Vajda Edward. A Siberian link with Na-Dene languages

Dene-Yeniseic Symposium, Fairbanks; Ed Vajda Draft March 3.08. — 60 p.The Yeniseic (Yeniseian) microfamily of central Siberia (upper and middle reaches of the Yenisei River basin) is genetically unrelated to other families of the Old World. Yeniseic includes the extinct Kott, Assan, Arin, Pumpokol, and Yugh languages, as well as the highly endangered Ket, now with fewer than 200 speakers, most over the age of 50. Only Ket and Yugh were documented in modern times. Fortunately, excellent materials were collected from the last Kott speakers by Finnish linguist M. A. Castrén (1858). Assan, Arin and Pumpokol disappeared before 1800 and were only sparsely documented by travelers and explorers. Nevertheless, the extant documentation offers valuable lexical comparanda that testify eloquently to the value of documenting even the most obscure of the world's endangered languages before they disappear. Werner (2005)contains a complete description of all 18th century documentation of Yeniseic languages. Monograph-length descriptions of Modern Ket phonology and grammar include Werner(1997), Vajda (2004), and Georg (2007).
The prefixing verb structure of Ket differs strikingly from the surrounding Uralic,Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages of Inner Asia and Siberia. During the past twocenturies, linguists have attempted to link Yeniseic to other Northern Hemispherefamilies with a prefixing verb, notably Burushaski, Abkhaz-Adygh (NorthwestCaucasian), Nakh-Dagestanian (Northeast Caucasian), Sumerian, and Na-Dene(Athabaskan-Eyak-Tlingit). It is no exaggeration to say that the position of Ket in InnerEurasia has up until now remained as enigmatic as that of Basque in Europe, Zuni is theAmerican Southwest, or Burushaski in South Asia.