Pumpokol is one of the
Yeniseian languages
The Yeniseian languages (sometimes known as Yeniseic or Yenisei-Ostyak;"Ostyak" is a concept of areal rather than genetic linguistics. In addition to the Yeniseian languages it also includes the Uralic languages Khanty and Selkup. occasionally ...
. It has been extinct since the 18th century. Along with
Arin, it shares many features with the ancient
Xiongnu
The Xiongnu (, ) were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 20 ...
and
Jie languages, and according to
Alexander Vovin
Alexander (Sasha) Vladimirovich Vovin (russian: Александр Владимирович Вовин; 27 January 1961 – 8 April 2022) was a Soviet-born Russian-American linguist and philologist, and director of studies at the School for Ad ...
,
Edward Vajda
Edward J. Vajda (Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, September 10, 1958 as Edward M. Johnson; changed his name in 1981) is a historical linguist at Western Washington University.
He is known for his work on the proposed Dené–Yeniseian language fam ...
, and
Étienne de la Vaissière, is closely related to them.
Pumpokol is notable among the Yeniseian languages in that the phoneme
/s/ is often substituted for
/t/. This idiosyncrasy of Pumpokol seems to be shared with
Jie, suggesting that Jie is more closely related to Pumpokol than other Yeniseian languages. For example the Jie word kot 'catch' seems to be a cognate with the
Ket word 'qos', having the same sound change.
Moreover, this aforementioned characteristic of Pumpokol has been used by Vajda to demonstrate that Yeniseian-derived hydronyms in northern Mongolia (the southernmost known extent of Yeniseian influence) are exclusively Pumpokolic.
Since the Jie, as a tribe of the Xiongnu, are likely to have come from the same area, rather than further north, this finding lends credence to the possibility that Jie is a Pumpokolic language.
Reference list
External links
Pumpokol basic lexicon at the Global Lexicostatistical Database
Extinct languages of Asia
Yeniseian languages
Languages extinct in the 18th century
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