Some features of Dene-Caucasian phonology (with special reference to Basque)

Abstract

The Basque language has long mystified historical linguists. Many to this day have given up and concluded that Basque is hopelessly isolated from all other languages, and there is no hope of conclusively linking it with any other language or language family. However, for at least a century a minority of linguists (e.g., BLEICHSTEINER, BOUDA, FURNEE, LAFON, SAPIR, SHAFER, SWADESH, TAILLEUR, TOPOROV, TROMBETTI) have caught glimpses of what we now call the Dene-Caucasian language (macro-)family. These scholars thought they could discern traces of an old language family embracing some of the families and isolates of northern Eurasia (and extending into North America), negatively defined as those that did not fit into the developing hypotheses of Afro-Asiatic (Hamito-Semitic) and Nostratic macro-families. These entities are Basque, Caucasian, Burushaski, Yeniseian, Sino-Tibetan, and Na-Dene. In the early 1980’s Sergei A. STAROSTIN of Moscow published papers reviving these ideas, though this time with strict scientific methods (including glottochronology, phonological correspondences, and reconstructions) that finally put the deep genetic relationship of the Caucasian family with the Sino-Tibetan and Yeniseian families on firmer ground. STAROSTIN called the family “Sino-Caucasian,” and his colleague Sergei L. NIKOLAYEV extended the family to include the Na-Dene family of North America. English translations of these papers were published in a book edited by Vitaly SHEVOROSHKIN (1991) entitled Dene-Sino-Caucasian Languages, and the term “Dene-Caucasian” became widely current among both proponents and opponents of the hypothesis, though STAROSTIN still uses “Sino-Caucasian.” Also in the 1980’s the Abkhaz scholar Viacheslav A. CHIRIKBA published a brief article in which he attempted to revive the hypothesis of a genetic relationship