Dene–Yeniseian languages

Dené-Yeniseian
Geographic distribution	northwest North America and central Siberia
Linguistic classification	One of the world's major language families.
Subdivisions	Na-Dené Athabaskan-Eyak Athabaskan Eyak Tlingit Yeniseian
Language codes

Dené-Yeniseian is a proposed relationship between the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia and the Na-Dené languages of northwestern North America.

In March 2008, Edward Vajda of Western Washington University summarized ten years of research, based on verbal morphology and reconstructions of the proto-languages, that these two families are related (Vajda 2008). His paper has been favorably reviewed by several specialists of Na-Dené and Yeniseian languages, 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. In addition to finding the link between Yeniseian and Na-Dené compelling, the seminar came to the conclusion that the comparison "shows conclusively that Haida, sometimes associated with Na-Dené, is not related."

Some of the evidence for this relationship resembles less rigorous proposals school for a Dené-Caucasian language family, which adds to the proposal Burushaski and the Sino-Tibetan and North Caucasian language families. However, Vajda did not find the kinds of morphological correspondences with these other families that he did with Yeniseian and Na-Dené. Proponents of linguistic 'superfamilies' such as Dené-Caucasian generally utilize an unorthodox method known as 'mass-comparison' or 'multilateral-comparison'. In a nutshell, the schism among anthropological linguists can be roughly characterized as a conflict between 'splitters' versus 'lumpers', with orthodox 'splitters' favoring more distinct and unrelated language families, and unorthodox 'lumpers' favoring fewer, i.e. consolidating the major linguistic stocks.

Nonetheless, the first major peer-reviewed publication to propose the existence of a distinct Dené-Yeniseian family was written by the multilateralist 'lumper' Merritt Ruhlen (1998) in Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, USA. Michael Fortescue also independently suggested the possible existence of a Dené-Yeniseian family in his 1998 book Language Relations Across Bering Strait (see pages 213-215). In his book, Fortescue 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). Finally, Johanna Nichols' contribution to the Dené-Yeniseian seminar represents support from yet another distinct 'school' of linguistics; her work is concerned with linguistic typology, the subfield of linguistics which studies and classifies languages according to their structural features. Thus, in the independent work of Vajda, Fortescue, Nichols, and Ruhlen, one can observe a remarkable coalescence of opinion in favor of the existence of the Dené-Yeniseian phylum, spanning the breadth of virtually the entire discipline of anthropological linguistics. Such harmony between scholars is quite rare in this contentious discipline, especially considering that this represents a consensus regarding proposed pre-Columbian transoceanic contacts between Asia and America, a perennial controversy within anthropology.

References

• 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.
• Fortescue, Michael (1998). Language Relations across Bering Strait: Reappraising the Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence. London and New York: Cassell.
• Vajda, Edward (2008). A Siberian Link with Na-Dene Languages.
• Dene-Yeniseic Symposium, Alaska Native Language Center, University of Alaska, Fairbanks.