Editing Xiongnu (section)

=== Yeniseian theories ===
{{See also|Yeniseian languages|Para-Yeniseian languages}}
[[File:Belt plaque in the shape of a kneeling horse, 3rd-1st century BCE, North China.jpg|thumb|Belt plaque in the shape of a kneeling horse, 3rd–1st century BC, gilded silver, made in North China for Xiongnu patrons.{{sfn|Bunker|2002|p=29}}<ref name="metmuseum.org">{{cite web |title=Metropolitan Museum of Art |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/44787 |website=www.metmuseum.org}}</ref>]]
[[Lajos Ligeti]] was the first to suggest that the Xiongnu spoke a Yeniseian language. In the early 1960s [[Edwin Pulleyblank]] was the first to expand upon this idea with credible evidence. The Yeniseian theory proposes that the [[Jie people|Jie]], a western Xiongnu people, spoke a Yeniseian language. [[Hyun Jin Kim]] notes that the 7th century AD Chinese conpendium, ''Jin Shu'', contains a transliterated song of Jie origin, which appears to be Yeniseian. This song has led researchers Pulleyblank and [[Alexander Vovin|Vovin]] to argue for a Yeniseian Jie dominant minority, that ruled over the other Xiongnu ethnicities, such as Iranian and Turkic people. Kim has stated that the dominant Xiongnu language was likely Turkic or Yeniseian, but has cautioned that the Xiongnu were definitely a multi-ethnic society.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Jin Kim |first1=Hyun |title=The Huns |date=November 2015 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |isbn=978-1-317-34090-4 |pages=6–17 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mcf4CgAAQBAJ |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>

Pulleybank and D. N. Keightley asserted that the Xiongnu titles "were originally Siberian words but were later borrowed by the Turkic and Mongolic peoples".{{sfn|Di Cosmo|2004|p=164}} Titles such as [[Tarkhan|tarqan]], [[tegin]] and [[Khagan|kaghan]] were also inherited from the Xiongnu language and are possibly of Yeniseian origin. For example, the Xiongnu word for "heaven" is theorized to come from Proto-Yeniseian *''tɨŋVr''.<ref name="Vovin">{{Cite journal |journal=Academia |url=https://www.academia.edu/1804191|title=Did the Xiongnu speak a Yeniseian language? Part 2: Vocabulary|last1=Vovin|first1=Alexander}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Georg |first1=Stefan |title=A Descriptive Grammar of Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak): Part 1: Introduction, Phonology and Morphology |date=22 March 2007 |publisher=Global Oriental |isbn=978-90-04-21350-0 |page=16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vfV5DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA16 |language=en |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref>

Vocabulary from Xiongnu inscriptions sometimes appears to have Yeniseian cognates which were used by Vovin to support his theory that the Xiongnu has a large Yeniseian component, examples of proposed cognates include words such as Xiongnu kʷala 'son' and Ket qalek 'younger son', Xiongnu sakdak 'boot' and Ket sagdi 'boot', Xiongnu gʷawa "prince" and Ket gij "prince", Xiongnu "attij" 'wife' and proto-Yeniseian "alrit", Ket "alit" and Xiongnu dar "north" compared to Yugh tɨr "north".<ref name="Vovin"/><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Vovin |first=Alexander |title=ONCE AGAIN ON THE ETYMOLOGY OF THE TITLE ''qaγan'' |journal=Studia Etymologica Cracoviensia |volume=12 |place=Kraków |date=2007 |url=https://core.ac.uk/reader/229243025 |access-date=6 April 2022}}</ref> Pulleyblank also argued that because Xiongnu words appear to have clusters with r and l, in the beginning of the word it is unlikely to be of Turkic origin, and instead believed that most vocabulary we have mostly resemble Yeniseian languages.<ref>{{Cite thesis |last=Xumeng |first=Sun |date=14 September 2020 |title=Identifying the Huns and the Xiongnu (or Not): Multi-Faceted Implications and Difficulties |website=PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository |url=https://prism.ucalgary.ca/bitstream/handle/1880/112546/ucalgary_2020_sun_xumeng.pdf?sequence=3}}</ref>

Alexander Vovin also wrote, that some names of horses in the Xiongnu language appear to be Turkic words with Yeniseian prefixes.<ref name="Vovin"/>

An analysis by Savelyev and Jeong (2020) has cast doubt on the Yeniseian theory. If assuming that the ancient Yeniseians were represented by modern [[Ket people]], who are more genetically similar to [[Samoyedic languages|Samoyedic]] speakers, the Xiongnu do not display a genetic affinity for Yeniseian peoples.<ref name="Savelyev & Jeong, 2020"/> A review by Wilson (2023) argues that the presence of Yeniseian-speakers among the multi-ethnic Xiongnu should not be rejected, and that "Yeniseian-speaking peoples must have played a more prominent (than heretofore recognized) role in the history of Eurasia during the first millennium of the Common Era".<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Wilson |first=Joseph A. P. |date=21 July 2023 |title=Late Holocene Technology Words in Proto-Athabaskan: Implications for Dene-Yeniseian Culture History |journal=Humans |language=en |volume=3 |issue=3 |pages=177–192 |doi=10.3390/humans3030015 |doi-access=free |issn=2673-9461}}</ref>