Talk:Yeniseian languages

Untitled
Does anyone here speak Ket? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.132.100.172 (talk) 01:14, 2005 July 4 (UTC)
 * I wish! Actually there's not a lot of information available in or about Ket. Hopefully that will change. Maybe one day there'll be a Ket wikipedia... :) Chamdarae 02:20, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Big article about Yenisean languages (in Russian): http://www.philology.ru/linguistics4/verner-97.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.206.116.187 (talk) 10:01, 2005 September 25 (UTC)
 * good article, worth a link from the main page, I think. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marm (talk • contribs) 10:51, 2006 November 19 (UTC)

Ket-Na-Dene note
This is just a note that User:85.0.13.153 made an edit to this page about genetic evidence for Ket-Na-Dene link that is entirely wrong. The edit claims the article supports such a genetic or linguistic link, whereas the article states:

''These results suggest that the Na-Dene and Yeniseian populations are both genetically and linguistically unrelated, and the 36 cognates used by Ruhlen (1998) are insufficient evidence for a common recent origin of these two language families. ''

I think this was made in bad faith (as well as in bad English) and may be something to watch in the future. I'm also suspicious of the amount of stuff here related to Edward Vajda, but seeing as it has been added by various unrelated wikipedians of good standing, I let most of it be. Marm (t) 10:51, 19 November 2006 (UTC)


 * On the other hand, the statement that the DNA study by Rubicz et al. "which found no evidence for a close genetic relationship between the Ket people and several Na-Dene populations throws these connections further into doubt" is a complete misunderstanding of the relationship between languages and genes. After at least 8000 years of contacts with Amerind speakers on the Na-Dené side, and about the same time with Eurasiatic speakers on he Yeniseian side (especially Turkic and Tungusic), nobody can seriously be surprised by the heavy influence...look at the Turks, for instance - they are closer to the Etruscan mummies (uncovered in Rome) than to their Mongolic cousins. Afro-Americans in the USA speak (an) Indo-European language(s), which is another well-known example.--Pet'usek [petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com] 14:58, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but peoples which are the closest to the Proto-Turks, such as Kyrgyz and Khakas and Altay Turks are NOTHING like ethrushchan mumies. Today in general Anthropologists state that Proto-Turks were Mongoloid. Note the difference between TURKIC and TURKISH. If you mean TURKISH people and not TURKIC peoples, well, only 30% of them have genetically link with TURKIC peoples in Central Asia. TURKISH people are in majority Greeks and Armenians who adopted TURKIC language. Spring01 17:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * You don't have to apologize. ;-) I agree the Proto-Turks are NOT genetically (I'm using "genetically" for DNA relatedness and "genealogically" for linguistic relatedness) related to the Etruscans (or Etruscan mummies). And yes, I mean the modern Turks, the inhabitants of Turkey - did I not say "they ARE"? So, in fact, there is no disagreement between the two of us, is it? ;-) --Pet'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 23:46, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Genetic relationships
The section on the genetic relationships is erroneous and misleading. Vajda is not known as an expert on Haida, and he specifically excludes Haida from the hypothesis in question. The evidence for “Karasuk” is not “new”: it was known to Dulson (1968) and Toporov (1971), if not earlier. Worst of all, the article totally fails to mention the extensive work of S.A. Starostin on Yeniseian and its external relations. Therefore, I will try to rewrite the section.--Pet'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 23:57, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Go for it! kwami (talk) 02:21, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Done. Your opinions are welcome! By the way, I haven't had time to use the complex citation templates. I'd be very very grateful if someone did this. ;-) --Pet'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 15:11, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Much better. BTW, it's standard HTML formatting to use "straight quotes". Like ligatures and proper diacritic placement, it's usually considered that 'smart quotes' should be a function of the browser, not hard coded into the document. kwami (talk) 18:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. I've replaced the smart quotes by the straight ones. Thanks! --Pet'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 21:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
 * There are browsers that format quotes? Has Microsoft once again declared darkness the standard? – Anyway, I'll make a few little stylistic and formatting edits later today, such as keeping the Russian references in Cyrillic and then translating their titles. David Marjanović (talk) 11:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know of any that do at present; I just remember admins reverting someone who was going through Wikipedia changing all the straight quotes to curly ones. At the time, there was no better solution, but they were anticipating that this was something that would eventually be automated. (Maybe they were expecting a change in coding within Wikipedia.) I've never heard otherwise since. kwami (talk) 11:30, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * I see.
 * I've made my edit. I think the family features should be expanded and then put in front of the relations. Are the Yeniseian languages ergative? This is not clear from the current text. David Marjanović (talk) 15:36, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The verbs have active-stative alignment; nouns do not have case. kwami (talk) 20:02, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Na-Dene Connection Demonstrated
The connection to Na-Dene has been convincingly demonstrated. The article should be updated to note this. Additionally, I personally feel that the significance of the more speculative, long-range connections should be de-emphasized. --Peter Farago (talk) 01:52, 6 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, but notice that I put Na-Dené as the first item in the "Main articles" list ;-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Petusek (talk • contribs) 11:45, 2008 March 6 (UTC)


