Pumpokol, and Kott, have been extinct for over two centuries. Other groups – Buklin, Baikot, Yarin, Yastin, Ashkyshtym, and Koibalkyshtym – are identifiable as Yeniseic-speaking from tsarist fur-tax records compiled during the 17th century, but nothing remains of their languages except a few proper names.

It appears from Chinese sources that a Yeniseian group might have been among the peoples that made up the tribal confederation known as the Xiongnu, who have traditionally been considered the ancestors of the Huns, but these suggestions are difficult to substantiate due to the paucity of data. One sentence of the language of the Jie, a Xiongnu tribe who founded the Later Zhao state, appears consistent with being a Yeniseian language.

A proposal connecting Yeniseian to Na-Dené, one of the major language families of indigenous peoples in North America, has been met with a cautious welcome.

Family features

The Yeniseian languages share many contact-induced similarities with the South Siberian Turkic languages, Samoyedic languages, and Evenki. These include long-distance nasal harmony, the development of former affricates to stops, and the use of postpositions or grammatical enclitics as clausal subordinators. Yeniseic nominal enclitics closely approximate the case systems of geographically contiguous families. Despite these similarities, Yeniseian appears to stand out among the languages of Siberia in several typological respects, such as the presence of tone, the prefixing verb inflection, and highly complex morphophonology.

The Yeniseian languages have been described as having up to four tones or no tones at all. The 'tones' are concomitant with glottalization, vowel length, and breathy voice, not unlike the situation reconstructed for Old Chinese before the development of true tones in Chinese. The Yeniseian languages have highly elaborate verbal morphology.

Morphology

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns in Yeniseian languages
	Singular			Plural
	1.	2.	3.	1.	2.	3.
Ket	āˑ(t)	ūˑ	būˑ	ɤ̄ˑt ~ ɤ́tn	ɤ́kŋ	būˑŋ
Yugh	āt	ū	bū	ɤ́tn	kɤ́kŋ	béìŋ
Kott dialects	ai	au	uju ~ hatu (masc.) uja ~ hata (fem.)	ajoŋ	auoŋ ~ aoŋ	uniaŋ ~ hatien
Assan	aj	au	bari	ajuŋ	avun	hatin
Arin	ai	au	au	aiŋ	aŋ	itaŋ
Pumpokol	ad	u	adu	adɨŋ	ajaŋ	?

Vocabulary

Numerals

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

Gloss	Yeniseian languages and dialects						Available reconstructions
	Northern branch		Southern branch
	Ket dialects	Yugh	Kott-Assan		Arin-Pumpokol
	SK		Kott	Assan	Arin	Pumpokol	Starostin
1	qūˑs	χūs	huːtʃa	hutʃa	qusej	xuta	*xu-sa
2	ɯ̄ˑn	ɯ̄n	iːna	ina	kina	hinɛaŋ	*xɨna
3	dɔˀŋ	dɔˀŋ	toːŋa	taŋa	tʲoŋa ~ tʲuːŋa	dóŋa	*doʔŋa
4	sīˑk	sīk	tʃeɡa ~ ʃeːɡa	ʃeɡa	tʃaɡa	ziang	*si-
5	qāˑk	χāk	keɡa ~ χeːɡa	keɡa	qala	hejlaŋ	*qä-
6	aˀ ~ à	àː	χelutʃa	ɡejlutʃa	ɨɡa	aɡɡɛaŋ	*ʔaẋV
7	ɔˀŋ	ɔˀŋ	χelina	ɡejlina	ɨnʲa	onʲaŋ	*ʔoʔn-
10	qɔ̄ˑ	χɔ̄	haːɡa ~ haɡa	xaha	qau ~ hioɡa	hajaŋ	*ẋɔGa
20	ɛˀk	ɛˀk	iːntʰukŋ	inkukn	kinthjuŋ	hédiang	*ʔeʔk ~ xeʔk
100	kiˀ	kiˀ	ujaːx	jus	jus	útamssa	*kiʔ ~ ɡiʔ / *ʔalVs-(tamsV)

