Original Synthetic Article: On The Origin of Salish, Wakashnan, and North Caucasian Languages

Abstract

The following paper represents a comparison between the most stable words in two language unities: 1) Salish-Wakashan (North America) and 2) Lezghian group of the North Caucasian family (North Caucasus). This comparison shows that any word/root from the list of basic words in Salish and/or Wakashan precisely matches the appropriate word/root of Lezghian as well as its proto-form in North Caucasian. Such close similarity clearly shows that the Salish-Wakashan languages of North America are related to the North Caucasian languages. We may add that the North Caucasian languages are older, and phonetically more complex, than Salish-Wakashan languages. This shows that Salish-Wakashan languages may have originated from the North Caucasian languages, which are a part of a larger unity: the Sino-Caucasian, or Dene-Caucasian phylum, or macro-family. Having this in mind, we can ask ourselves, when and where have the ancestors of the people, who now speak Salish and Wakashan languages, separated from North Caucasian languages. In the paper below, we try to show that this may have happenede approximately 5,000 years ago. After this split, the ancestors of the Salish and Wakashan languages started moving to the North-East and reached at the end the North American territory. Someyhing similar has happened with another family that is a part of the Dene-Caucasian phylum: The Yenisseian languages of Siberia are closely related to the Athapascan languages of North America, which presupposes a split between the ancestors of the Yenisseian languages and those of the Athapascan languages at some point in Siberia, after which the ancestors of people, speaking Athapascan languages, migrated to North America.