File:Yeniseian_map_XVII-XX.png · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Key facts
- Geographic distribution
- today along the Yenisei River , historically large parts of Siberia and of Mongolia
- Ethnicity
- Yeniseian peoples
- Native speakers
- 156 (2020)
- Linguistic classification
- One of the world's primary language families , (or Dene–Yeniseian ?)
- Proto language
- Proto-Yeniseian
- Subdivisions
- Ketic Pumpokolic † Arinic † Kottic †
- Glottolog
- yeni1252
via Wikipedia infobox
~26 min read
Encyclopedic overview
Map of Yeniseian languages The Yeniseian languages (/ˌjɛnɪˈseɪən/ YEN-ih-SAY-ən; sometimes known as Yeniseic, Yeniseyan, or Yenisei-Ostyak; occasionally spelled with -ss-) 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 Dene–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.
From hydronymic and genetic data, it is suggested that the Yeniseian languages were spoken in a much greater area in ancient times, including parts of northern China and Mongolia. It has been further proposed that the recorded distribution of Yeniseian languages from the 17th century onward represents a relatively recent northward migration, and that the Yeniseian urheimat lies to the south of Lake Baikal.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Yeniseian” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.