Yeniseian people

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A Yenisei-Ostiak (Ket) woman in Russia No-nb bldsa 3f081.jpg
A Yenisei-Ostiak (Ket) woman in Russia
Distribution of the Yeniseian languages based on Russian historical data. This likely represents a northward migration of the Yeniseians from their origin in Northern Mongolia. Yeniseian map XVII-XX.png
Distribution of the Yeniseian languages based on Russian historical data. This likely represents a northward migration of the Yeniseians from their origin in Northern Mongolia.

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. [1]

Contents

Based on hydronymic data, the Yeniseians originated from the area around the Sayan Mountains and the southern tip of Lake Baikal. The known historical distribution of the Yeniseians is likely to represent a northward migration, with the modern-day Kets representing the very northernmost expansion of the language family. [2] This migration possibly occurred as a result of the fall of the Xiongnu confederation, which, according to Alexander Vovin, is likely to have had a Yeniseian-speaking compoment among its ruling elite. [3] [4] The Jie people, a branch of the Xiongnu who established the Later Zhao state in China, are likely to have spoken a variant of Yeniseian close to Pumpokol. [5]

With the proposal of the Dené–Yeniseian language family, the Yeniseians have been linked to Native Americans, particularly the Athabaskans. It has been suggested that the Yeniseians represent either a back-migration from the Bering land bridge to Central Siberia, or that early Dene-Yeniseian speakers originated in Central Siberia, with Na-Dene speakers expanding into the Americas while Yeniseian speakers remained in Siberia. [6] [7]

History

Not much is known about the history of the Yeniseian peoples. The Yeniseians were likely part of the Xiongnu confederation and were possibly associated with its ruling elite. It has also been suggested that they played an important role in the formation of the Hunnic Empire. [3] [8] The Jie people, possibly having some relation to ancient Yeniseians, created the Later Zhao dynasty of northern China. Based on linguistic records, they are considered to be a Pumpokolic tribe, a theory supported by evidence of long-term Pumpokolic inhabitation in northern Mongolia. [5] After some time, they were defeated and assimilated into the wider Han society. [9] Like the Jie people, most other Yeniseian-speaking groups were assimilated into other ethnicities, most notably Turkic and Mongolic peoples. [10]

By the time of the Russian conquest of Siberia, only six remaining Yeniseian languages could be documented: the northern Ket and Yugh, the southern Kott and Assan, and the central Arin and Pumpokol languages. Edward Vajda has proposed that, based on hydronymic analysis, the distribution of Yeniseians, as recorded by the Russians, represents a recent northward migration of the Yeniseians deep into Siberia, in the process abandoning their original homeland in northern Mongolia and south Siberia close to Lake Baikal. This is based on the observation that while river names in the circumpolar region (the modern distribution of Yeniseians) are of Turkic, Mongolic, Ugric, or Tungusic origin, those in the area south of Lake Baikal clearly have Yeniseian origins. [11] Indeed, Russian sources record that even after the 17th century, the Ket were continuing to expand northward down the Yenisei River, and the modern Ket-speaking area appears to be representative of the northernmost reaches of Yeniseian migration.

Eventually, most of these languages surviving into the 17th century also went extinct, with the Kott-Yugh undergoing a language shift to Khakas, and the Arin-Pumpokol shifting to either Khakas or Chulym Tatar. [12] The last remnants of the Yeniseians, the Ket and Yugh people, first of them are a recognized minority group in Russia. [13] Many younger Kets are now abandoning their language in favour of Russian.

The term "Yeniseian" was first used by Julius Klaproth in 1823 to collectively describe the Arins, Assans, Kets, Kotts, Pumpokols and Yughs. [14]

It was first proposed by Edward Vajda that Yeniseians are directly related to certain Native Americans. Specifically, the Yeniseians are thought to be closely related to the Na-Dene populations of Canada and Alaska. [15] While some have suggested that the Yeniseians and the Na-Dene may be the result of a radiation out of Beringia, with the Yeniseians representing a back-migration into central Siberia from the Bering land bridge, increasing evidence support a Central-South Siberian origin for both Yeniseians and Na-Dene speakers, possibly as part of the proposed Dené–Yeniseian family. [6] [7]

Ethnic groups

Modern

The two remaining Yeniseian ethnic groups include the Ket people and the Yugh people.

