Yeniseian people

For the similarly named Turkic people, see Yenisei Kyrgyz.
Yeniseians
A Ket woman in Siberia
Total population
1,095 (2021)
Languages
Yeniseian languages, Russian language
Religion
Shamanism (formerly)
Related ethnic groups
Kott people, Asan people, Ket people, Yugh people, Pumpokol people, possibly Jie people, Indigenous peoples of the Americas

Distribution of the Yeniseian languages based on Russian historical data. This likely represents a northward migration of the Yeniseians from their origin in Northern Mongolia.

The Yeniseian people refers either to the modern or ancient Siberian populations speaking Yeniseian languages. Despite evidence pointing to the historical presence of Yeniseian populations throughout Central Siberia and Northern Mongolia, only the Ket and Yugh people survive today. The modern Yeniseians live along the eastern middle stretch of the Yenisei River in Northern Siberia. According to the 2021 census, there were 1,088 Kets and 7 Yugs in Russia.[1]

Based on hydronymic data, the Yeniseians originated from the area around the Sayan Mountains and the southern tip of Lake Baikal. The known historical distribution of the Yeniseians is likely to represent a northward migration, with the modern-day Kets representing the very northernmost expansion of the language family.[2] This migration possibly occurred as a result of the fall of the Xiongnu confederation, which, according to Alexander Vovin, is likely to have had a Yeniseian-speaking component among its ruling elite.[3][4] The Jie people, a branch of the Xiongnu who established the Later Zhao state in China, are likely to have spoken a variant of Yeniseian close to Pumpokol.[5]

With the proposal of the Dené–Yeniseian language family, the Yeniseians have been linked to Native Americans, particularly the Athabaskans. It has been suggested that the Yeniseians represent either a back-migration from the Bering land bridge to Central Siberia, or that early Dene-Yeniseian speakers originated in Central Siberia, with Na-Dene speakers expanding into the Americas while Yeniseian speakers remained in Siberia.[6][7]

  1. ^ Vajda, Edward G. "The Ket and Other Yeniseian Peoples". Archived from the original on 6 April 2019. Retrieved 29 June 2007.
  2. ^ Georg, Stefan (January 2003). "THE GRADUAL DISAPPEARANCE OF A EURASIAN LANGUAGE FAMILY". … and Language Maintenance: Theoretical, Practical and ...: 89.
  3. ^ Beckwith, Christopher I. (16 March 2009). Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present. Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-13589-2. Retrieved 30 March 2015
  4. ^ Vovin, A (1 January 2000). "Did the Xiong-nu speak a Yeniseian language?". Central Asiatic Journal. 44: 87–104.
  5. ^ Vovin, Alexander; Vajda, Edward J.; Vaissière, Etienne de la (2016). "WHO WERE THE *KJET (羯) AND WHAT LANGUAGE DID THEY SPEAK?". Journal Asiatique. 304 (1): 125–144. doi:10.2143/JA.304.1.3146838.
  6. ^ Sicoli, Mark A.; Holton, Gary (12 March 2014). "Linguistic Phylogenies Support Back-Migration from Beringia to Asia". PLOS ONE. 9 (3): e91722. Bibcode:2014PLoSO...991722S. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0091722. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 3951421. PMID 24621925.
  7. ^ Wilson, Joseph A. P. (2023). "Late Holocene Technology Words in Proto-Athabaskan: Implications for Dene-Yeniseian Culture History". Humans. 3 (3): 177–192. doi:10.3390/humans3030015. ISSN 2673-9461.