 * I added a blurb to the DC article, but no-one's yet taken it further. I'll copy it here. kwami (talk) 04:16, 6 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Good. Sorry for the delay. I'm still reading the Symposium papers. Anyway, I'll add a TO-DO list here soon. --Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 11:45, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Ad "Contrary to all these claims..."
Someone has added the following:

"Contrary to all these claims, some specialists remain extremely skeptical on any demonstrable genealogical links of Ket/Yeniseien with any other language family, thus maintaining that Ket/Yeniseian is still to be regarded as a true language isolate without any known relatives anywhere (cf. Georg 2007)."


 * 1) User 212.79.166.21 seems to have no courage to sign his edits properly.
 * 2) S/He uses an argument from Georg 2007, but the Dene-Yeniseic Symposium was held on 26th-27th February 2008.
 * 3) The following "mainstream" linguists have reacted favourably: Michael Krauss (Na-Dene specialist), Jeff Leer (Na-Dene specialist), James Kari (Na-Dene specialist), Eric Hamp (historical linguist), Johanna Nichols (historical linguist), Bernard Comrie (linguist), Victor Golla (Athabaskanist), Michael Fortescue (Eurasianist), Heinrich Werner (Yeniseicist).
 * 4) It is somewhat illogical to put the 2007 information after the brand new 2008 one. Anyway, I have already asked Mr. Georg for his opinion and hope to get one soon.
 * 5) All these comments of mine don't necessarily mean that I fully subsribe to everything Vajda claims.
 * 6) "Contrary to all these claims" is a bad formulation anyway - who claims anything??? The section only informs the readers of the various proposals.
 * 7) I strongly suggest that we delete the last edit.--Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 09:16, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree. I think the wording speaks for itself - we say who made which claims. Also, at least Krauss, Kari, and Comrie are all careful linguists, and don't go around jumping on ideas like this. — kwami (talk) 09:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, I take that back. I'd forgotten that we don't say that up front, as we should. Until Dene-Yeniseian, it was safest to assume Yeniseian was an isolate, and there hasn't been time for the linguistic community to properly evaluate DY, even if people like Comrie's first response is positive. — kwami (talk) 09:41, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Fine, but it should be reformulated anyway. Or put elsewhere. By the way, I'm reorganizing the references at the moment in order that any futher editing of this article is easy...easiear than now, I hope :-) --Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 10:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, you've done so already. Fine. :-) --Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 10:07, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Stefan Georg's work
Somebody is constantly removing the reference to Stefan Georg. Why??? He doesn't agree with the Dene-Yeniseic proposal of Vajda's (i.e. with the "superimposal of Na-Dene features on the Yeniseic data"), but it's irrelevant and it doesn't invalidate his work. He still IS a reknown expert in Yeniseian (and Vajda's friend, to someone's surprise). The reference should be kept! --Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 07:49, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Changing the structure
Hi. I've changed the footnotes (wow, that was exhausting! :-)), rearranged the genealogical section. I'm sure there will be some objections. You know, I haven't had time to work on the wording and style yet, so feel free to do so. Anyway, there are more important things to do, such as the morphology of the Yeniseic languages, examples from the basic vocabulary, phonology, etc. That's why I moved the features before the gen. section. --90.176.48.223 (talk) 14:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Damn! The system logged me out >: ... --Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 14:05, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Separate Dene-Yeniseic article
I suggest that we make a separate Dene-Yeniseic article, summarizing the proposal. If the Karasuk hypothesis has its own article, it is only fair to make a Dene-Yeniseic one. I've already began to summarize the correpondences. By the way, many of them agree rather well with the Dene-Caucasian hypothesis. Authors like Nikolayev, Sergei Starostin and George Starostin should be given the proper credit, too. It is not true that they haven't compared the morphologies. Moreover, Edward Vajda's claim that there is no reconstruction of Proto-Yeniseic seems to contradict the facts - what about Sergei Starostin's Proto-Yeniseian? Anyway, Heinrich Werner and Edward Vajda are preparing an etymological dictionary of the Yeniseian languages and I wonder how and to what extent they will differ from the Muscovite scholars. Any comments? --Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 11:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


