Euro-Siberian

Euro-Siberian is the name, suggested independently by Jan Strasser and Juho Pystynen (John Vertical), of a hypothetical language family proposed by Jörg Rhiemeier, consisting of Indo-European, Uralic, Yukahir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut. Of these, Indo-European and Uralic form a branch called Indo-Uralic, while the remaining three are grouped together as Eskimo-Siberian.

Relationships between these languages have been suspected since the early 19th century. Rasmus Rask noticed similarities between Uralic and Eskimo languages, and Indo-Uralic also has a long-standing tradition, though it is not generally accepted yet. In 1998, Michael Fortescue, in his book Language Relations across Bering Strait, proposed a Uralo-Siberian stock consisting of Uralic, Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan and Eskimo-Aleut. The Euro-Siberian hypothesis combines Uralo-Siberian with Indo-Uralic by assuming that Indo-Uralic is a subgroup of the language family proposed by Fortescue, which is thus renamed Euro-Siberian.