Proto-Yeniseian or Proto-Yeniseic is the unattested reconstructed proto-language from which all Yeniseian languages are thought to descend from. 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.
Consonants
Vowels
Vocabulary
*xuɬ ‘water’
*xuše ‘birch tree’
*am ‘mother’
*ejn ‘wedge’
*qed ‘man’
*bes ‘rabbit’
*don ‘knife’
*kus ‘horse’
*pub ‘son’
*bus ‘penis’
*satʳ ‘crucian (fish)’
*baŋ ‘land’
*tijk ‘snow’
*bejx ‘wind’
*tɬiwdʳ ‘lard’, ‘oil’
*ɬaɢa ‘star’
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. .
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)