Dené–Yeniseian is a proposed language family
consisting of the Yeniseian languages of central
Siberia and the Na-Dené languages of northwestern
North America.
Reception among experts has been largely,
though not universally, favorable; thus, Dené–Yeniseian
has been called "the first demonstration of
a genealogical link between Old World and
New World language families that meets the
standards of traditional comparative-historical
linguistics".
== Early work ==
Amateur and professional researchers in historical
linguistics have long sought to link the various
known language families around the world into
macrofamilies.
The putative relationship between Na-Dené
and Yeniseian families was first proposed
by Alfredo Trombetti in 1923.
Much of the early evidence adduced has been
typological; in particular, both families
have a complex agglutinative prefixing verb
structure, which differs from most of the
other languages in Asia.
More recently, a number of attempts have been
made to link together various language families
and language isolates with prefixing verb
structures, including (in addition to Yeniseian
and Na-Dené) the Northwest Caucasian (Abkhaz-Adygh)
and Northeast Caucasian (Nakh-Dagestanian)
language families and the Sumerian and Burushaski
language isolates—grouped into a putative
long-range Dené-Caucasian family by supporters
of a genetic linkage.
The first peer-reviewed publication to propose
the existence of a distinct Dené–Yeniseian
family was written by the macrofamily supporter
Merritt Ruhlen (1998) in Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, United States.
However, Edward Vajda (2010a:34) states (without
specifying which ones) that 26 of the 34 sets
of words offered by Ruhlen are coincidental
look-alikes, whereas 8 of Ruhlen's word sets
follow Vajda's rules of sound correspondences.
Michael Fortescue independently suggested
the possible existence of a Dené–Yeniseian
family in his 1998 book Language Relations
Across Bering Strait (see pages 213–215).
He writes, "I have attempted throughout to
find a middle way between the cavalier optimism
of 'lumpers' and the pessimism of orthodox
'splitters' on the matters of deep genetic
relationship between the continents" (page
1).
As alluded to by Fortescue's comment, scientific
investigations of long-range language family
relationships have been complicated by an
ideological dispute between the so-called
"lumpers" and "splitters", with "lumpers"
caricatured as bumbling amateurs willing to
group together disparate, unrelated families
based on chance resemblances and the "splitters"
caricatured as rigid enforcers of orthodoxy
willing to "shout down" researchers who disagree
with their belief that long-range connections
are impossible to establish.
== Vajda's proposal ==
At a symposium in Alaska in 2008, Edward Vajda
of Western Washington University summarized
ten years of research, based on verbal morphology
and reconstructions of the proto-languages,
indicating that the Yeniseian and Na-Dené
families might be related.
The summation of Vajda's research was published
in June 2010 in The Dene–Yeniseian Connection
in the Anthropological Papers of the University
of Alaska.
This 369-page volume, edited by James Kari
and Ben Potter, contains papers from the February
26–29, 2008, symposium plus several contributed
papers.
Accompanying Vajda's lead paper are primary
data on Na-Dene historical phonology by Jeff
Leer, along with critiques by several linguistic
specialists and articles on a range of topics
(archaeology, prehistory, ethnogeography,
genetics, kinship, and folklore) by experts
in these fields.
The evidence offered by Vajda includes over
110 proposed cognate morphemes and about ten
homologous prefix and suffix positions of
the verbs.
Vajda compared the existing reconstructions
of Proto-Yeniseian and Proto-Na-Dené, augmented
the reconstructions based on the apparent
relationship between the two, and suggested
sound changes linking the two into a putative
Proto-Dené-Yeniseian language.
He suggested that Yeniseian tone differences
originated in the presence or absence of glottalized
consonants in the syllable coda, as still
present in the Na-Dené languages.
Vajda and others also note that no compelling
evidence has been found linking Haida with
either Na-Dené or Yeniseian (Vajda 2010b:115,
Kari and Potter 2010:4).