 * As the creator of the Karasuk article, I agree completely. I simply haven't had the time. — kwami (talk) 18:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay: Dené-Yeniseian languages. Currently it consists solely of an introduction. We need a summary of the morphological evidence from Vajda, but also a comparison with Sergei et al. — kwami (talk) 19:33, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
 * such a comparison would be OR.·Maunus· · ƛ · 06:54, 11 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm in Prague now, but I'll be back tomorrow and have a look at that.--Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 14:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * If reporting people's claims is OR, then we need to delete Wikipedia. — kwami (talk) 23:23, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Comparing Vajdas work with Starostins would be OR because it goes against WP:SYNTH.·Maunus· · ƛ · 08:35, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Okay, bad wording on my part. I meant that we should present both; the comparison would be implied by the presentation. ("A said X. However, B said Y" is not considered OR. I don't mean that we should evaluate them.) — kwami (talk) 09:38, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Ok. Thats something else then.·Maunus· · ƛ · 10:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm still in Prague, but will return in about ten hours to do some work on the articles again. And yes, my understanding is the same as that of Kwami's. Presenting both concepts only shows how controversial this issue is (and nobody can claim it is uncontroversial), i.e. it shows the true state of the debate: the Dene-Yeniseic link, however promising, still needs to be evaluated (and acknowledged) by the linguistic community. Vajda himself admits some of the observations are mere speculations and may turn out to be wrong. This must and will be mentioned in the article, of course. I'm pretty sure the other Yeniseists will respond soon and we'll have other views to mention in the articles. There are many but's and if's and they mustn't be omitted. As for the Dene-Caucasian article, for instance, I'm sorry to admit I haven't had time to write the proper ctitical section yet, but I will, don't worry. One of the many problems is that when one of the two camps criticizes the other, the latter soon come up with their own response and this often repeats several times, so it's difficult to write something consistent and easy to read, especially when one side accuses the other side of factual errors and the former respond that they did not make any mistake, giving an explanation that sounds reasonable, and so on and so forth...it's difficult to choose what to use here...we cannot copy the whole passages and, at the same time, I feel it would not be enough to say simply "this matter is disputed", something that would have to be repeated many many times... ;-) --Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 12:14, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Genetic
What Vajda has proposed is a genetic relation between yeniseian and na-dene. The only kind of relation that can be invesitgated with the comparative method is genetic relations. I fail to see what you don't like about that phrasing. The word "Genealogical" although it means the same is much less used in linguistics to describe family relations between languages.·Maunus· · ƛ · 07:16, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Because 'genetic' also means genetics, and there is no 'genetics' relationship. Linguists such as Comrie who work with archeology and genetics as well as pure linguistics prefer 'genealogical' when there is the potential for confusion. As an encyclopedia, we should also be concerned about such misunderstanding. — kwami (talk) 08:05, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, from the factual point of view it doesn't really matter whether we use genetic, genealogical or phylogenetic. The former term is certainly more economical, being shorter and easier to pronounce, but the latter two clearly avoid ambiguity. We must keep in minds that Wikipedia is read by non-linguists, who much more often encounter the term "genetic" in connection with biology rather than with linguitics...well I don't mind anyway...when you use genetic, you should link its first instance to an explanatory article (such as Genetic relationship, but I'm surprised to learn that this article doesn't even mention the fact that two populations can speak genetically related languages without being related (bio)genetically - you see, and that's what ambiguity's about. Somebody should do something about it.) --Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 12:40, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Dene-Caucasian or Sino-Caucasian?
Sergei Starostin considered Sino-Caucasian a branch of Dene-Caucasian, but that was a preliminary assumption. Later the term was used geographically (i.e. the Eurasian part of Dene-Caucasian). Today, it's rather a synonym of Dene-Caucasian. Bengtson and others tend to consider the internal grouping as far from certain. The term Sino-Caucasian was used by Starostin, because Sino-Tibetan and Caucasian were the first two (plus Yeniseian) branches he compared and used in his hypothesis in the early 80s...only later did Nikolayev add Na-Dene.--Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 13:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Aren't there any scholars who consider SC to be valid but not DC? That's why I added both. — kwami (talk) 18:50, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * No, there aren't, as far as I know. Vitaliy Shevoroshkin and Sergei Nikolayev consider Almosan a part of Dene-Caucasian, but Merritt Ruhlen disagrees, insisting on their Amerind affiliation; but that's another story. Hence, all those who consider SC to be valid also consider DC to be valid.--Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 22:19, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

The "main" template
Sorry if I messed up the links. We should agree on how and to what extent to use the "main" template. I apologize for any inconvenience. --Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 13:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
 * I decided to filter out some redundant links. Rather than use the "main" and "see also" templates, I now think it is enough to make one link only... --Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 09:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

