page_title: Urheimat
section_title: Eurasian language isolates
hierarchical_section_title: Urheimat / Eurasian language isolates
caption_attribution_description: English: Ethnolinguistic groups of Africa, 1996 publication by the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division. From the map legend: NOTE: Principal source: Africa, its peoples and their cultural history, G.P. Murdock, 1959. Tribal or ethnic names may vary, depending on source Only large ethnolinguistic areas of intrusiveness are shown Ethnolinguistic boundaries are generalized Sparsely populated or uninhabited areas are shown by the absence of color. Afro-Asiatic &#160;&#160; Hamitic (Berber, Cushitic) + Semitic (Ethiopian, Arabic) &#160;&#160; Hausa (Chadic) Niger Congo &#160;&#160; Bantu &#160;&#160; "Guinean" (Volta-Niger, Kru) &#160;&#160; "Western Bantoid" (Senegambian, Bak) &#160;&#160; "Central Bantoid" (Gur) &#160;&#160; "Eastern Bantoid" (Southern Bantoid) &#160;&#160; Mande Nilo-Saharan (unity doubtful) &#160;&#160; Nilotic &#160;&#160; Central Sudanic+Eastern Sudanic &#160;&#160; Kanuri &#160;&#160; Songhai other &#160;&#160; Khoi-San (unity doubtful; Khoikhoi, San, Sandawe, Hadza) &#160;&#160; Malayo-Polynesian (Malagasy) &#160;&#160; Indo-European (Afrikaaner) Français&#160;: Groupes ethniques d'Afrique en 1996.
context_page_description: In historical linguistics, an Urheimat is the area of origin of the speakers of a proto-language, the parent language of a group of languages assumed to be genetically related.
  Depending on the age of the language family under consideration, its homeland may be known with near-certainty or it may be very uncertain. The reconstruction of a prehistorical homeland makes use of a variety of disciplines, including archaeology and archaeogenetics.
context_section_description: There are languages which are predominantly found in Europe, North Asia and South Asia and are not part of the language families above. First, the Basque language spoken in Northern Spain and Southwestern France. Second, the three living language families of the Caucasus mountains (Northwest Caucasian, Northeast Caucasian, and South Caucasian/Kartvelian, with the first two sometimes proposed as members of a single North Caucasian language family). Third, the Paleosiberian languages (the Yukaghir languages of Central Siberia, viewed by some linguists as a divergent branch of the Uralic languages, and the Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages of Eastern Siberia, a grouping which sometimes includes Yenesian language and the geographically adjacent, although sometimes treated as a language isolate, Nivkh language). And fourth, a few South Asian linguistic isolates, such as Burushaski, spoken mostly in isolated pockets of Northern Pakistan, and the two indigenous language families of the Andamanese people (Great Andamanese and Ongan) and perhaps Nihali (spoken in West Central India). In each of these cases, the languages are spoken in an area that is geographically compact, were spoken in that area at the time that they were first attested historically, and there is no definitive evidence of an origin for the languages in question outside the area where they are spoken now.
  Joseph Greenberg and Stephen Wurm have both noted lexical similarities between the Great Andamanese language and the West Papuan languages. Wurm noted that the lexical similarities "are quite striking and amount to virtual formal identity [...] in a number of instances." There is no agreement, even between these two linguists, on a narrative that gave rise to these similarities.
  Michael Fortescue, a specialist in Eskimo–Aleut as well as in Chukotko-Kamchatkan, argues for a link between Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, and Eskimo–Aleut in Language Relations Across Bering Strait (1998). He calls this proposed grouping Uralo-Siberian.
  There have been determined efforts by multiple linguists from at least the 19th century to link these languages to other language families, particularly in the case of the Basque language, where numerous connections to language families living and dead have been proposed by linguists.  Frequently, efforts to look for deeper linguistic origins of these languages will also attempt to integrate them into attested extinct languages of Europe, such as the Etruscan language of Northern Italy, the Ligurian language of Italy, the Lemnian language of the Aegean Island of Lemnos, the Minoan language aka Linear A of ancient Crete, the Sumerian language once spoken in Mesopotamia (which is the oldest attested written language), the language of the Indus River Valley civilization, the Elamite language of Iran, and the Hurrian language and Hattic language of Anatolia. None of these efforts has achieved wide support among linguists, although some have been viewed as sufficiently credible to receive serious consideration from multiple linguists.
caption: Map showing the distribution of the major language families represented in Africa.
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