Dené-Caucasian languages

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Dené-Caucasian controversial
Geographic distribution:	scattered in Eurasia; northern North America
Genetic classification:	—  Dené-Caucasian
Subdivisions:	Caucasian (controversial) Yeniseian Sino-Tibetan Na-Dené (incl. Haida – controversial) Burushaski Basque Almosan (sometimes included) Sumerian (sometimes included)

The Dené-Caucasian (also called Sino-Caucasian or Dené-Sino-Caucasian) language family is a proposed language superfamily containing at least the Basque, Caucasian, Yeniseian, Burushaski, Sino-Tibetan, and Na-Dené languages. Its existence is controversial; however, not much discussion between supporters and skeptics has happened yet, because most of the research on the hypothesis only started in the 1990s.

Contents 1 History of the hypothesis 2 Evidence for Dené-Caucasian 2.1 Shared pronominal morphemes 2.2 Shared noun class pre- and infixes 3 Family tree proposals 3.1 Starostin's view 3.2 Bengtson's view 4 Proposed subbranches 4.1 Macro-Caucasian 4.1.1 Shared suffixes 4.2 Karasuk 5 Footnotes 6 Other references 7 External links 8 See also

History of the hypothesis

The first glimpses appeared in the works of Robert Bleichsteiner, Karl Bouda, E. J. Furnée, René Lafon, Edward Sapir, Robert Shafer, Morris Swadesh, Olivier Guy Tailleur, Vladimir N. Toporov, Alfredo Trombetti and other scholars of the early 20th century. Morris Swadesh proposed the grouping under the name Vasco-Dene (for Basque and Navajo, the geographic extremes) in 1959, but Mary Haas attributes the Vasco-Dene hypothesis to Edward Sapir. In the 1980s, it was Sergei Starostin who, using strict linguistic methods (proposing regular phonological correspondences, reconstructions, glottochronology, etc.) first put the idea that the Caucasian, Yeniseian and Sino-Tibetan languages are related on firmer ground.^[1][2] In 1991, Sergei L. Nikolayev added the Na-Dené languages.^[3] Their inclusion has been complicated by the ongoing dispute as to whether Haida belongs to the family or not. The proponents of the Dené-Caucasian hypothesis incline towards supporters of Haida's membership in Na-Dené, such as Heinz-Jürgen Pinnow^{[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]} or, most recently, John Enrico.^[11] Interestingly enough, Edward J. Vajda, who otherwise rejects the Dené-Caucasian hypothesis, has suggested that Tlingit, Eyak, and the Athabaskan languages are closely related to the Yeniseian languages, but he denies any genetic relationship of the former three to Haida.^{[12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20]} Vajda's ideas on the relationship of Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit and Yeniseian have found support independently in works of various authors, including Heinrich K. Werner^[21] or Merritt Ruhlen.^[22] DNA analyses have not shown any special connection between the modern Ket population and the modern speakers of the Na-Dené languages,^[23], but their relevance for stating a linguistic affinity is rather limited, as there is no direct correlation between genes and languages. In 1996, John D. Bengtson added the Vasconic languages (including Basque, its extinct relative or ancestor Aquitanian, and maybe also Iberian),^[24] and one year later he proposed the inclusion of Burushaski.^[25] The same year, in his article for Mother Tongue, Bengtson concluded Sumerian might have been a remnant of a distinct subgroup of the Dené-Caucasian languages.^[26] It should be noted, however, that two other papers on the genetic affinity of Sumerian appeared in the same volume: while Allan R. Bomhard considered Sumerian to be a sister of Nostratic,^[27] Igor M. Diakonoff compared it to the Munda languages.^[28] In 1998, Vitaliy V. Shevoroshkin rejected the Amerind affinity of the Almosan (Algonquian-Wakashan) languages, suggesting instead their relationship with Dené-Caucasian.^[29] A few years later, he offered a number of lexical and phonological correspondences between the North Caucasian, the Salishan, and the Wakashan languages, concluding that the latter two might represent a distinct branch of the former and that they must have separated after the break of the Avar-Andi-Tsezian unity in the period about the 2^nd-3^rd millennia BC.^[30][31]

Evidence for Dené-Caucasian

Main articles: Proto-Dené-Caucasian language and Proto-Dené-Caucasian roots

The existence of Dené-Caucasian is supported by:

• many words that correspond between some or all of the families referred to Dené-Caucasian;
• regular sound correspondences between these words (so far only published for the Eurasian members of the superfamily);
• the presence in the shared vocabulary of words that are rarely borrowed or otherwise replaced, such as personal pronouns (see below);
• elements of grammar, such as class prefixes (see below) and case suffixes, that are shared between at least some of the component families;
• a reconstruction of the sound system, much of the grammar, and much of the vocabulary of the superfamily's most recent common ancestor, the so-called Proto-Dené-Caucasian language.

