Dené-Yeniseian Language families

[ancalimon]

I asked in a language forum whether it was just a coincidence that some words we use today in Turkic languages were same with some Meso-American languages.

Someone posted this page:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den%C3%A9-Yeniseian_languages

www.uaf.edu/anlc/dy2008.html
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=531

Then I was told it didn't even have a remote connection with Turkic languages, and the topic was locked.

forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1795197

Can someone with enough knowledge on this subject enlighten me?

I'm very interested in linguistics, but I am certainly an amateur pseudo-linguist

[hjernespiser]

If you're interested in linguistics, I suggest you get a good college-level introductory book on the subject.

[ren]

May 14, 2010 3:32:52 GMT 3 ancalimon said:

I asked in a language forum whether it was just a coincidence that some words we use today in Turkic languages were same with some Meso-American languages.

Someone posted this page:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Den%C3%A9-Yeniseian_languages

www.uaf.edu/anlc/dy2008.html
languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=531

Then I was told it didn't even have a remote connection with Turkic languages, and the topic was locked.

forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1795197

Can someone with enough knowledge on this subject enlighten me?

I'm very interested in linguistics, but I am certainly an amateur pseudo-linguist

It's probably Yeniseian loans or substratum in Turkic. Yeniseian toponyms can be traced from the Urals to northern Mongolia. Some think the Xiongnu/Huns or part of them were Yeniseian.

[sharshuvuu]

Ancalimon, it is a waste of time to look for resemblances between individual words of different languages with similar meanings. There are too many accidental cases of such similarities to draw conclusions from them.

For example: English "day" and Spanish "dia" mean the same thing, and they certainly look similar. However, if you trace the history of the two languages you find that the resemblance is purely accidental; they are not at all genetically related.

Or take the word "kahuna"--in Hawaiian it means an expert at some practice that requires specialized training, or particularly a priest or sorcerer. In Hebrew, a "kohen" is a priest. Aha! Hebrew and Hawaiian must be related!

Alas, it does not work. Hawaiian in comparatively recent times underwent a consonant shift in which k's became glottal stops and t's became k's. The earlier form of the word is preserved in other Polynesian languages as "tahunga." That doesn't resemble "kohen" enough to attract anyone's attention and lead to erroneous conclusions.

Other members of this forum have advised you to study the formal discipline of linguistics, and I can only join them. Until you acquire the necessary skill set to evaluate verbal similarities across different languages, you will be a loose cannon on the linguistic deck. You certainly have the motivation; now go out and learn the skills.

Sharshuvuu