This article series is
dedicated to the genius of Alexander Vovin at the University of Hawaii. It’s basically a summary of his brilliant
paper “Did the Xiong-Nu Speak a Yeniseian Language?” All of the credit goes to him. I did nothing. And also to Georgii Starostin for his 1995
reconstruction of Proto-Yeniseian, as well as Edwin Pulleybank, who first
advanced the Yeniseian Jie hypothesis in the 60s.
351 C.E.—the Later Zhao dynasty of
Northern China has risen and fallen. The
ethnic group who ruled the Zhao was a nomadic tribe from the north known as the
Jie. They were a mysterious people with
a language and even physical appearance completely foreign to their Chinese
subjects. Unfortunately, the dynasty had
a bad habit of deposing and executing emperors who weren’t bloodthirsty
psychopaths. Due to this, their Chinese
subjects have a bit of a grudge.
Following the dynasty’s fall, the Jie ethnic group is subjected to
near-total genocide. This ancient
bloodbath was so complete that the mystery of who the Jie were will probably
never be solved. Even their language was
wiped out…
Almost.
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