National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Photo: Siberian, Native American Languages Linked -- A First


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Marina Irikova, who lives in Kellog village in Siberia, is one of only 200 people who still speak Ket, part of an Old World language family called Yeniseic.

New research links the Yeniseic family in central Siberia with the Na-Dene family of languages in North America—the first successful demonstration of a connection between a New World language and an Old World language outside the Aleutian Islands, experts say.

Photograph courtesy Eddie Vajda