As for the wider Dené-Caucasian hypothesis
(see above), while Vajda did not find the
kinds of morphological correspondences with
these other families that he did with Yeniseian
and Na-Dené, he did not rule out the possibility
that such evidence exists, and urges that
more work be done (Vajda 2010b).
In 2011 Vajda published a short annotated
bibliography on Dené-Yeniseian languages
(follow link below).
On March 24, 2012, the Alaska Native Language
Center hosted the Dené-Yeniseian Workshop
at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
There were nine papers, the first new papers
on Dené–Yeniseian since the 2010 volume
was published.
As of July 2012, there are no plans to publish
the papers, but video from the workshop is
available.
Vajda's presentations at the 2012 workshop
augmented his proposal with additional linguistic
and non-linguistic evidence.
He discussed a study he did with Johanna Nichols
investigating the history of complex prefixing
verb structures in various families possessing
morphology of this sort.
His conclusion was that, contrary to prevailing
belief, such structures are often preserved
intact with little change over several thousands
of years, and as a result may actually be
stronger evidence of a genetic connection
than the lexical relationships that are traditionally
sought.
As a result, he agreed with the consensus
belief that lexical evidence of a genetic
relationship becomes virtually undetectable
after about 8,000 to 10,000 years of linguistic
separation, but suggested that certain sorts
of complex morphology may remain stable beyond
this time period.
Further evidence for Dené–Yeniseian is
in Vajda's 2013a article "Vestigial possessive
morphology in Na-Dene and Yeniseian".
Vajda presents comparanda for an ancient Dene-Yeniseian
possessive connector prefix (possibly *ŋ)
that appears in idiosyncratic ways in Dene
(or Athabaskan), Eyak, Tlingit, and Yeniseian
nouns, postpositions, directionals, and demonstratives.
Vajda also suggests one new lexical cognate:
PA directional *ñəs-d "ahead", "out on open
water" and Yeniseian root *es "open space".
In terms of the sections within Vajda's 2010
paper, this 2013 article can be read as an
addition to his §2 (which ends on p. 63).
In a subsequent article (Vajda 2013b), Vajda
discusses features in Ket that arose due to
prolonged areal contact with suffixal agglutinating
languages.
In his 2012 presentation Vajda also addressed
non-linguistic evidence, including analyses
of Y-chromosome and mitochondrial DNA haplogroups,
which are passed unchanged down the male and
female lines, respectively, except for mutations.
His most compelling DNA evidence is the Q1
Y-chromosomal haplogroup subclade, which he
notes arose c. 15,000 years ago and is found
in nearly all Native Americans and nearly
all of the Yeniseian Ket people (90%), but
almost nowhere else in Eurasia except for
the Selkup people (65%), who have intermarried
with the Ket people for centuries.
Using this and other evidence, he proposes
a Proto-Dené-Yeniseian homeland located in
eastern Siberia around the Amur and Aldan
Rivers.
These people would have been hunter-gatherers,
as are the modern Yeniseians, but unlike nearly
all other Siberian groups (except for some
Paleosiberian peoples located around the Pacific
Rim of far eastern Siberia, who appear genetically
unrelated to the Yeniseians).
Eventually all descendants in Eurasia were
eliminated by the spread of reindeer-breeding
pastoralist peoples (e.g. the speakers of
the so-called Altaic languages) except for
the modern Yeniseians, who were able to survive
in swampy refuges far to the west along the
Yenisei River because it is too mosquito-infested
for reindeer to survive easily.
Contrarily, the caribou (the North American
reindeer population) were never domesticated,
and thus the modern Na-Dené people were not
similarly threatened.
== Reception ==
At the time of publication 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 imply that the proposal
is not settled at the present time.
Other reviews and notices of the volume appeared
in 2011 and 2012 by Keren Rice, Jared Diamond,
and Michael Dunn.
Sicoli and Holton 2014, applying Bayesian
analysis to typological data from Dene and
Yeniseian languages constructed phylogenies
that suggest that the Dene-Yenisiean connection
"more likely represents a radiation out of
Beringia with a back migration into Central
Asia than a migration from central or western
Asia to North America".
