Altaic languages

Altaic
(largely discredited)
Geographic distribution	North, Central, and West Asia, and Eastern Europe
Linguistic classification	Formerly proposed as a major language family; now usually considered as a Sprachbund
Subdivisions	Turkic Mongolic Tungusic Koreanic (sometimes included) Japonic (sometimes included) Ainu (rarely included)
ISO 639-2 / 5	tut
Glottolog	None
Turkic languages   Mongolic languages   Tungusic languages   Koreanic languages (controversial)   Japonic languages (controversial)   Ainu language (controversial)

Altaic (/ælˈteɪ.ɪk/) is a proposed language family of central Eurasia and Siberia, now widely seen as discredited.^[1][2][3][4] The Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic groups are invariably included in the family; some authors added Korean and the Japonic languages.^[5] The expanded grouping, including Korean and sometimes Japanese, came to be known as "Macro-Altaic", leading to the designation of the smaller grouping as "Micro-Altaic" by retronymy. Most proponents of Altaic continue to support the inclusion of Korean,^[6] these languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from eastern Europe, through Central Asia to Anatolia and to the Korean Peninsula and Japanese archipelago in East Asia.^[7] The group is named after the Altai mountain range in Central Asia.

The hypothesis of common origin for some or all of these languages—that is, the theory that they form a language family—was widespread before the 1960s, but has almost no supporters among specialists today.^[8] Opponents of the Altaic hypothesis maintain that the similarities are due to areal interaction between the language groups concerned, the inclusion of Korean and Japanese has also been criticized and disputed by other linguists. As for Turkic, Tungusic, and Mongolic, if they were related genetically, earlier forms would be closer than modern forms, this is true for all accepted linguistic families. However, an analysis of the earliest written records of Mongolic and Turkic languages shows fewer similarities rather than more, which suggests that they do not share a common ancestor but rather have become more similar through language contact and areal effects, because of this, most modern linguists do not accept the Altaic family.^[9]

History of the Altaic idea[edit]

The idea that the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages are closely related was allegedly first published in 1730 by Philip Johan von Strahlenberg, a Swedish officer who traveled in the eastern Russian Empire while a prisoner of war after the Great Northern War. However, as has been pointed out by Alexis Manaster Ramer and Paul Sidwell (1997), von Strahlenberg actually opposed the idea of a closer relationship among the languages that later became known as "Altaic". Von Strahlenberg's classification was the first attempt to classify a large number of languages, some of which are Altaic.^[10]

The term "Altaic", as applied to a language family, was introduced in 1844 by Matthias Castrén, a Finnish philologist who made contributions to the study of the Uralic languages, as originally formulated by Castrén, Altaic included not only Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu-Tungus (=Tungusic), but also Finno-Ugric and Samoyed.^[11]

The original Altaic family came to be known as the Ural–Altaic;^[12] in the "Ural–Altaic" nomenclature, Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic are "Uralic", whereas Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic are "Altaic", as are Korean and Japanese if they are included at all.

For much of the 19th and the early 20th centuries, the theory of a common Ural–Altaic family was widespread, based on such shared features as vowel harmony and agglutination. However, while the Ural–Altaic hypothesis can still be found in encyclopedias, atlases, and similar general references, it has generally been abandoned by linguists, for instance, it was characterized by Sergei Starostin as "an idea now completely discarded".^[13]

In 1857, the Austrian scholar Anton Boller suggested adding Japanese to the Ural–Altaic family;^[14] in the 1920s, G.J. Ramstedt and E.D. Polivanov advocated the inclusion of Korean. However, Ramstedt's three-volume, Einführung in die altaische Sprachwissenschaft ('Introduction to Altaic Linguistics'), published in 1952–1966, rejected the Ural–Altaic hypothesis and again included Korean in Altaic, an inclusion followed by most leading Altaicists to date. The first volume of his work, Lautlehre ('Phonology'), contained the first comprehensive attempt to identify regular correspondences among the sound systems within the Altaic language families.

In 1960, Nicholas Poppe published what was in effect a heavily revised version of Ramstedt’s volume on phonology^[15] that has since set the standard in Altaic studies. Poppe considered the issue of the relationship of Korean to Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic not settled;^[16] in his view, there were three possibilities: (1) Korean did not belong with the other three genealogically, but had been influenced by an Altaic substratum; (2) Korean was related to the other three at the same level they were related to each other; (3) Korean had split off from the other three before they underwent a series of characteristic changes.