Potential problems include:

• the somewhat heavy reliance on the reconstruction of Proto-(North-)Caucasian by Starostin and Nikolayev.^[32] This reconstruction contains much uncertainty due to the extreme complexity of the sound systems of the Caucasian languages; the sound correspondences between these languages are difficult to trace.
• the use of the reconstruction of Proto-Sino-Tibetan by Peiros and Starostin^[33], parts of which have been criticized on various grounds^[34], although Starostin himself has proposed a few revisions.^[35]

Shared pronominal morphemes

Several roots can be reconstructed for the 1^st and 2^nd person singular pronouns. This may indicate that there were pronouns with irregular declension in Proto-Dené-Caucasian, like "I" vs "me" throughout Indo-European. In the daughter languages some of the roots are often affixes instead of independent pronouns. The Algic,^[36] Salishan,^[29][30][31] Wakashan,^[30][31] and Sumerian comparisons should be regarded as especially tentative because regular sound correspondences between these families and the more often accepted Dené-Caucasian families have not yet been reconstructed. To a lesser degree this also holds for the Na-Dené comparisons where sound correspondences have not yet been published. /V/ means that the vowel in this position has not been successfully reconstructed, /K/ could have been any velar plosive?, /S/ could have been any sibilant or assibilate?.

Meaning	Proto-Dené-Caucasian	Proto- Basque	Proto- Caucasian	Proto- Burushaski	Proto- Sino-Tibetan	Proto- Yeniseian	Na-Dené	Proto- Salishan	Proto- Algic	Sumerian
1st sg.	/ŋV/	/ni/, /n/-	/nɨ/	/a/-	/ŋaː/-	/ŋ/		/nV/	/nˀV/-	/ŋa(e)/[1]
	/d͡zV/	-/da/-, -/t/	/zoː/	/d͡ʑa/		/ʔad͡z/	[2]	-/t͡s(a)/-, -/s/[3]
	/KV/	/gu/[4], /g/-			/ka/-		[5]
2nd sg.	/KwV/	/hi/, /h/-, -/ga/-	/ʁVː/	/gu/-~/go/-	/Kwa/-	/(V)k(V)/	[6]	/ʔaxʷ/	/k̕V/-
	/wVn/		/woː-n/	/u-n/	/na-(ŋ)/	/ʔaw/	[7]	/wV/
3rd sg.	/w/- or /m/-	/be-ra/	/mV/	/mu/-[8]	/m/-	/wV/	[9]
2nd pl.	/Su/	/su/, /s/-	/ʑwe/							/t͡sa(e)/[10]

Footnotes: ¹ Emesal dialect /ma(e)/; ² Proto-Athabaskan */ʃ/, Haida dii /dìː/; ³ Also in Proto-Southern Wakashan; ⁴ 1st pl.; ⁵ Tlingit xa /χà/, Eyak /x/-, /xʷ/; ⁶ Proto-Athabaskan */χʷ/-, Tlingit ÿi /ɰi/ > yi /ji/ = 2nd pl.; Tlingit i /ʔì/, Eyak /ʔi/ "thou"; ⁷ Proto-Athabaskan */ŋ̰ən/-, Haida dang /dàŋ/, Tlingit wa.é /waʔɛ́/; ⁸ Feminine; ⁹ Proto-Athabaskan */wə/-, Eyak /wa/-, Tlingit wé /wɛ́/, Haida 'wa /wˀà/; ¹⁰ 2nd sg.

