Dené-Yeniseian Linguistics

(Abstract) Prehistoric migrations and geographical origins of language families has been subject of fascination ever since the dawn of recorded history. Earlier it has been subject of ancient myths and legends, and later much researched by scholars and scientists. Recently archaeogenetics offers additional clues to the issue. This paper attempts to build up a consistent model of the geographic origins of the language families of Eurasia since the Neolithic, combining archaeogenetic data with results of archaeology and genetic linguistics in a multidisciplinary synthesis.

The hypothesis explored here, that the mysterious and ‘isolated’ Burushaski language of the high mountains of Pakistan is genetically related to Yeniseian, North Caucasian, and Basque (and more remotely to other Dene-Caucasian languages), has been refined from several earlier proposals. This paper is divided into three major parts: (a) some of the morphological evidence for the genetic relationship of the Burushaski language to Yeniseian, North Caucasian, and Basque languages; (b) some of the lexical evidence (both basic and cultural) for the same; and (c) phonological correspondences.

The paper gives a detailed critical assessment of the so-called "Dene-Yeniseian" hypothesis of genetic relationship between the Na-Dene language family of North America and the Yeniseian family in Siberia (represented today by the Ket language as its sole survivor). The hypothesis, recently promoted by Edward Vajda and supported by several prestigious scholars, has drawn much attention from the linguistic community, but, as the current paper indicates, still lacks a thorough critical evaluation that would focus exclusively around the quality of the comparative data. The paper attempts to present such an evaluation for at least some of the data, such as comparative verbal morphology, certain phonetic correspondences, and basic lexicon involved in Vajda's comparison. It is concluded that only a part of these comparisons stands proper historical criticism, and that this part, by itself, is insufficient to prove a specifically "Dene-Yeniseian" link beyond reasonable doubt. However, it may be quite useful for the ongoing research on Na-Dene and Yeniseian languages as parts of a larger taxonomic unit (the "Dene-Caucasian" macrofamily), within which these two taxa may be related on a more distant basis than originally proposed.

The Dene-Yenisseian hypothesis (Vajda 2010a, 2013) linking the Yenisseian languages and the Na-Dene languages has gained some attention as the first substantial proposal of a linguistic connection across the Bering Strait. At the same time, morphological material has been interpreted as evidence for a genealogical relationship between Yenisseian, Burushaski and Kusunda (van Driem 2001, 2008, 2014). The two hypotheses have been linked under the name ‘Dene-Yenisseian’ by van Driem (2014: 80) but I hereby introduce the term ‘Dene-Kusunda’ to designate the hypothesis of a genealogical relationship between Kusunda, Burushaski, Yenisseian and Na-Dene. This paper aims to review the Dene-Kusunda hypothesis
by presenting a critical evaluation of the morphological data amassed as evidence in van Driem (2001, 2008, 2014), Vajda (2010a, 2013) and Gerber (2013). The argumentation in favour of Dene-Kusunda looks promising at first sight, but much of it can be explained by chance or selective analysis. A more definite evaluation of this proposal must await more studious work on the individual languages, but it is in fact likely that the putative time depth inhibits an ultimate verification or falsification.

Аннотация. Иконография кетов никогда не становилась предметом сравнительно-исторического исследования, подразумевающего анализ ареальной дистрибуции ее элементов, и данная статья представляет собой первый опыт такого рода. На основании массовой обработки фольклорно-этнографических и изобразительных материалов показано, что мотивы и образы, встречающиеся на росписях кетских бубнов из Кунсткамеры и Этнографического музея Казанского университета, имеют гетерогенное происхождение. Одна их часть распространена преимущественно или исключительно в северных районах Азии, другая, более многочисленная, зафиксирована в том числе в Южной Сибири, что согласуется с лингвистическими, антропологическими и генетическими данными о ранних этапах истории енисейцев.

The recent interest in a possible genetic relationship between the Yeniseian languages of Siberia and the Na-Dene (or AET) languages of North America is potentially a major breakthrough, with Edward Vajda’s work having convinced some mainstream historical linguists that there may indeed be a verifiable linguistic bridge between Asian and American peoples. The thesis here is that this “Dene-Yeniseian” (D-Y) link indeed represents a valid genetic relationship, but to think of D-Y simply as a binary relationship is inadequate, since over the past eight decades linguists have been developing a hypothesis of a wide-ranging linguistic (macro-)family, now known as Sino-Caucasian or Dene-Caucasian. There are many benefits to expanding the scope of our discussion to include earlier proposals that connect Yeniseian or Na-Dene (or both) to the other putative branches of Dene-Caucasian.
Note: The Eyak word for ‘fog’, cited on page 11, is incorrectly cited as q̉əmaʔ. Thanks to Michael Krauss, who at the conference pointed out that the correct form is q̉ənih ‘fog’, an archaic form also recorded as q̉əyįh and q̉əyį•y (Krauss 1970, p. 372).

This presentation contrasts two different members of the proposed Na-Dené-Yeniseian family (Navajo, Ket) and focuses on the similarities and differences that show up in the behavior of inflectional morphemes.  The continuum of inflection and derivation/grammar and lexicon is addressed by the property of "thematicity" that emerges when grammatical and lexical morphemes constructionalize. The genetical question is not answered here, but the conclusions that arise by comparing these two languages could also be discussed in historical linguistics, namely, why and how thematicity emerges.

I tried to reconstruct a version of Proto-Yeniseian, using (very limited) lexical items listed in the wikipedia article of Yeniseian languages( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeniseian_languages ), and I list what I have reconstructed in the .ods file

This is only a very simple work.

The article is devoted to the hypothesis of ethnic belonging of builders of Ural megaliths. In this area place-names with roots in the dene-Caucasian language family were revealed. The same situation can be found in the regions of other megalithic cultures. This suggests that the megaliths of the Urals were associated with speakers of the Proto-Yenisei languages.

Linguists and specialists on Siberia are generally familiar with the name Ket, which designates a small ethnic group on the Yenisei and their language, widely regarded as a linguistic enigma in many respects. Ket is a severely endangered language with today ...

In 1931, the Soviet architect Ivan Il’ich Leonidov was sent 2,800km northeast of Moscow to help to design the Soviet Union’s new arctic port, Igarka: a pioneering something, inscribed into the vast nothing of Northern Siberia; that, anyway, is how the act was represented.  The Igarka region was, however, traditional territory of the indigenous, isolate Ket language, which is entirely unrelated to the Indo-European family that dominates architectural discourse.  Ket is spoken today – to any degree of fluency – by fewer than 70 people.  When it is used to represent an interpretation of architecture, the structures by which it organises experience, the distinctions it inscribes into the landscape, the specific relationships it establishes between facets of reality – the selections, in other words, that it makes in encoding information – are as with all languages, unique.  Yet until 2013, academic discussion of Leonidov’s fantastical, utopian architecture had never taken place in the medium of the Ket language.  This is an omission.  What alternative insight might be overlooked?
Leonidov’s City of the Sun itself evades certain definition, provoking multiple and irreconcilable interpretations: the obscure drawings of which it is comprised do not show a fixed vision for which to aim, but intricate us in the perpetuated contestation of what the future could, or should, be.  The City is an invitation to cant.  If it be utopia, it is utopia not as destination, but as fractious, negotiated journey.  This same irresolvability emerges in the act of translation, which as a research practice is my attempt to enact Leonidov’s proposed leap into a void of constant, productive uncertainty – to destabilise any ossified perspective or assumptions when approaching his work.  Or to perpetually attempt to.  This paper exposes some of the shards that have resulted from a collision provoked between Ivan Leonidov’s City of the Sun, and the grammar of Ket.