Historical

The Yeniseians included a variety of extinct ethnic groups:

Languages

Yeniseian languages are considered a language isolate as they are unrelated to any known language families from the so-called Old World. In recent years there have been proposals to include them in a hypothetical Dené–Yeniseian language family, as Yeniseian languages might be distantly related to Na-Dené languages of North America.

The Yeniseian language family is an endangered family with only one surviving branch. The Ket language, the very northernmost Yeniseian language, has only about 153 native speakers as of 2020. Kellog in Russia is the only place where Ket is still taught in schools. Special books are provided for grades second through fourth but after those grades there is only Russian literature to read that describes Ket culture. [19] There are no known monolingual speakers for now. [20]

Despite this, Yeniseian languages played a significant role in Chinese, Mongolian, and Central Asian history. Both the ruling elite of the Xiongnu and that of the Later Zhao dynasty appear to have spoken, at least partially, Yeniseic. It has been suggested that the part of the Xiongnu underwent a linguistic shift from Yeniseian to Turkic. [21] [22] According to Jingyi Gao (2014) lexical similarities between the Hungarian language and the Yeniseian languages may point to a Yeniseian presence within the Hun confederation, and a possible Hunnic substratum among Hungarian. [23]

Many recognisable Turkic and Mongolic words, such as the royal titles Khan , Khagan , and Tarqan, and the word for "sky" and later "god", Tengri , may be loanwords from Yeniseian. Tengri in particular has been derived from proto-Yeniseian *tɨŋVr by linguist Stefan Georg, in an analysis praised as "excellent" by Alexander Vovin. [22]

Genetics

Yeniseian Ket fisher folk in 1913. Photographer: Fridtjof Nansen No-nb bldsa 3f088 Ketere (jenisejostjaker) (folkegruppe) samlet rundt et bal ved stranden. (6435261279).jpg
Yeniseian Ket fisher folk in 1913. Photographer: Fridtjof Nansen

The Yeniseians appear closely related to other Siberians, East Asians and Native Americans. They display a high frequency of paternal haplogroup Q-M242. [24]

According to a 2016 study, the Ket and other Yeniseian people originated likely somewhere near the Altai Mountains or near Lake Baikal. It is suggested that parts of the Altaians are predominantly of Yeniseian origin and closely related to the Ket people. The Ket people are also closely related to several Native American groups. According to this study, the Yeniseians are linked to the Paleo-Eskimo groups. [25]

The ancestors of Yeniseian peoples may have been related to the Syalakh culture of ancient Yakutia. [26] Yeniseian people, specifically Ket, also show high amounts of affinity towards Tuvans and other peoples of Siberia, suggesting that Yeniseian ancestry can be linked to Paleo-Siberians, which replaced previous Upper-Paleolithic Siberians (Ancient North Eurasian) as the dominant population, and were subsequently largely assimilated by Neo-Siberians from Northeast Asia. [27]

Ancient Yeniseian speakers can be associated with a Late Neolithic/Bronze Age ancestry in the Baikal area (Cisbaikal_LNBA or Baikal_EBA) maximized among hunter-gatherers of the local Glazkovo culture. They can be differentiated from the earlier 'Early Neolithic Baikal hunter-gatherers' associated with the Kitoi and Fofonovo cultures (Baikal_EN) and later Amur-derived (DevilsCave_N-like) groups. Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry is inferred to be rich in Ancient Paleo-Siberian ancestry, and also display affinity to Inner Northeast Asian (Yumin-like) groups. This type of ancestry has also been observed among Eastern Scythians (Saka) and made up nearly all of the ancestry (85-95%) from an outlier sample of the Karasuk culture (RISE497). Cisbaikal_LNBA ancestry later spreaded together with Glazkovo-type pottery to the forest zone of the Middle Angara, correlating with the supposed dispersal of yeniseian languages, supporting a homeland in the Cis-Baikal region. Cisbaikal_LNBA has also been found at low amounts among Athabaskan speakers, lending support to the Dene-Yeniseian hypothese. [28]

