Yeniseian languages

The Yeniseian languages (lenessian) (sometimes known as Yeniseic or Yenisei-Ostyak; occasionally spelled with -ss-) are a language family whose languages are and were spoken in the Yenisei River region of central Siberia.

Family division

0. Proto-Yeniseian (before 500 BC; split around 1 AD)

Only two languages of this family survived into the 20th century, Ket (also known as Imbat Ket), with around 200 speakers, and Yugh (also known as Sym Ket), which is now extinct. The other known members of this family, Arin, Assan, Pumpokol, and Kott, have been extinct for over two centuries. Other groups – Buklin, Baikot, Yarin, Yastin, Ashkyshtym, and Koibalkyshtym – are identifiable as Yeniseic-speaking from tsarist fur-tax records compiled during the 17th century, but nothing remains of their languages except a few proper names.

It appears from Chinese sources that a Yeniseian group might have been among the peoples that made up the tribal confederation known as the Xiongnu, who have traditionally been considered the ancestors of the Huns, but these suggestions are difficult to substantiate due to the paucity of data. One sentence of the language of the Jie, a Xiongnu tribe who founded the Later Zhao state, appears consistent with being a Yeniseian language.