Shared noun class pre- and infixes

Noun classification occurs in the Caucasian languages, Burushaski, Yeniseian, and the Na-Dené languages. In Basque and Sino-Tibetan, only fossilized vestiges of the prefixes remain.^[37]

to be elaborated and corrected

Proto-Dené-Caucasian	Proto-Basque [a]	Proto-Caucasian [b]	Burushaski [c]	Proto-Sino-Tibetan [d]	Proto-Yeniseian [e]
/u̯/-	/o/-, /u/-	/u̯/-	/u/-		/a/, /o/
/j/	/e/-, /i/-	/j/-	/i/-	/g/- (?)	/i/, /id/
/w/	/be/-, /bi/-	/w/-, /b/-, /m/-		/b/-, /m/-	/b/
/r/		/r/-, /d/-		/r/-, /d/-
/s/	-/s/-	(-/s/-)		/s/-

Footnotes: ^a In Basque, the class prefixes became fossilized; ^b In many Caucasian languages (28), systems of this type more or less persist to this day, especially in the East Caucasian languages,^[38][39][40] whereas in West Caucasian, only Abkhaz and Abaza preserve a distinction human-nonhuman;^{[38] c} Burushaski seems to have reversed the first two animate classes,^[41][42] which may have parallels in some East Caucasian languages, namely Rutul, Tsakhur, or Kryz; ^d As with Basque, the class system was already obsolete by the time the languages were recorded;^[43]

Family tree proposals

Starostin's view

The Dené-Caucasian family tree and approximate divergence dates (estimated by modified glottochronology) proposed by S. A. Starostin and his colleagues from the Tower of Babel project:^[44]

1. Dené-Caucasian languages [8,700BCE]

1.1. Na-Dené languages (Athabascan-Eyak-Tlingit)

1.2. Sino-Vasconic languages [7,900BCE]

1.2.1. Vasconic (see below)

1.2.2. Sino-Caucasian languages [6,200BCE]

1.2.2.1. Burushaski

1.2.2.2. Caucaso-Sino-Yenisseian [5,900BCE]

1.2.2.2.1. North Caucasian languages

1.2.2.2.2. Sino-Yeniseian [5,100BCE]

1.2.2.2.2.1. Yeniseian languages

1.2.2.2.2.2. Sino-Tibetan languages

Bengtson's view

John D. Bengtson groups Basque, Caucasian and Burushaski together in a Macro-Caucasian (earlier Vasco-Caucasian) family (see the section on Macro-Caucasian below).^[25] According to him, it is as yet premature to propose other nodes or subgroupings, but he notes that Sumerian seems to share the same number of isoglosses with the (geographically) western branches as with the eastern ones:^[26]

1. Dené-Caucasian

1.1. The Macro-Caucasian family

1.1.1. Basque

1.1.2. North Caucasian

1.1.3. Burushaski

1.2............................................ (Sumerian?)

1.3. Sino-Tibetan

1.4. Yeniseian

1.5. Na-Dené

Proposed subbranches

Macro-Caucasian

John Bengtson thinks that, within Dené-Caucasian, the Caucasian languages form a branch together with Basque and Burushaski, based on many shared word roots as well as shared grammar such as the following:

Shared suffixes

Likely cognates of case endings
Basque Case	Basque	Burushaski	Caucasian	Comments
Absolutive	-0	-0	-0	The absolutive form is generally used for the subjects of intransitive verbs and the direct object of transitive verbs. Special ergative forms are used for the subject of transitive verbs.
Ergative	-k	-k/-ak(1)	-k’ə(2)	(1) instrumental; (2) Kabardian ergative, Circassian (Adyghe) instrumental
Dative	-i	-e(1)	*-Hi(2)	(1) used as both ergative and genitive; (2) manifests as Avar -e (dative), Hunzib -i (dative) etc., shifted to instrumental in Lak, Dargwa, genitive in Khinalug, or ergative in Tsezian, Dargwa and Khinalug
Instrumental	-z [s]	-as/-áas(1)	*-s:-(2)	(1) cf. parallel infinitive -s in some Lezghian languages; (2) instrumental animate; general attributive, shifted to closely related functions in most modern languages, e.g. ergative animate in Chechen, adjectival and participial attributive suffix in Abkhaz etc.
Genitive	-en		*-nV(1)	(1) attested as genitive in Lezghi, Chechen (also infinitive, adj. and particip. suff.), possessive in Ubykh etc.; in some languages the function has shifted to ablative (Avar), ergative (Udi, Ubykh)
Allative	-ra(1)	-r/-ar(2), -al-(3)	*-ɫV(4)	(1) some northern Basque dialects have the form -rat and/or -lat; (2) dative/allative; (3) locative; (4) Chechen -l, -lla (translative), Tsez -r (dative, lative), Khinalug -li (general locative) etc.
Comitative	-ekin		*KV(1)	(1) possible cognates among mutually incompatible suffixes, cf. Avar -gu-n, -gi-n (comitative), Andi -lo-gu, Karata -qi-l, Tindi -ka, Akhwakh -qe-na.

