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The Ket language, or more specifically Imbak and formerly known as Yenisei Ostyak, is a Siberian language long thought to be an isolate, the sole surviving language of a Yeniseian language family. It is spoken along the middle Yenisei basin by the Ket people.
The Paleo-Siberian languages are several language isolates and small language families spoken in parts of Siberia. They are not known to have any genetic relationship to each other; their only common link is that they are held to have antedated the more dominant languages, particularly Tungusic and latterly Turkic languages, that have largely displaced them. Even more recently, Turkic and especially Tungusic have been displaced in their turn by Russian.
Athabaskan is a large branch of the Na-Dene language family of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific Coast and Southern. Kari and Potter (2010:10) place the total territory of the 53 Athabaskan languages at 4,022,000 square kilometres (1,553,000 sq mi).
Na-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 considered doubtful. By far the most widely spoken Na-Dene language today is Navajo, also the most spoken indigenous language north of Mexico.
The Yeniseian languages are a family of languages that are spoken by the Yeniseian people in the Yenisei River region of central Siberia. As part of the proposed Dené–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-historical linguistics". The only surviving language of the group today is Ket.
Kets are a Yeniseian-speaking people in Siberia. During the Russian Empire, they were known as Ostyaks, without differentiating them from several other Siberian people. Later, they became known as Yenisei Ostyaks because they lived in the middle and lower basin of the Yenisei River in the Krasnoyarsk Krai district of Russia. The modern Kets lived along the eastern middle stretch of the river before being assimilated politically into Russia between the 17th and 19th centuries. According to the 2010 census, there were 1,220 Kets in Russia. According to the 2021 census, this number had declined to 1,088.
Merritt Ruhlen was an American linguist who worked on the classification of languages and what this reveals about the origin and evolution of modern humans. Amongst other linguists, Ruhlen's work was recognized as standing outside the mainstream of comparative-historical linguistics. He was the principal advocate and defender of Joseph Greenberg's approach to language classification.
Dené–Caucasian is a discredited language family proposal that includes widely-separated language groups spoken in the Northern Hemisphere: Sino-Tibetan languages, Yeniseian languages and Burushaski in Asia; Na-Dené languages in North America; as well as Vasconic languages and North Caucasian languages from Europe.
The Kott (Kot) language is an extinct Yeniseian language that was formerly spoken in central Siberia by the banks of the Mana River, a tributary of the Yenisei river. It became extinct in the 1850s. Kott was closely related to Ket, still spoken farther north along the Yenisei river. Assan, a close relative, is sometimes considered a dialect of Kott. The term kott may be derived from Buryat qota 'town', applied to neighbouring non-pastoral peoples, including the last few Kotts.
The Assan language is an extinct Yeniseian language spoken to the south of Krasnoyarsk in Russia. It went extinct in the 18th century. It is similar enough to the Kott language that it can be regarded as a dialect of it, but the Assan identified as a separate ethnicity from the Kotts.
Karasuk is a hypothetical language family that links the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia with the Burushaski language of northern Pakistan.
Dene–Yeniseian is a proposed language family consisting of the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia and the Na-Dene languages of northwestern North America.
Edward J. Vajda is a historical linguist at Western Washington University, Washington.
The Asan or Assan were a Yeniseian speaking, hunter-fisherer people in Siberia, distinct from the Kotts. In the 18th and 19th centuries they were assimilated by the Evenki and Russians. They spoke the Assan language, closely related to, and can be considered a dialect of, Kott. The Assans, after their migration down the Yenisei river, settled around the Usolka and Biryusa rivers. By the time of the publication of the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, there were less than 100 scattered families left of them, and they had been Turkicized. The village Asansk, founded in 1897, bears their name.
Proto-Athabaskan is the reconstructed ancestor of the Athabaskan languages.
Proto-Yeniseian or Proto-Yeniseic is the unattested 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 system as Ket. Many studies about Proto-Yeniseian phonology have been done; however, there are still many things unclear about Proto-Yeniseian. The probable location of the Yeniseian homeland is proposed on the basis of geographic names and genetic studies, which suggests a homeland in Southern Siberia.
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 the Ket and Yugh people survive today. The modern Yeniseians live along the eastern middle stretch of the Yenisei River in Northern Siberia. According to the 2021 census, there were 1,088 Kets and 7 Yugs in Russia.
Syalakh culture is an early Neolithic culture of Yakutia and Eastern Siberia. It formed in the middle Lena river basin in the V — IV millenniums BCE as a result of the migration of tribes from Transbaikalia, which assimilated the local Sumnagin culture that was preceramic.
The Pumpokolic languages form one of the principal subgroups of the Yeniseian languages. All constituent languages are now extinct.
The Pumpokols were a Yeniseian people, part of the people sometimes referred to as Ostyaks. By mixing and Russification, they were assimilated by the end of the 20th century.
References
- ↑ Wixman, Ronald (1984). The peoples of the USSR: an ethnographic handbook. Armonk, N.Y: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-87332-506-6.
- ↑ Forsyth, James (2008-08-21). History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony 1581-1990. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-521-47771-0.
- 1 2 Долгих, Борис Осипович (1960). Родовой и племенной состав народов Сибири в XVII в. (in Russian). Москва: Издательство Академии наук СССР.
- ↑ See Vajda 2010
- ↑ Language Log » The languages of the Caucasus
- ↑ Lyle Campbell, 2011, "Review of The Dene-Yeniseian Connection (Kari and Potter)," International Journal of American Linguistics 77:445–451. "In summary, the proposed Dene-Yeniseian connection cannot be embraced at present. The hypothesis is indeed stimulating, advanced by a serious scholar trying to use appropriate procedures. Unfortunately, neither the lexical evidence (with putative sound correspondences) nor the morphological evidence adduced is sufficient to support a distant genetic relationship between Na-Dene and Yeniseian." (pg. 450).
- ↑ Edward Vajda, 2011, "A Response to Campbell," International Journal of American Linguistics 77:451–452. "It remains incumbent upon the proponents of the DY hypothesis to provide solutions to at least some of the unresolved problems identified in Campbell's review or in DYC itself. My opinion is that every one of them requires a convincing solution before the relationship between Yeniseian and Na-Dene can be considered settled." (pg. 452).