In 2015, linguist Paul Kiparsky endorsed Dené–Yeniseian,
saying that "the morphological parallelism
and phonological similarities among corresponding
affixes is most suggestive, but most compelling
evidence for actual relationship comes from
those sound correspondences which can be accounted
for by independently motivated regular sound
changes".
=== Paleo-Eskimo and Na-Dene ===
A 2017 study identifies Paleo-Eskimo genetic
ancestry in Athabaskans, as well as in other
Na-Dene-speaking populations.
The Paleo-Eskimo peoples inhabited the Arctic
region from Chukotka to Greenland c. 2500
BC.
The authors argue that the Paleo-Eskimos lived
alongside Na-Dene ancestors for millennia.
This provides evidence of a genetic connection
between Siberian and Na-Dene populations mediated
by Paleo-Eskimos.
== Classification ==
Dené–Yeniseian is generally classified
as follows.
=== Sicoli & Holton (2014) ===
Using computational phylogenetic methods,
Sicoli & Holton (2014) suggest that Yeniseian
represents a back-migration from Beringia
back to Asia.
Their classification is as follows, with Northern
Athabaskan found to be paraphyletic.
Individual languages are listed in italics.
Dené-YeniseianHaida
Yeniseian
Tlingit, Eyak
South Pacific Coast Athabaskan (California)
Athabaskan (excluding South Pacific Coast
Athabaskan)
Tsetsaut
Upper Kuskokwim
Ahtna
Dena'ina
West Alaska (Koyukon)
Deg Xinag
Holikachuk, Koyukon
North Pacific Coast (Oregon)
Alaska-Canada-2
Gwich’in
Dogrib
North Slavey
Carrier, Dane-zaa (Beaver)
Plains-Apachean
Sarsi
Southern Athabaskan
Alaska-Canada-1
Tanana
Upper Tanana
Lower Tanana, Tanacross
Northwestern Canada
Hän
South Slavey, Kaska
Dene, Northern Tutchone, Southern Tutchone
== Ket and Navajo word pairs ==
Below is a table of Ket and Navajo words.
Notes: Navajo inalienable nouns are attached
with the prefix a-, which means "someone's".
== See also ==
Settlement of the Americas
Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the
Americas#Haplogroup Q
== References ==
== Bibliography ==
Primary Dené–Yeniseian research papers
by Edward Vajda
Vajda, Edward J. (2010a).
"A Siberian Link with Na-Dene Languages."
The Dene–Yeniseian Connection, ed. by J.
Kari and B. Potter, 33–99.
Anthropological Papers of the University of
Alaska, new series, vol. 5.
Fairbanks: University of Alaska Fairbanks,
Department of Anthropology.
Vajda, Edward J. (2010b).
"Yeniseian, Na-Dene, and Historical Linguistics."
The Dene–Yeniseian Connection, ed. by J.
Kari and B. Potter, 100–118.
Anthropological Papers of the University of
Alaska, new series, vol. 5.
Fairbanks: University of Alaska Fairbanks,
Department of Anthropology.
Vajda, Edward J. (2011).
Oxford Bibliographies Online: Dene-Yeniseian
Languages.
Vajda, Edward J. (2013a).
"Vestigial possessive morphology in Na-Dene
and Yeniseian."
Working papers in Athabaskan (Dene) Languages
2012.
Alaska Native Language Center Working Papers,
No. 11, eds.
Sharon Hargus, Edward Vajda, Daniel Hieber.
Fairbanks, AK: ANLC.
2013.
pp. 79–91.
link to Vajda 2013
Vajda, Edward J.,(2013b) "Metathesis and Reanalysis
in Ket."
'Modern & Classical Languages.'
Paper 66.[1]Reviews, related work, etc.
Campbell, Lyle (2011): "Review of The Dene-Yeniseian
Connection, ed. by James Kari and Ben A. Potter".