Karasuk

Main article: Karasuk languages

George van Driem has proposed that the Yeniseian languages are the closest known relatives of Burushaski, based on less than a handful of lookalike elements in grammar and lexicon. He does not seem to have considered the other language families that are hypothesized to belong to Dené-Caucasian, so whether the Karasuk hypothesis is really incompatible with the Macro-Caucasian hypothesis remains to be investigated.

Footnotes

Other references

• BENGTSON, John D., 2006. "Materials for a Comparative Grammar of the Dene-Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian) Languages."
• BENGTSON, John D., 2004. "Some features of Dene-Caucasian phonology (with special reference to Basque)." In Cahiers de l'Institut de Linguistique de Louvain (CILL): 33–54.
• BENGTSON, John D., 2003. "Notes on Basque Comparative Phonology." Mother Tongue 8: 21–39.
• BENGTSON, John D., 2002. "The Dene-Caucasian noun prefix *s-." In The Linguist's Linguist: A Collection of Papers in Honour of Alexis Manaster Ramer, ed. by F. Cavoto, pp. 53–57. Munich: LINCOM Europa.
• BENGTSON, John D., 1999. "Wider genetic affiliations of the Chinese language." Journal of Chinese Linguistics 27 (1): 1–12.
• BENGTSON, John D., 1999. "Review of R.L. Trask, The History of Basque." In Romance Philology 52 (Spring): 219–224.
• BENGTSON, John D., 1998. "Caucasian and Sino-Tibetan: A Hypothesis of S. A. Starostin." General Linguistics, Vol. 36, no. 1/2, 1998 (1996). Pegasus Press, University of North Carolina, Asheville, North Carolina.
• BENGTSON, John D., 1997. "Ein Vergleich von Buruschaski und Nordkaukasisch [A comparison of B. and North Caucasian]." Georgica 20: 88–94.
• BENGTSON, John D., 1997. "The riddle of Sumerian: A Dene-Caucasic language?" Mother Tongue 3: 63–74.
• BENGTSON, John D., 1996. "A Final (?) Response to the Basque Debate in Mother Tongue 1." (see External links below)
• BENGTSON, John D., 1994. "Edward Sapir and the ‘Sino-Dene’ Hypothesis." Anthropological Science (Tokyo) 102: 207-230.
• CHIRIKBA, Vyacheslav A., 1985. "Баскский и северокавказские языки [Basque and the North Caucasian languages]." In Древняя Анатолия [Ancient Anatolia], pp. 95-105. Moscow: Nauka.
• NIKOLA(Y)EV, Sergei L., 1991. "Sino-Caucasian Languages in America." In Shevoroshkin (1991), pp. 42–66.
• RUHLEN, Merritt, 2001. "Il Dene-caucasico: una nuova famiglia linguistica." Pluriverso 2: 76–85.
• RUHLEN, Merritt, 1998. "Dene-Caucasian: A New Linguistic Family," in The Origins and Past of Modern Humans—Towards Reconciliation, ed. by Keiichi Omoto and Phillip V. Tobias, Singapore: World Scientific, 231–46.
• RUHLEN, Merritt, 1998. "The Origin of the Na-Dene." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 95: 13994–13996.
• RUHLEN, Merritt. 1997. "Une nouvelle famille de langues: le déné-caucasien," Pour la Science (Dossier, October), 68–73.
• SHEVOROSHKIN, Vitaliy V., 2004. "Proto-Salishan and Proto-North-Caucasian Consonants: a few cognate sets." in Nostratic Centennial Conference: the Pécs Papers. ed. by. I. Hegedűs & P. Sidwell, pp. 181–191. Pécs: Lingua Franca Group.
• SHEVOROSHKIN, Vitaliy V., 2003. "Salishan and North Caucasian." Mother Tongue 8: 39–64.
• SHEVOROSHKIN, Vitaliy V., 1999 "Nostratic and Sino-Caucasian: two ancient language phyla." In From Neanderthal to Easter Island (Festschrift W. W. Schuhmacher), ed. by N. A. Kirk & P. J. Sidwell. pp. 44–74. Melbourne.
• SHEVOROSHKIN, Vitaliy V., 1998. 1998 Symposium on Nostratic at Cambridge. Mother Tongue 31, 28–32 (the whole issue as image files)
