The Yeniseian language family (sometimes known as Yeniseic or Yenisei-Ostyak; occasionally spelled with -ss-) is spoken in central Siberia.

Family division

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

1. Northern Yeniseian (split around 700 AD)

:1.1. Ket (100-500 speakers)

:1.2. Yugh † (2 or 3 non-fluent speakers in 1991)

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 1,000 speakers and Yugh (also known as Sym Ket), which is now possibly extinct. The other known members of this family, Arin, Assan, Pumpokol, and Kott, have been extinct for over a century. Other groups – Buklin, Baikot, Yarin, Yastin – 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.

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, deaffrication, and the use of postposition or grammatical enclitic as clausal subordinators. Yeniseic nominal enclitics closely approximate the case systems of geographically contiguous families.

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, to an extreme found elsewhere in Eurasia only in Burushaski and, to a lesser extent, in the languages of the Caucasus (all of these languages are ergative as well).

Morphology

Personal pronouns

Personal pronouns in Yeniseian languages
	Singular				Plural
	1.	2.	3.masc.	3.fem.	1.	2.	3.
Ket	āˑ(t)	ūˑ	būˑ	būˑ	ɤ̄ˑt ~ ɤ́tn	ɤ́kŋ	būˑŋ
Yugh	āt	ū	bū	bū	ɤ́tn	kɤ́kŋ	béìŋ
Kott dialects	ai	au	uju ~ hatu	uja ~ hata	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	dónga	*doʔŋa
4	sīˑk	sīk	tʃega ~ ʃeːga	ʃega	tʃaga	ziang	*si-
5	qāˑk	χāk	kega ~ χeːga	kega	qala	hejlaŋ	*qä-
6	aˀ ~ à	àː	χelutʃa	gejlutʃa	ɨga	aggɛaŋ	*ʔaẋV
7	ɔˀŋ	ɔˀŋ	χelina	gejlina	ɨnʲa	onʲaŋ	*ʔoʔn-
10	qɔ̄ˑ	χɔ̄	haːga ~ haga	xaha	qau ~ hioga	hajaŋ	*ẋɔGa
20	ɛˀk	ɛˀk	iːntʰukŋ	inkukn	kinthjuŋ	hédiang	*ʔeʔk ~ xeʔk
100	kiˀ	kiˀ	ujaːx	jus	jus	útamssa	*kiʔ ~ giʔ / *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 accepted that connections had been established between Yeniseian and any other language family, though distant connections have been proposed with most of the ergative languages of Eurasia.

Dene-Yenisean

In 2008, Edward Vajda of Western Washington University presented evidence, backed by rigorous methodology, for a genealogical relation between the Yeneisian languages of Siberia and the Na-Dene languages of North America.. His paper has been favorably reviewed by several experts on Na-Dene and Yeniseic languages, including Michael Krauss, Jeff Leer, James Kari, and Heinrich Werner, as well as a number of other well-known linguists, including Bernard Comrie, Johanna Nichols, Victor Golla, Michael Fortescue, and Eric Hamp. However, it will take some time for the linguistic community to properly evaluate this proposal.

Karasuk

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 India.

Sino-Tibetan

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.

Dené-Caucasian

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.

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. * [http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/glossary.pdf Sino-Caucasian [comparative glossary] by S. A. Starostin. 2005.
• Article on Yeniseian languages
• Multimedia Database of Ket Language, Moscow State (Lomonosov) University

Footnotes

1. "Ostyak" is an areal rather than genetic term; in addition to the Yeniseian languages it also includes the Uralic languages Khanty and Selkup.
2. See Vovin 2000, Vovin 2002 and Pulleyblank 2002
3. See Vajda 2008a
4. See Anderson 2003
5. See Vajda 2007, Starostin 1982 and Werner (???)
6. See Vajda 2008b
7. Dene-Yeniseic Symposium. Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska Fairbanks
8. See Dulson 1968
9. See Toporov 1971
10. See Van Driem 2001
11. See Tailleur 1994
12. See Werner 1994
13. See Donner 1930
14. See Bouda 1963 and Bouda 1957
15. See Bleichsteiner 1930
16. See Tailleur 1958 and Tailleur 1994
17. See Starostin 1982, Starostin 1984, Starostin 1991, Starostin & Ruhlen 1994
18. See Nikolaev 1991
19. See Bengtson 1994, Bengtson 1998, Bengtson 2008
20. See Blažek & Bengtson 1995
21. See Greenberg & Ruhlen, Greenberg & Ruhlen 1997
22. See Ruhlen 1997, Ruhlen 1998a, Ruhlen 1998b
23. See Reshetnikov & Starostin 1995a, Reshetnikov & Starostin 1995b, Dybo & Starostin

References