What is it about?
This paper investigates the earliest linguistic contact between Turkic and Yeniseian, two language families once spoken across large parts of Inner and northern Asia. It critically reassesses earlier proposed word comparisons and shows that most cannot be accepted at the level of the reconstructed proto-languages. In their place, eight new or revised cases of lexical borrowing are proposed: one from Early Proto-Turkic into Proto-Yeniseian and seven in the opposite direction. The evidence suggests that Early Proto-Turkic and Proto-Yeniseian were spoken in close geographical proximity during the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, before the formation of the Xiongnu Empire.
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Why is it important?
The significance of these loanwords lies less in their number than in their antiquity. They provide linguistic evidence for direct contact between Early Proto-Turkic and Proto-Yeniseian at a time for which almost no written linguistic evidence survives. This helps locate Early Proto-Turkic within a specific Inner Asian contact environment and sheds light on the linguistic landscape preceding the Xiongnu Empire. The proposed borrowings also contribute to the reconstruction of the sound systems of both Proto-Turkic and Proto-Yeniseian. More broadly, the study shows how carefully identified loanwords can be used as evidence for prehistoric linguistic geography, chronology and population contact.
Perspectives
I see this paper as an attempt to move the discussion of early Turkic–Yeniseian contact beyond comparisons based mainly on the superficial similarity of individual words. My aim was to evaluate the evidence at the level of reconstructed languages and to establish the direction and chronology of borrowing wherever possible. What I find particularly significant is that even a very small group of relatively secure loanwords can provide information about a period of Inner Asian linguistic history that is otherwise almost invisible. The results suggest that Yeniseian belonged to the immediate linguistic environment in which early Turkic developed and that contact between the two families reaches considerably further back than their historically documented interactions.
Dr. Orçun Ünal
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Gottingen
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Yeniseian as One of the Earliest Languages in Contact with Turkic: Newly Proposed Loanwords in Both Directions
1, Transactions of the Philological Society, August 2026, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/1467-968x.70039.
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