Karasuk is a hypothetical language family that links the Yeniseian languages of central Siberia with the Burushaski language of northern Pakistan.
History of proposals Hyde Clarke (1870) first noted a possible connection between the Yeniseian and Burushaski languages.Clarke, Hyde. 1870. ‘Response to Leitner´s verbal presentation (November 23rd, 1869)’. Journal of the Ethnological Society of London, New Series II: 32-34.
The name Karasuk was proposed by George van Driem of the University of Leiden.George van Driem (2001) Languages of the Himalayas. An Ethnolinguistic Handbook of the Greater Himalayas, p 1144 ff The family is named after the Karasuk culture, which existed in Central Asia during the Bronze Age in second millennium BCE. Van Driem postulates the Burusho people took part in the Indo-Aryan migration out of Central Asia and into the northern part of Pakistan, while other Karasuk peoples migrated northwards to become the Yeniseians. These claims have been picked up by anthropologist and linguist Roger Blench (1999).Roger Blench (1999) "Language phyla of the Indo-Pacific region: Recent research and classification", in Bellwood & Lilley, eds., Bulletin of the Indo-Pacific Prehistory Association Bulletin, 18:59–76, Australian National University
Václav Blažek (2019) places the linguistic homeland of Proto-Yeniseian close to where Burushaski is now spoken today in Pakistan. He argues that based on hydronomic evidence, Yeniseian languages were originally spoken on the northern slopes of the Tianshan and Pamir mountains before dispersing downstream via the Irtysh River.Blažek, Václav. 2019. Toward the question of Yeniseian homeland in perspective of toponymy. 14th Annual Sergei Starostin Memorial Conference on Comparative-Historical Linguistics. Moscow: RSUH.
Morphological evidence The evidence for Karasuk is mostly in the verbal and nominal morphology. For example, the second-person singular prefixes on intransitive verbs are in Burushaski and in Ket. Ket has two verbal declensions, one prefixed with d- and one with b-, and Burushaski likewise has two, one prefixed with d- and one without such a marker. However, neither the Burushaski nor the Yeniseian verbal morphology has been rigorously analysed,Van Driem 2001:1146 and reviewers have found the evidence to be weak.Roland Bielmeier (review, 2003), "On the Languages of the Himalayas and their Links (nearly) around the World", EBHR 24:96
While Yeniseian has been proposed to be related to the Na-Dené languages of North America, as part of a newly named Dené–Yeniseian family, the relevant morphological correspondences between Na-Dené and Yeniseian have not been found in Burushaski.
Lexical cognates Below is a list of possible cognates:Starostin, Sergei A., and Merritt Ruhlen. (1994). Proto-Yeniseian Reconstructions, with Extra-Yeniseian Comparisons. In M. Ruhlen, On the Origin of Languages: Studies in Linguistic Taxonomy. Stanford: Stanford University Press. pp. 70–92. [Partial translation of Starostin 1982, with additional comparisons by Ruhlen.]
{| class="wikitable" |+Suggested cognates !Proto-Yeniseian !Burushaski !English |- |*binč |melc |chin/jaw |- |*siː |si/su |eat |- |*seŋ |sán |liver/spleen |- |*ʔig |yek |name |- |*qoʎ |qʌt |armpit |- |*təga |ʔ(r)ək |breast/chest |- |*pʌx |pak |clean |- |*dʌr |thɛr |dirt/dirty
Kassian and Starostin (2017) list the following potential cognates between Proto-Yeniseian and Proto-Burushaski.А. С. Касьян, Г. С. Старостин. Автоматическое сравнение енисейско-буришской базисной лексики и вероятностная оценка схождений. XII традиционные чтения памяти С. А. Старостина. РГГУ, 23-24 марта 2017 г. (Abstract)
{| class="wikitable sortable" ! gloss !! Proto-Yeniseian !! Proto-Burushaski |- | ‘dry’ || *qɔɢ- || *qaq- |- | ‘to eat’ || *siː- || *ʂi- |- | ‘to give’ || *=o || *=u- |- | ‘to kill’ || *xeːy || *=s=ʁa- |- | ‘name’ || *ʔiɢ || *ek |- | ‘that’ || *ʔu, *ʔa || *i- |- | ‘eye’ || *de-s || *=l-ɕi |- | ‘I’ || *ʔaʒ || *ʓa |- | ‘leaf’ || *yəːpe || *ƛap |- | ‘root’ || *ciːǯ || *cʰereʂ |- | ‘thou’ || *ʔaw || *un
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