Dené–Yeniseian languages
Proposed language family spanning the Old World and New World / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Dené–Yeniseian is a proposed language family consisting of the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia and the Na-Dené languages of northwestern North America.
Dené–Yeniseian | |
---|---|
(proposed) | |
Geographic distribution | northwest North America and central Siberia |
Linguistic classification | Proposed language family |
Subdivisions | |
Glottolog | None |
![]() Distribution of Dené-Yeniseian languages in North Asia and North America
Striped areas indicate the area of the former extent of the languages. |
Reception among experts has been somewhat favorable; thus, Dené–Yeniseian has been called "the first demonstration of a genealogical link between Old World and New World language families that meets the standards of traditional comparative-historical linguistics".[3] The main cause of skepticism among other linguists, geneticists and researchers from related fields can be attributed to the significance of such a link being conclusively proven as there have been numerous attempts of establishing definite linguistic relationships between languages natively spoken throughout Eurasia to those of the indigenous peoples of the Americas and most have been widely rejected due to them being mostly based on superficial if not erroneous phonological, lexicological and morphological similarities; thus the main factor behind the undertaking of trying to establish such a link would be prestige and recognition rather genuine intellectual curiosity.[4] Consequently, Dene-Yeniseian is deemed only as "plausible" by linguistic scholars at large.[5]