According to some researchers, the Yeniseian people are a result of reverse migration (from America to Asia). [29]

While modern-day Kets are derived from a Cisbaikal_LNBA-like source, they also display significant amounts of geneflow from Uralic-affiliated (Yakutia_LNBA) sources. [28]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jie people</span> Historical ethnic group in Chinese history

The Jie were members of a tribe of northern China in the fourth century. During the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms, they were regarded by the Han people as one of the Five Barbarians. Under Shi Le and his family, they established the Later Zhao dynasty which dominated northern China for most of its existence from 319 to 351. The Jie ceased to play a role in Chinese history after Ran Min's culling order and the wars that followed the collapse of Later Zhao, although some historians believe that certain prominent figures from later periods such as Hou Jing and Erzhu Rong may have been descendants of the Jie.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ket language</span> Yeniseian language in Siberia

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paleo-Siberian languages</span> Group of languages in Siberia

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yeniseian languages</span> Language family of central Siberia

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ket people</span> Ethnic group in Siberia

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yugh language</span> Extinct Yeniseian language of Russia

Yugh is a Yeniseian language, closely related to Ket, formerly spoken by the Yugh people, one of the southern groups along the Yenisei River in central Siberia. It was once regarded as a dialect of the Ket language, which was considered to be a language isolate, and was therefore called Sym Ket or Southern Ket; however, the Ket considered it to be a distinct language. By the early 1990s there were only two or three nonfluent speakers remaining, and the language was virtually extinct. The 2002 census recorded 19 ethnic Yugh in all of Russia. In the 2010 census, only one ethnic Yugh was counted, also stating their proficiency in Yugh, while in the 2020 census, 7 ethnic Yugh were counted, 2 of them stating that they were speakers of Yugh.

The Dingling were an ancient people who appear in Chinese historiography in the context of the 1st century BCE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kott language</span> Extinct Yeniseian language of Siberia

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pumpokol language</span> Extinct Yeniseian language

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, Edward Vajda, and Étienne de la Vaissière, is closely related to them. It is poorly attested, the only available lexicon amounting to about 65 words, and some of them have been identified as being Yugh, not Pumpokol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arin language</span> Extinct Yeniseian language of Russia

Arin is an extinct Yeniseian language formerly spoken in Russia along the Yenisei River, predominantly on its left shore, between Yeniseysk and Krasnoyarsk, north of the Minusinsk region. However, it has been suggested that the Arin people had historically occupied a larger geographical range. It became extinct in the 18th century.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siberian Turkic languages</span> Sub-branch of the Turkic language family

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 approximately 750,000–1 million native and second language speakers, with most widely spoken members being Yakut, Tuvan and Northern Altai. Despite their usual English name, two major Turkic languages spoken in Siberia, Siberian Tatar and Southern Altai, are not classified as Siberian Turkic, but are rather part of the Kipchak subgroup. Many of these languages have a Yeniseian substratum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jie language</span> Unclassified extinct language formerly spoken in northeast China

Jie is an unclassified extinct language formerly spoken in northeast China during the Later Zhao dynasty by the Jie people, who were formerly part of the Xiongnu confederation. It has been variously considered to be of either Yeniseian or Turkic affiliation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xiongnu language</span>

Xiongnu, also referred to as Xiong-nu or Hsiung-nu is the language(s) presumed to be spoken by the Xiongnu, a people and confederation which existed from the 3rd century BCE to 100 AD. It is sparsely attested, and the extant material available on it composes of about 150 words, as well as what may be a two-line text transcribed using Chinese characters, which the Xiongnu may have used themselves for writing their language.

