Proto-Yeniseian or Proto-Yeniseic is the unattested reconstructed proto-language from which all Yeniseian languages are thought to descend. It is uncertain whether Proto-Yeniseian had a similar tone/pitch accent system as Ket. Many studies about Proto-Yeniseian phonology have been done; however, there are still many things unclear about Proto-Yeniseian. The probable location of the Yeniseian homeland is proposed on the basis of geographic names and genetic studies, which suggests a homeland in Southern Siberia.
Phonology According to Vajda, Proto-Yeniseian had the following phonemes, expressed in IPA symbols.Fortescue, Michael D.; Vajda, Edward J. (2022), Mid-Holocene Language Connections Between Asia and North America, (Brill's Studies in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, 17), Leiden, Boston: Brill.
Consonants Bilabial Alveolar Postalveolar Retroflex Palatal Labiovelar Velar Uvular Nasal Plosive *č *tʳ *ǰ *dʳ Fricative *š (*šʳ ) Lateral Approximant Rhotic
Vowels Front Central Back Close Mid Open
References
Further reading
Accessed 19 June 2023.
Vajda, Edward. "Losing semantic alignment: from Proto-Yeniseic to Modern Ket". In: The typology of semantic alignment. Eds. Tim Donohue & Soeren Wichman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. pp. 140–161. .
Vajda, Edward. "8 The Yeniseian language family". The Languages and Linguistics of Northern Asia: Language Families, edited by Edward Vajda, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2024, pp. 365–480. М. В. Филимонов. "Праенисейская падежная система и некоторые проблемы морфологии имени в енисейских языках" [PROTO-YENISSEAN CASE SYSTEM AND SOME PROBLEM OF NOUN MORPHOLOGY IN YENISSEAN LANGUAGES]. In: Вестник Томского государственного педагогического университета, no. 4 (12), 1999, pp. 64–66. URL: https://cyberleninka.ru/article/n/praeniseyskaya-padezhnaya-sistema-i-nekotorye-problemy-morfologii-imeni-v-eniseyskih-yazykah (дата обращения: 19.06.2023). (in Russian)
External links Proto-Yeniseian reconstructions at Wiktionary