Dene-Caucasian is a proposed macro-family hypothesis linking several language families with no otherwise established relationship, most often Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dene (of North America), Basque, the North Caucasian languages and Burushaski, on the strength of proposed shared vocabulary and grammatical features. Like Altaic and Nostratic, it belongs to the class of long-range hypotheses that remain heavily contested and are not accepted by the mainstream of comparative linguistics, which regards the time depths involved as exceeding what the comparative method can reliably demonstrate.
Facts
Disputed
Classification StatusProposed macro-family, not accepted by mainstream comparative linguistics 1 Dene-Caucasian is a proposed macro-family joining Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dene of North America, Basque, the North Caucasian languages and Burushaski, argued from proposed shared vocabulary and grammatical features rather than from the standard comparative method's normal reconstructive apparatus. Its proponents have been a small number of specialists working since the mid-twentieth century; mainstream comparative linguistics has not accepted the proposal. The reason given for rejecting it is a matter of method rather than of any specific counter-evidence: the languages involved, if related at all, would have separated so long ago that the comparative method's normal tools for distinguishing inheritance from chance resemblance and contact are held not to function reliably at that time depth. Because the disagreement is over whether the evidence can be trusted at this remove in time rather than over a specific reconstructed form, no single finding could settle it; the proposal remains an open minority position precisely because the mainstream objection is to the method's reach rather than to a checkable claim within it. Origins
Homeland HypothesisIts proponents, following Sergei Starostin's Sino-Caucasian reconstruction, place the common ancestor at roughly twelve thousand years ago on the strength of proposed phonetic correspondences among Proto-North Caucasian, Proto-Sino-Tibetan, Proto-Yeniseian and Burushaski, later extended by V.A. Chirikba to include Basque. No single homeland is agreed even among advocates, given the hypothesis's constituent branches span the Caucasus, inner Asia and North America. 1 Attestation
Earliest AttestationNone, and none is possible in principle. Like Nostratic, Dene-Caucasian is a proposal about relationships among families rather than a language with a record of its own, and its reconstructed ancestor is extrapolated from the proto-languages of the branches it would group. 1 Connections
Associated With
This source names Americas directly: "Dene-Caucasian is a proposed macro-family hypothesis linking several language families with no otherwise established relationship, most often Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dene (of North America), Basque, the..."
Source Nostratic: Sifting the EvidenceJoseph C. Salmons and Brian D. Joseph (eds.)
This source names Basques directly: "Dene-Caucasian is a proposed macro-family hypothesis linking several language families with no otherwise established relationship, most often Sino-Tibetan, Na-Dene (of North America), Basque, the..."
Source Nostratic: Sifting the EvidenceJoseph C. Salmons and Brian D. Joseph (eds.)
Related To
Sources
1. Nostratic: Sifting the Evidence
Joseph C. Salmons and Brian D. Joseph (eds.), John Benjamins, 1998on long-range macro-family hypotheses
Dené-Caucasian languages (Wikipedia)
In Group: Proposed Groupings (Language Families), Lead sentence, classQuote, In Group: Proposed Groupings (Language Families), Lead sentence, class
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 was met with some acceptance within the community of professional linguists.
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