Distant Native languages bridge Bering Sea (fwd link)

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Distant Native languages bridge Bering Sea
Siberian culture's words have echo in North America

By GEORGE BRYSON
gbryson at adn.com
Published: March 4th, 2008 12:41 AM

A remote population of a few hundred indigenous Siberians who live thousands of
miles west of Alaska speak a language that appears to be an ancient relative of
more than three dozen Native languages in North America, experts say.

A panel of respected linguists who met in Anchorage on Friday are hailing new
research that links the Old World language of Ket, still spoken sparingly along
the Yenisei River in western Siberia, and the sprawling New World family of
Na-Dene languages -- a broad grouping that encompasses the many Athabascan
tribes in Alaska, along with the Tlingit and Eyak people, as well as Indian
populations in western Canada and the American Southwest, including the Navajo
and the Apache.

Full article link below:
http://www.adn.com/front/story/334139.html