Reconstruction:Proto-Yeniseian/dukʷ

This Proto-Yeniseian entry contains reconstructed terms and roots. As such, the term(s) in this entry are not directly attested, but are hypothesized to have existed based on comparative evidence.

Proto-Yeniseian

Alternative reconstructions

• *duwkʷ (per Vajda 2022)

Etymology

Compared to Proto-Na-Dene *dujč (“charred object, blackened by fire”); Proto-Athabaskan *tˀe̓ˑčˀ (“charcoal”), Eyak -tˀuˑčˀ (“to be black”) and Tlingit [script needed] (tˀùːčˀ, “charcoal, black”).

Proto-Na-Dene reconstruction is Vajda's own, and he features a *-j- glide based on Tlingit. Sound correspondances are not completely regular, though this is brushed up to the problematic glide element.

Coda *-kʷ is lost in all environments for all languages, except in complex compounds in Ket and the Pumpokol lemma given below.

Noun

*dukʷ

1. smoke

Descendants

• Northern Yeniseian:
  • Ket: ду’ (duˀ)
  • Yug: ду’ (duˀ)
• Southern Yeniseian:
  • Arin: t́u
  • Assan: tu
  • Kott: tu
  • ⇒ Pumpokol: dúkar (“tobacco”) (compounded with ar (“breath”))

References

• Fortescue, M., Vajda, E. (2022) “9.) *dujkʷ”, in Mid-Holocene Language Connections between Asia and North America (Brill's Studies in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas; 17)‎^[1], Leiden, Boston: Brill, →ISBN, pages 330-331
• Vajda, E. (2024) “*dukʷ/*dukʷ-Vŋ”, in The Languages and Linguistics of Northern Asia: Language Families (The World of Linguistics [WOL]; 10.1)‎^[2], volume 1, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, →DOI, →ISBN, page 412