The Status of Dene-Caucasian and Dene-Yeniseian

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GoshDiggityDangit
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The Status of Dene-Caucasian and Dene-Yeniseian

Post by GoshDiggityDangit »

Just a quick question. Are these language groupings mainstream?
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Re: The Status of Dene-Caucasian and Dene-Yeniseian

Post by WeepingElf »

Nope. Dene-Yeniseian is seriously discussed but not generally accepted; Dene-Caucasian is rejected by the vast majority of scholars.
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Re: The Status of Dene-Caucasian and Dene-Yeniseian

Post by Salmoneus »

Is Dene-Yeniseian no longer accepted? Did something happen?
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Re: The Status of Dene-Caucasian and Dene-Yeniseian

Post by Khemehekis »

Wikipedia says:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dené–Caucasian_languages

"A narrower connection specifically between North American Na-Dené and Siberian Yeniseian (the Dené–Yeniseian languages hypothesis) was proposed by Edward Vajda in 2008, and has met with some acceptance within the community of professional linguists. The validity of the rest of the family, however, is viewed as doubtful or rejected by nearly all historical linguists.[1][2][3][4][5]"
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Re: The Status of Dene-Caucasian and Dene-Yeniseian

Post by Znex »

Salmoneus wrote: 24 Mar 2023 22:06 Is Dene-Yeniseian no longer accepted? Did something happen?
I don't know the general opinion, but I haven't found much written on the topic apart from Vajda's tbh.

I've read his thesis myself and I can't say I read very compelling evidence. It was rather disappointing how little detail there was actually. It isn't helped by Proto-Yeniseian and Proto-Na-Dene both being very limited in reconstruction so far, so you don't exactly have much to compare between the two.
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