International Journal of American Linguistics
77.3:445–451.
Diamond, Jared (2011).
"Linguistics: Deep relationships between languages."
Nature.
476 (7360): 291–292.
Dunn, Michael.
(2012).
Review of The Dene–Yeniseian Connection
(Kari and Potter, eds.)
. Language vol. 88(2), June.
Flegontov Pavel, Piya Changmai, Anastassiya
Zidkova, Maria D. Logacheva, N. Ezgi Altınışık,
Olga Flegontova, Mikhail S. Gelfand, Evgeny
S. Gerasimov, Ekaterina E. Khrameeva, Olga
P. Konovalova, Tatiana Neretina, Yuri V. Nikolsky,
George Starostin, Vita V. Stepanova, Igor
V. Travinsky, Martin Tříska, Petr Tříska
& Tatiana V. Tatarinova.
(2016) "Genomic study of the Ket: a Paleo-Eskimo-related
ethnic group with significant ancient North
Eurasian ancestry."
Scientific Reports 6 (20768) doi:10.1038/srep20768
Fortescue, Michael (1998).
Language Relations across Bering Strait: Reappraising
the Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence.
London and New York: Cassell.
Kari, James and Ben A. Potter.
(2010).
"The Dene–Yeniseian Connection, Bridging
Asia and North America."
The Dene–Yeniseian Connection, ed. by J.
Kari and B. Potter, 1–24.
Anthropological Papers of the University of
Alaska, new series, vol. 5.
Fairbanks: University of Alaska Fairbanks,
Department of Anthropology.
Kiparsky, Paul (2015).
"New perspectives in historical linguistics."
'The Routledge Handbook of Historical Linguistics.'
ed. by C. Bowern and B. Evans; pp 64-102.London
and New York: Routledge.
Rice, Keren.
(2011).
Review of The Dene-Yeniseian Connection, ed.
by James Kari and Ben A. Potter.
Diachronica 28:2:255–271.
Rubicz, R., Melvin, K.L., Crawford, M.H. (2002).
"Genetic Evidence for the phylogenetic relationship
between Na-Dene and Yeniseian speakers."
Human Biology, 43(6):743–60.
Ruhlen, Merritt (1998).
"The Origin of the Na-Dene".
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
of the United States of America.
95(23):13994–6.
Sicoli, Mark A. and Holton, Gary (2014).
"Linguistic Phylogenies Support Back-Migration
from Beringia to Asia."
PLoS ONE, 9(3): e91722.
Vajda, Edward J. (2011) "A Response to Campbell."
International Journal of American Linguistics
77.3:451–452.
Wilson, Joseph A.P. (2018).
"Postscript to the Union of Two Worlds: An
Expository Note".
Folklore 129(1):78-90.
Wilson, Joseph A.P. (2016).
"The Union of Two Worlds: Reconstructing Elements
of Proto-Athabaskan Folklore and Religion".
Folklore 127(1):26-50.
Wilson, Joseph A.P. (2008).
"A New Perspective on Later Migration(s):
The Possible Recent Origin of Some Native
American Haplotypes".
Critique of Anthropology 28(3):267–78.
== External links ==
Ordering information and news items for The
Dene–Yeniseian Connection; the 2011 2nd
printing has corriagenda for 14 articles in
the 2010 ist printing
March 24, 2012 Dene-Yeniseian Workshop, University
of Alaska Fairbanks, sponsored by ANLC; lecture
by Ed Vajda and other papers now available
via ANLC and YouTube.
"New language research supports land bridge
evidence" Anchorage Daily News
Dené–Yeniseian Swadesh lists (incomplete)
Linguistic Phylogenies Support Back-Migration
from Beringia to Asia – Presents evidence
that the ancestors of the Yeniseian-speaking
people went west from the Bering land bridge,
whereas the ancestors of Na-Dené went east.
"Linguist's 'big data' research supports waves
of migration into the Americas" Phys.org – Follow
up study to the link above.
