Borean languages

Borean language families

Borean languages (also known as Boreal languages ) is a hypothetical macro- linguistic family that encompasses almost all language families worldwide, with the exception of those native to sub-Saharan Africa , New Guinea , Australia ( indigenous people ), and the Andaman Islands . Its proponents suggest that the various languages spoken in Eurasia and neighboring regions have a genealogical relationship and ultimately descend from languages spoken during the Upper Paleolithic in the millennia after the last glacial maximum. The name Borean is based on the Greek βορέας and means "north". This reflects the fact that the group includes most of the language families native to the northern hemisphere . This macro family is not recognized by all linguists.

Classification by Sergei Starostin

Borean languages

Nostratic (speculative, Holger Pedersen 1903)
- Afro-Asian (widely recognized family)
  - Semitic , Kuschitisch u. a.
- Eurasian (speculative, Joseph Greenberg 2000), cf. Indo-Ural
  - Indo-European (widely recognized family)
  - Ural (widely recognized family)
  - Macro Altaic (largely rejected; Roy Andrew Miller 1971, Gustaf John Ramstedt 1952, Matthias Castrén 1844)
    - Turkish (widely recognized family)
    - Mongolian (widely recognized family)
    - Tungus (widely recognized family)
    - Korean (also viewed as a language isolate)
    - Japanese (widely recognized family)
  - Paleosiberian (phylogenetic unit largely rejected)
    - Niwchisch
    - Eskimo Aleut
    - Yukagir (sometimes grouped with Ural)
    - Chukchi-Kamchadal
- South Caucasian (widely recognized family)
- Dravidian (widely recognized family)
Dene-Daisch (speculative, Starostin 2005)
- Dene-Caucasian (speculative, Nikolayev 1991; expanded by Bengtson 1997), cf. Dené-Jenisseisch (Edward Vajda 2008)
  - Na-Dené (widely recognized family excluding Haida )
  - Basque ( Isolated Language )
  - Sinocaucasian (speculative, Starostin 2006)
    - Sinotibian (widely recognized family)
    - North Caucasian (speculative union of Northeast Caucasian and Northwest Caucasian , Nikolayev & Starostin 1994)

Individual evidence

↑ Afrasian and Its Closest Relatives: the Borean Hypothesis. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .
↑ Evolution of Human Languages (PDF). March 2014, accessed on March 30, 2020 .
↑ Language family tree of the Borean languages. Sergei Starostin , accessed March 30, 2020 .

[1] Afrasian and Its Closest Relatives: the Borean Hypothesis. Retrieved March 30, 2020 .

[2] Evolution of Human Languages (PDF). March 2014, accessed on March 30, 2020 .

[3] Language family tree of the Borean languages. Sergei Starostin , accessed March 30, 2020 .