Paleosiberian Languages

Paleosiberian Languages

Paleosiberian (Palaeosiberian, Paleo-Siberian) languages or Paleoasian languages (Palaeo-Asiatic) (from Greek palaios, "ancient") is a term of convenience used in linguistics to classify a disparate group of languages spoken in some parts of north-eastern Siberia and some parts of Russian Far East. They are not known to have any linguistic relationship to each other, and their only common provenance is that they are held to have antedated the more dominant languages, particularly Tungusic and latterly Turkic languages, that have largely displaced them. Even more recently, Turkic (at least in Siberia) and especially Tungusic, have been displaced in their turn by Russian. It is possible that the Merkits spoke a Paleosiberian language.

The total number of speakers of the Paleo-Siberian languages is approximately 23,000 people.