During the 5th Arctic Leaders Summit that recently took place in Moscow, a meeting was set up between representatives of the Arctic Athabaskan Council and speakers of the Siberian Ket language. The meeting was premised on recent linguistic findings indicating a likely relationship between Ket and Athabaskan languages and, thus, aimed at possibly reuniting related indigenous peoples of North America and Siberia after a separation lasting some four thousand years.

In a press release of 20 April 2010, AAC Executive Director and initiator of the meeting Ms. Cindy Dickson is quoted for saying: “The Kets told us this was the first time they had met representatives of North American Athabaskan peoples. They are very excited about the possibilities of working with us and want to organize cultural exchanges. They also want to promote research on the linguistic and other connections between us.”

Until recently, Ket has been thought by linguists to be an isolate, the sole surviving language of a Yeniseian language family, spoken along the middle Yenisei basin. However, new research, carried out preeminently by Western Washington University historical linguist Edward Vajda, indicates that Ket may likely be related to Athabaskan languages.

The Athabaskan languages together with Tlingit and Eyak make up the Na-Dene language family that comprises more than 40 indigenous languages spoken in a wide geographical areas stretching from Yukon and Nunavut to the Southwest of USA. In 2008, the last speaker of Eyak died, however, that same year, Edward Vajda presented his thesis about the relatedness of Na-Dene and Ket and their forming a Dene-Yenitseian language family.

The Ket people, according to the most recent census, number 1887 individuals, most of which live in an area around the eastern middle part of the Yenisey River in Sibiria. Traditionally, the Ket engaged in hunting, fishing, and reindeer breeding.

Today, only about 200 Kets still speak their mother tongue. According to Olga Peshkina of the Ket delegation to the Moscow meeting, the Kets are losing their language. Herself a linguistic scholar, Ms. Peshkina has since the 1980’s been involved in language revival activities such as publication of books in Ket and teaching children to speak it.

In the AAC press release, Deputy Chief Danny Cresswell, of the Carcross and Tagish First Nation states that “[..] the connection between the Ket and Athabaskan peoples is hugely important. Upon this base we can build cultural, economic and perhaps political links.”