New tables, comments most welcome
Hi, I have made three tables so far: Pronouns, Numerals and Etyma. Comments, criticisms (especially constructive) and questions welcome! Of course, there are no legends, which I'll make as soon as I'm less busy. --Pe t 'usek [ petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com ] 09:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I notice that the table of pronoun has separate columns for 3rd-person singular masculine and feminine forms, but it's not clear that any of the languages actually have a difference between them. It seems confusing to me to have it organized like this.  Is there a good reason to keep this distinction?  If not, I'll simplify the table.WmGB (talk) 02:32, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Cat:Sino-Tibetan languages
I've added Cat:Sino-Tibetan languages, because the article discusses Sino-Tibetan affiliation without any disclaimers, and Vmenkov immediately deleted the category. If he is right, why have a section leading to nowhere, it should be moved to something like "discarded theories" or "history". And if it is valid, then the category is appropriate. Barefact (talk) 06:40, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Genealogical tree
Article starts with unreferenced Genealogical tree with detaled branches and dates. Anybody knows what are its source(s) and if there is a consensus on development and timing? Is the source(s) linking the family to a parent family that also belongs to the tree model? And is there a consensus on applicability of the tree model? Barefact (talk) 07:25, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Beringian population may be source of Na-Dene and Yeneseian
See and. North American Na-Dene family (traditionally spoken in Alaska, Canada and parts of the present-day U.S.) and the Asian Yeneseian family are said to "both appear to descend from an ancestral language that can be traced to the Beringia region. Both Siberia and North America, it seems, were settled by the descendants of a community that lived in Beringia for some time. In other words, Sicoli says, "this makes it look like Beringia wasn't simply a bridge, but actually a homeland—a refuge, where people could build a life." Which links to other recently reported research. Dougweller (talk) 15:56, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Cool! — kwami (talk) 20:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

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Blažek (2019)
Proposed population structure of Paleolithic Eurasia and migration route of the East Asian-related "Baikal LN/EBA" component into Central Asia outgoing from the Tianshan mountain region" .... Václav Blažek (2019) suggests that the Botai culture people probably spoke a form of Yeniseian, which can be connected to a Paleo-Siberian/East Asian-related ancestry component (Baikal LN/EBA), which expanded from a region near the Tian Shan and Sayan mountains region into Central Asia and Siberia. This Yeniseian/Botai language contributed some loanwords related to horsemanship and pastoralism, such as the word for horse (Yeniseian *ʔɨʔχ-kuʔs "stallion" and Indo-European *H1ek̂u̯os "domesticated horse") itself, towards the proto-Indo-Europeans of the Yamnaya culture.

Seeing nothing to support any of this in the source. Appears to be fabricated, and did not link to the paper itself, which can be found here:

[https://starling.rinet.ru/confer/Blazhek-2019.pdf Blažek, Václav. 2019. Toward the question of Yeniseian homeland in perspective of toponymy. 14th Annual Sergei Starostin Memorial Conference on Comparative-Historical Linguistics. Moscow: RSUH.] - Hunan201p (talk) 04:44, 28 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Although heavily stained by SYNTH/OR not based on the source ("which can be connected to a Paleo-Siberian/East Asian-related ancestry component (Baikal LN/EBA), which expanded from a region near the Tian Shan and Sayan mountains region into Central Asia and Siberia" – this was the product of a WorldCreaterFighter IP-sock), it's not entirely fabricated. The Botai connection was proposed by Tamaz Gamkrelidze and is critically discussed by Václav Blažek. Even if controversial and probably wrong, I think it deserves a mention here (of course, faithfully based on the sources without SYNTH and OR). Proposals by real historical linguists are at least as notable for mention as speculations about the Indo-European homeland by geneticists who even haven't bothered to consult linguists about the implications of their research results on matters outside of their [= the geneticists'] expertise. I have little time for working on WP articles right now, but maybe User:ValtteriLahti12 might be interested in the task? :) Here's Gamkrelidze's (AFAIK) latest paper about it:. –Austronesier (talk) 20:06, 31 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Hey Austro, I definitely mis-spoke when I said "entirely" fabeicated, and was referring primarily to the genetics stuff that was synthed rather than the Botai link and the linguistic stuff. I agree that it should be re-added faithfully. Part of the resson for the hastiness of my edits is that like you I have been short on alone time and rest. I also don't assume bad faith here as I know ValtteriLahti made this copyedit unassumingly. - Hunan201p (talk) 20:15, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

"Occasionally spelled with -ss-"?
from the article: "(sometimes known as Yeniseic or Yenisei-Ostyak; occasionally spelled with -ss-)". SS where? Yenissei-Ostyak or Yenisei-Osstyak? Or maybe Yenisseic? Unclear. CRConrad (talk) 21:52, 23 May 2023 (UTC)

Possible relationship with Hattic
Yeniseian languages are mentioned in. I wonder if the claim of possible connection is notable enough to be included in ? Daask (talk) 13:22, 12 June 2023 (UTC)