Page "Sino-Tibetan languages" Paragraph 60

Beyond the traditionally recognized families of Southeast Asia, a number of possible broader relationships have been suggested.

One of these is the " Sino-Caucasian " hypothesis of Sergei Starostin, which posits that the Yeniseian languages and North Caucasian languages form a clade with Sino-Tibetan.

The Sino-Caucasian hypothesis has been expanded by others to " Dené – Caucasian " to include the Na-Dené languages of North America, Burushaski, Basque and, occasionally, Etruscan.

Edward Sapir had commented on a connection between Na-Dené and Sino-Tibetan.

( A narrower binary Dené – Yeniseian family has recently been well-received, but is not yet conclusively demonstrated.

) In contrast, Laurent Sagart ( 2005 ) proposes a Sino-Austronesian family relating Sino-Tibetan to the Austronesian languages.