Yeniseian Languages - Family Division

Family Division

0. Proto-Yeniseian (before 500 BC; split around 1 AD)

1. Northern Yeniseian (split around 700 AD)

1.1. Ket (500 speakers)

1.2. Yugh † (2 or 3 non-fluent speakers in 1991)

2. Southern Yeniseian †

2.1. Kott–Assan (split around 1200 AD)

2.1.1. Kott † (extinct by the mid-1800s)

2.1.2. Assan † (extinct by 1800)

2.2. Arin–Pumpokol (split around 550 AD)

2.2.1. Arin † (extinct by 1800)

2.2.2. Pumpokol † (extinct by 1750)

Only two languages of this family survived into the 20th century, Ket (also known as Imbat Ket), with around 1,000 speakers, and Yugh (also known as Sym Ket), which is now possibly extinct. The other known members of this family, Arin, Assan, Pumpokol, and Kott, have been extinct for over a century. Other groups – Buklin, Baikot, Yarin, Yastin, Ashkyshtym and Koibalkyshtym – are identifiable as Yeniseic-speaking from tsarist fur-tax records compiled during the 17th century, but nothing remains of their languages except a few proper names.

It appears from Chinese sources that a Yeniseian group might have been among the peoples that made up the tribal confederation known as the Xiongnu, who have traditionally been considered the ancestors of the Huns, but these suggestions are difficult to substantiate due to the paucity of data. One sentence of the language of the Jie, a Xiongnu tribe who founded the Later Zhao state, appears consistent with being a Yeniseian language.

In February 2008 a proposal connecting Yeniseian to Na-Dené, one of the major language families of indigenous peoples in North America, was published and well received by a number of linguists at the Dene-Yeniseic Symposium held in 2008 in Fairbanks, Alaska.