Paleosiberian (Palaeosiberian, Paleo-Siberian) languages or
Paleoasian languages (Palaeo-Asiatic) (from Greek
palaios, "ancient") is a term of convenience used in
linguistics to classify a disparate group of
linguistic isolates as well as a few small
families of languages spoken in parts both of northeastern
Siberia and of the
Russian Far East. They are not known to have any linguistic relationship to each other; their only common link is that they are held to have antedated the more dominant languages, particularly
Tungusic and latterly
Turkic languages, that have largely displaced them. Even more recently, Turkic (at least in Siberia) and especially Tungusic, have been displaced in their turn by
Russian. It is possible that the
Merkits spoke a Paleosiberian language.