• SHEVOROSHKIN, Vitaliy V., 1991. (Ed.) Dene-Sino-Caucasian Languages. Bochum: Brockmeyer.
• STAROSTIN, Sergei A., 2004–2005. Sino-Caucasian comparative phonology & Sino-Caucasian comparative glossary.
• STAROSTIN, Sergei A., 2002. "A response to Alexander Vovin's criticism of the Sino-Caucasian theory." Journal of Chinese Linguistics 30.1:142–153.
• STAROSTIN, Sergei A., 2000. "Genesis of the Long Vowels in Sino-Tibetan." In Проблемы изучения дальнего родства языков на рыбеже третьего тысячелетия: Доклады и тезисы международной конференции РГГУ [Problems of the research on the distant origin of languages at the beginning of the third millennium: Talks and abstracts of the international conference of the RGGU], Moscow 2000.
• STAROSTIN, Sergei A., 1996. "Word-final resonants in Sino-Caucasian." Journal of Chinese Linguistics 24.2: 281–311. (written for the 3^rd International Conference on Chinese Linguistics in Hongkong in 1994)
• STAROSTIN, Sergei A., 1995. "Old Chinese Basic Vocabulary: A Historical Perspective." In The Ancestry of the Chinese Language (Journal of Chinese Linguistics Monograph No. 8), ed. by W. S.-Y. Wang, pp. 225–251. Berkeley, CA.
• STAROSTIN, Sergei A., 1994. "A Comparative Dictionary of North Caucasian Languages". Moscow. (see External links below)
• STAROSTIN, Sergei A. and Orel, V., 1989. "Etruscan and North Caucasian." Explorations in Language Macrofamilies. Ed. V. Shevoroshkin. Bochum Publications in Evolutionary Cultural Semiotics. 23. Bochum.
• STAROSTIN, Sergei A., 1991. "On the Hypothesis of a Genetic Connection Between the Sino-Tibetan Languages and the Yeniseian and North Caucasian Languages." In Shevoroshkin (1991), pp. 12–41. [Translation of Starostin 1984]
• STAROSTIN, Sergei A., 1984. "Гипотеза о генетических связях синотибетских языков с енисейскими и северокавказскими языками [A hypothesis on the genetic relationships of the Sino-Tibetan languages with the Yeniseian and the North Caucasian languages]." In Лингвистическая реконструкция и древнейшая история Востока [Linguistic reconstruction and the ancient history of the East], part 4, pp. 19-38. Moscow: Академия наук, Институт востоковедения [Academy of sciences, Institute for Orientalistics]. [see Starostin 1991]
• TRASK, R. L., 1994–1995. "Basque: The Search for Relatives (Part 1)." Dhumbadji! 2:3–54.
• TRASK, R. L., 1995. "Basque and Dene-Caucasian: A Critique from the Basque Side". Mother Tongue 1:3–82.
• TRASK, R. L., 1997. "Basque and the Superfamilies". The History of Basque, Routledge, London. (See especially pages 403–408.)
• TRASK, R. L., 1999. "Why should a language have any relatives?" Pages 157–176 in: C. Renfrew & D. Nettle (eds.): Nostratic: Examining a Linguistic Macrofamily, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge (UK).
• VOVIN, Alexander, 1997. "The Comparative Method and Ventures Beyond Sino-Tibetan." Journal of Chinese Linguistics 25.2: 308–336.
• VOVIN, Alexander, 2002. "Building a 'bum-pa for Sino-Caucasian." Journal of Chinese Linguistics 30.1: 154–171.

External links

• Dene-Caucasian ethno-linguistic map
• The Tower of Babel(Site in English and Russian including The proposed family tree&Word-final Resonants in Sino-Caucasian)
• A Final (?) Response to the Basque Debate in Mother Tongue 1

See also

• Language families and languages
• Proto-language
• Borean languages

The individual Dené-Caucasian phyla:

• Basque
• Burushaski
• Caucasian

• West Caucasian
• East Caucasian

• Sino-Tibetan
• Yeniseian
• Na-Dené

See also

• Almosan

• Salishan
• Wakashan
• Algic