A few etymologies

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

Gloss	Yeniseian languages and dialects								Available reconstructions
	Northern branch				Southern branch
	Ket dialects			Yugh	Kott-Assan		Arin-Pumpokol
	SK	NK	CK		Kott	Assan	Arin	Pumpokol	Vajda	Starostin	Werner
LARCH	sɛˀs	sɛˀs	šɛˀš	sɛˀs	šet	čet	čit	tag	*čɛˀç	*seʔs	*sɛʔt / *tɛʔt
RIVER	sēˑs	sēˑs	šēˑš	sēs	šet	šet	sat	tat	*cēˑc	*ses	*set / *tet
STONE	tʌˀs	tʌˀs	tʌˀš	čʌˀs	šiš	šiš	kes	kit	*cʰɛˀs	*čɨʔs	*t'ɨʔs
FINGER	tʌˀq	tʌˀq	tʌˀq	tʌˀχ	tʰoχ	?	intoto	tok	*tʰɛˀq	*tǝʔq	*thǝʔq
RESIN	dīˑk	dīˑk	dīˑk	dʲīk	čik	?	?	?	*čīˑk	*ǯik (~-g, -ẋ)	*d'ik
WOLF	qɯ̄ˑt	qɯ̄ˑti	qɯ̄ˑtə	χɯ̄ˑt	(boru ← Turkic)		qut	xotu	*qʷīˑtʰi	*qɨte (˜ẋ-)	*qʌthǝ
WINTER	kɤ̄ˑt	kɤ̄ˑti	kɤ̄ˑte	kɤ̄ˑt	keːtʰi	?	lot	lete	*kʷeˑtʰi	*gǝte	*kǝte
LIGHT	kʌˀn	kʌˀn	kʌˀn	kʌˀn	kin	?	lum	?	*kʷɛˀn	*gǝʔn-	?
PERSON	kɛˀd	kɛˀd	kɛˀd	kɛˀtʲ	hit	het	kit	kit	*kɛˀt	*keʔt	?
TWO	ɯ̄ˑn	ɯ̄ˑn	ɯ̄ˑn	ɯ̄n	in	in	kin	hin	*kʰīˑn	*xɨna	*(k)ɨn
WATER	ūˑl	ūˑl	ūˑl	ūr	ul	ul	kul	ul	*kʰul	*qoʔl (~ẋ-, -r)	?
BIRCH	ùs	ùːse	ùːsə	ùːʰs	uča	uuča	kus	uta	*kʰuχʂa	*xūsa	*kuʔǝt'ǝ
SNOWSLED	súùl	súùl	šúùl	sɔ́ùl	čogar	čɛgar	šal	tsɛl	*tsehʷəl	*soʔol	*sogǝl (~č/t'-ʎ)

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 languages of Eurasia.

Dené–Yenisean

Main article: Dené–Yeniseian languages

In 2008, Edward Vajda of Western Washington University presented evidence for a genealogical relation between the Yeneisian languages of Siberia and the Na–Dené languages of North America. At the time of publication (2010), Vajda's proposals had been favorably reviewed by several specialists of Na-Dené and Yeniseian languages—although at times with caution—including Michael Krauss, Jeff Leer, James Kari, and Heinrich Werner, as well as a number of other respected linguists, such as Bernard Comrie, Johanna Nichols, Victor Golla, Michael Fortescue, Eric Hamp, and Bill Poser (Kari and Potter 2010:12). One significant exception is the critical review of the volume of collected papers by Lyle Campbell 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 and Jared Diamond.

Karasuk

Main article: Karasuk languages

The Karasuk hypothesis, linking Yeniseian to Burushaski, has been proposed by several scholars, notably by A.P. Dulson and V.N. Toporov. George van Driem, the most prominent current advocate of the Karasuk hypothesis, postulates that the Burusho people were part of the migration out of Central Asia that resulted in the Indo-European conquest of the Indus Valley.

Sino-Tibetan

Main article: Sino-Tibetan languages

As noted by Tailleur and Werner, 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 Donner and Karl Bouda. In more-recent studies at the beginning of the 21st century, historical linguist Edward Vajda (who also proposes the Dené–Yenisean relationship) had spent a year studying the Ket people's Yeniseian, where his findings helped with the substantiation of this conjecture into the origins of Ket people, and DNA claims showing genetic and linguistic affinities with such ethnic groups living in relatively close-proximity to the region of Tibet (vis-a-vis Sino-Tibetan and Tibeto-Burman)[1]; he further suggests that the tonal system of the Ket language is closer than that of spoken Vietnamese than the other native languages found in Siberia [2].

Dené–Caucasian

Main article: Dené–Caucasian languages

Bouda, in various publications in the 1930s through the 1950s, described a linguistic network that (besides Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan) also included Caucasian, and Burushaski, some forms of which have gone by the name of Sino-Caucasian. The works of R. Bleichsteiner and O.G. Tailleur, the late Sergei A. Starostin and Sergei L. Nikolayev have sought to confirm these connections. Others who have developed the hypothesis, often expanded to Dené–Caucasian, include J.D. Bengtson, V. Blažek, J.H. Greenberg (with M. Ruhlen), and M. Ruhlen. George Starostin continues his father's work in Yeniseian, Sino-Caucasian and other fields.

Bibliography

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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.
• Lecture notes on the Ket people by Edward Vajda.
• Map of the Yeniseian family from the Santa Fe Institute.
• Comparison of Yeniseian and Na-Dene by Merritt Ruhlen.
• Yenisseian Etymology by S. A. Starostin.
• Sino-Caucasian [comparative phonology] by S. A. Starostin. 2005.
• Sino-Caucasian [comparative glossary] by S. A. Starostin. 2005.
• Article on Yeniseian languages (Russian)
• Multimedia Database of Ket Language, Moscow State (Lomonosov) University
• Ket language vocabulary with loanwords (from the World Loanword Database)