The Yeniseian (Ket) /Na-Dene relationship is revisited in light of a refugium (warm area) in Beringia during the last Glacial Maximum. Various other scenarios can be envisioned, but the key point here is that Na-Dene (which also includes Hupa in N. California) is not descended from Yeniseian (Siberian languages of which only Ket survives now) but that both share a common ancestor. Many linguists accepted Dr. Vajda’s analysis, despite its time depth. He relied heavily on structural features of language, which turn out to be more resistant to change than vocabulary. In particular, he looked at Yeniseian and Na-Dene verbs, since languages in both groups have a template of fixed positions before and after the verb for specifying various attributes. Building on Dr. Vajda’s success, two linguists, Mark A. Sicoli of Georgetown University and Gary Holton of the University of Alaska, have assessed the relationship of the two language families based on shared grammatical features, rather than vocabulary. In a paper published in the journal PLoS One on Wednesday, they report their surprising finding that Na-Dene is not a descendant of Yeniseian, as would be expected if the Yeniseian speakers in Siberia were the source population of the Na-Dene migration. Rather, they say, both language families are descendants of some lost mother tongue. Thanks to Martha Shelley for link. nytimes/2014/03/13/science/linguistic-study-sheds-new-light-on-peopling-of-north-america.html?emc=eta1
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 09:47:46 +0000
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