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 Kott people were a nomadic Yeniseian-speaking people in Siberia, living along the Kan and Biryusa rivers. They were closely related to the Asan people. They spoke the Kott language, which went extinct in the 1850s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ancient Northern East Asian</span> Human archaeogenetic lineage

In archaeogenetics, the term Ancient Northern East Asian (ANEA), also known as Northern East Asian (NEA), is used to summarize the related ancestral components that represent the Ancient Northern East Asian peoples, extending from the Baikal region to the Yellow River and the Qinling-Huaihe Line in present-day central China. They are inferred to have diverged from Ancient Southern East Asians (ASEA) around 20,000 to 26,000 BCE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pumpokolic languages</span> Extinct branch of Yeniseian languages

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

  1. ↑ Vajda, Edward G. "The Ket and Other Yeniseian Peoples". Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 29 June 2007.
  2. ↑ Georg, Stefan (January 2003). "THE GRADUAL DISAPPEARANCE OF A EURASIAN LANGUAGE FAMILY". … and Language Maintenance: Theoretical, Practical and ...: 89.
  3. 1 2 Beckwith, Christopher I. (16 March 2009). Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-13589-2. Retrieved 30 March 2015
  4. ↑ Vovin, A (1 January 2000). "Did the Xiong-nu speak a Yeniseian language?". Central Asiatic Journal. 44: 87–104.
  5. 1 2 Vovin, Alexander; Vajda, Edward J.; Vaissière, Etienne de la (2016). "WHO WERE THE *KJET (羯) AND WHAT LANGUAGE DID THEY SPEAK?". Journal Asiatique. 304 (1): 125–144. doi:10.2143/JA.304.1.3146838.
  6. 1 2 Sicoli, Mark A.; Holton, Gary (12 March 2014). "Linguistic Phylogenies Support Back-Migration from Beringia to Asia". PLOS ONE. 9 (3): e91722. Bibcode:2014PLoSO...991722S. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0091722 . ISSN   1932-6203. PMC   3951421 . PMID   24621925.
  7. 1 2 Wilson, Joseph A. P. (2023). "Late Holocene Technology Words in Proto-Athabaskan: Implications for Dene-Yeniseian Culture History". Humans. 3 (3): 177–192. doi: 10.3390/humans3030015 . ISSN   2673-9461.
  8. ↑ 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.[ page needed ]
  9. ↑ Vovin, Alexander (2000). "Did the Xiongnu speak a Yeniseian language?". Central Asiatic Journal. 44 (1): 87–104. JSTOR   41928223.
  10. ↑ Taskin, V. S. (1990). Цзе [Jie]. Материалы по истории кочевых народов в Китае III-V вв. [Materials on the history of nomadic peoples in China. 3rd–5th cc. AD] (in Russian). 2. Moskow: Nauka. ISBN   5-02-016543-3.[ page needed ]
  11. ↑ Vajda, Edward. "Yeniseian and Dene Hydronyms" (PDF). Language Documentation & Conservation Special Publication. 17: 183–201.
  12. ↑ Vajda, Edward J. (1 January 2004). Languages and Prehistory of Central Siberia. John Benjamins Publishing. ISBN   978-90-272-4776-6.
  13. ↑ "www.tooyoo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp/Russia/bibl/Ket.html". www.tooyoo.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp. Retrieved 17 March 2019.
  14. ↑ Institut âzykoznaniâ, ed. (1997). Paleoaziatskie âzyki. Âzyki mira. Moskva: Indrik. ISBN   978-5-85759-046-1.
