Until 2008, few linguists had accepted connections between Yeniseian and any other language family, though distant connections have been proposed with most of the
ergative languages of Eurasia.
Dene–Yeniseian In 2008,
Edward Vajda of
Western Washington University presented evidence for a genealogical relation between the Yeniseian languages of Siberia and the
Na–Dene languages of North America. At the time of publication (2010), Vajda's proposals had been favorably reviewed by several specialists of Na-Dene 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 clearly indicate the proposal is not completely settled at the present time. Two other reviews and notices of the volume appeared in 2011 by
Keren Rice and
Jared Diamond.
Karasuk The
Karasuk hypothesis, linking Yeniseian to
Burushaski, has been proposed by several scholars, notably by A.P. Dulson and V.N. Toporov. In 2001,
George van Driem postulated that the
Burusho people were part of the migration out of Central Asia, that resulted in the Indo-European conquest of the Indus Valley. Alexei Kassian has suggested a connection between
Hattic,
Hurro-Urartian and Karasuk, proposing some lexical correspondences.
Dene–Caucasian As noted by Tailleur and Werner, some of the earliest proposals of genetic relations of Yeniseian, by
M.A. Castrén (1856), James Byrne (1892), and G.J. Ramstedt (1907), suggested that Yeniseian was a northern relative of the Sino–Tibetan languages. These ideas were followed much later by Kai Donner and Karl Bouda, who, in various publications in the 1930s through the 1950s, described a linguistic network that (besides Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan) also included
Caucasian, and
Burushaski, some forms of which have gone by the name of Sino-Caucasian. A 2008 study found further evidence for a possible relation between Yeniseian and Sino–Tibetan, citing several possible
cognates. Gao Jingyi (2014) identified twelve Sinitic and Yeniseian shared etymologies that belonged to the basic vocabulary, and argued that these Sino–Yeniseian etymologies could not be loans from either language into the other. Several authors, such as R. Bleichsteiner and O.G. Tailleur, the late
Sergei A. Starostin and
Sergei L. Nikolayev have sought to confirm these connections. Others who have developed the hypothesis include
J.H. Greenberg (with
M. Ruhlen), and M. Ruhlen.
George Starostin continues his father's work in Yeniseian, Sino-Caucasian and other fields. The "
Sino–Caucasian" hypothesis of
Sergei Starostin posits that the Yeniseian languages form a
clade with Sino–Tibetan, which he called
Sino–Yeniseian. The Sino–Caucasian hypothesis has been expanded by others to "
Dene–Caucasian" to include the
Na-Dene languages of North America,
Burushaski,
Basque and, occasionally,
Etruscan. A narrower binary Dene–Yeniseian family has recently been well received. The validity of the rest of the family, however, is viewed as doubtful or rejected by nearly all
historical linguists. An updated tree by
Georgiy Starostin now groups Na-Dene with Sino–Tibetan and Yeniseian with
Burushaski (
Karasuk hypothesis).
George van Driem does not believe that Sino–Tibetan (which he calls "Trans–Himalayan") and Yeniseian are related language families. However, he argues that Yeniseian speakers once populated the
North China Plain and that Proto-Sinitic speakers assimilated them when they migrated to the region. As a result, Sinitic acquired creoloid characteristics when it came to be used as a lingua franca among ethnolinguistically diverse populations. A 2023 analysis by
David Bradley using the standard techniques of comparative linguistics supports a distant genetic link between the Sino–Tibetan, Na–Dene, and Yeniseian language families. Bradley argues that any similarities Sino–Tibetan shares with other language families of the East Asia area such as
Hmong–Mien,
Altaic (which is a
sprachbund),
Austroasiatic,
Kra–Dai, and
Austronesian came through contact; but as there has been no recent contact between the Sino–Tibetan, Na–Dene, and Yeniseian language families, any similarities these groups share must be residual. ==Notes==