  15. ↑ Comrie, Bernard (2008). Why the Dene-Yeniseic Hypothesis is Exciting. Dene-Yeniseic Symposium. Fairbanks and Anchorage, Alaska.
  16. ↑ Wixman, Ronald. The Peoples of the USSR: An Ethnographic Handbook. (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc, 1984) p. 14
  17. ↑ 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
  18. ↑ Lee, Joo-Yup; Kuang, Shuntu (18 October 2017). "A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and y-dna Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples". Inner Asia. 19 (2): 197–239. doi:10.1163/22105018-12340089. ISSN   2210-5018.
  19. ↑ Kryukova, Elena (2013). "The Ket Language: from descriptive linguistic to interdisciplinary research". Tomsk Journal of Linguistics & Anthropology. 1: 39.
  20. ↑ Vajda, Edward (2006). Loanwords in the World's Languages: a Comparative Handbook. De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 471–500.
  21. ↑ Kim, Hyun Jin (19 November 2015). The Huns. Routledge. ISBN   978-1-317-34090-4.
  22. 1 2 Vovin, Alexander (2000). "Did the Xiong-nu Speak a Yeniseian Language?". Central Asiatic Journal. 44 (1). Harrassowitz Verlag: 87–104. ISSN   0008-9192. JSTOR   41928223.
  23. ↑ 高晶一, Jingyi Gao (2013). "Huns and Xiongnu Identified by Hungarian and Yeniseian Shared". Central Asiatic Journal. 56: 41–48. JSTOR   10.13173/centasiaj.56.2013.0041.
  24. ↑ Karafet, Tatiana M.; Osipova, Ludmila P.; Gubina, Marina A.; Posukh, Olga L.; Zegura, Stephen L.; Hammer, Michael F. (2002). "High Levels of Y-Chromosome Differentiation among Native Siberian Populations and the Genetic Signature of a Boreal Hunter-Gatherer Way of Life". Human Biology. 74 (6): 761–789. doi:10.1353/hub.2003.0006. PMID   12617488. S2CID   9443804.
  25. ↑ Flegontov, Pavel; Changmai, Piya; Zidkova, Anastassiya; Logacheva, Maria D.; Altınışık, N. Ezgi; Flegontova, Olga; Gelfand, Mikhail S.; Gerasimov, Evgeny S.; Khrameeva, Ekaterina E. (11 February 2016). "Genomic study of the Ket: a Paleo-Eskimo-related ethnic group with significant ancient North Eurasian ancestry". Scientific Reports. 6: 20768. arXiv: 1508.03097 . Bibcode:2016NatSR...620768F. doi:10.1038/srep20768. PMC   4750364 . PMID   26865217.
  26. ↑ Flegontov, Pavel; Altınışık, N. Ezgi; Changmai, Piya; Vajda, Edward J.; Krause, Johannes; Schiffels, Stephan (13 September 2016), Na-Dene populations descend from the Paleo-Eskimo migration into America, doi:10.1101/074476, hdl: 11858/00-001M-0000-002C-8E3C-3 , S2CID   1202738 , retrieved 22 January 2024
  27. ↑ Triska, Petr; Chekanov, Nikolay; Stepanov, Vadim; Khusnutdinova, Elza K.; Kumar, Ganesh Prasad Arun; Akhmetova, Vita; Babalyan, Konstantin; Boulygina, Eugenia; Kharkov, Vladimir; Gubina, Marina; Khidiyatova, Irina (28 December 2017). "Between Lake Baikal and the Baltic Sea: genomic history of the gateway to Europe". BMC Genetics. 18 (1): 110. doi: 10.1186/s12863-017-0578-3 . ISSN   1471-2156. PMC   5751809 . PMID   29297395.
  28. 1 2 Zeng, Tian Chen; et al. (2 October 2023). "Postglacial genomes from foragers across Northern Eurasia reveal prehistoric mobility associated with the spread of the Uralic and Yeniseian languages". BioRxiv. doi:10.1101/2023.10.01.560332. S2CID   263706090.
  29. ↑ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2874220/ [ bare URL ]
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