Included languages[edit]

Micro-Altaic includes about 66 living languages,^[17] to which Macro-Altaic would add Korean, Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages, for a total of about 74 (depending on what is considered a language and what is considered a dialect). (The numbers do not include earlier states of languages, such as Middle Mongol, Old Korean or Old Japanese.)

Development of the Macro-Altaic theory[edit]

Roy Andrew Miller's 1971 book Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages convinced most Altaicists that Japanese also belonged to Altaic.^[18] Since then, the standard set of languages included in Macro-Altaic has been Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese.

An alternative classification, though one with much less currency among Altaicists, was proposed by John C. Street (1962), according to which Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic forms one grouping and Korean-Japanese-Ainu another, the two being linked in a common family that Street designated as "North Asiatic", the same schema was adopted by James Patrie (1982) in the context of an attempt to classify the Ainu language. The Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic and Korean-Japanese-Ainu groupings were also posited by Joseph Greenberg (2000–2002); however, he treated them as independent members of a larger family, which he termed Eurasiatic.

Anti-Altaicists Gerard Clauson (1956), Gerhard Doerfer (1963), and Alexander Shcherbak argued that the words and features shared by Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages were for the most part borrowings and that the rest could be attributed to chance resemblances. They noted that there was little vocabulary shared by Turkic and Tungusic languages, though more shared with Mongolic languages, they reasoned that, if all three families had a common ancestor, we should expect losses to happen at random and not only at the geographical margins of the family; and that the observed pattern is consistent with borrowing. Furthermore, they argued that many of the typological features of the supposed Altaic languages, such as agglutinative morphology and subject–object–verb (SOV) word order, usually simultaneously^{[clarification needed]} occur in languages. In sum, the idea was that Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages form a Sprachbund—the result of convergence through intensive borrowing and long contact among speakers of languages that are not necessarily closely related.

Doubt was also raised about the affinities of Korean and Japanese; in particular, some authors tried to connect Japanese to the Austronesian languages.^[19]

Starostin's (1991) lexicostatistical research claimed that the proposed Altaic groups shared about 15–20% of potential cognates within a 110-word Swadesh-Yakhontov list (e.g. Turkic–Mongolic 20%, Turkic–Tungusic 18%, Turkic–Korean 17%, Mongolic–Tungusic 22%, Mongolic–Korean 16%, Tungusic–Korean 21%). Altogether, Starostin concluded that the Altaic grouping was substantiated, though "older than most other language families in Eurasia, such as Indo-European or Finno-Ugric, and this is the reason why the modern Altaic languages preserve few common elements".

Unger (1990) advocates a family consisting of Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic languages but not Turkic or Mongolic; and Doerfer (1988) rejects all the genetic claims over these major groups. In 2003, Claus Schönig published a critical overview of the history of the Altaic hypothesis up to that time, he concluded:

[G]enerally, the more carefully the areal factor has been investigated, the smaller the size of the residue open to the genetic explanation has tended to become. According to many scholars it only comprises a small number of monosyllabic lexical roots, including the personal pronouns and a few other deictic and auxiliary items, for these, other possible explanations have also been proposed. Most importantly, the 'Altaic' languages do not seem to share a common basic vocabulary of the type normally present in cases of genetic relationship.^[20]

In 2003, An Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages was published by Starostin, Dybo, and Mudrak. It contains 2,800 proposed cognate sets, a set of sound laws based on those proposed sets, and a number of grammatical correspondences, as well as a few important changes to the reconstruction of Proto-Altaic, for example, although most of today's Altaic languages have vowel harmony, Proto-Altaic as reconstructed by Starostin et al. lacked it; instead, various vowel assimilations between the first and second syllables of words occurred in Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic. It tries hard to distinguish loans between Turkic and Mongolic and between Mongolic and Tungusic from cognates; and it suggests words that occur in Turkic and Tungusic but not in Mongolic. All other combinations between the five branches also occur in the book,^[21] it lists 144 items of shared basic vocabulary (most of them already present in Starostin 1991), including words for such items as 'eye', 'ear', 'neck', 'bone', 'blood', 'water', 'stone', 'sun', and 'two'.^[22] This work has not changed the minds of any of the principal authors in the field, however, the debate continues unabated – e.g. S. Georg 2004, A. Vovin 2005, S. Georg 2005 (anti-Altaic); S. Starostin 2005, V. Blažek 2006, M. Robbeets 2007, A. Dybo and G. Starostin 2008 (pro-Altaic).

According to Roy Andrew Miller (1996: 98–99), the Clauson–Doerfer critique of Altaic relies exclusively on lexicon, whereas the fundamental evidence for Altaic comprises verbal morphology. Lars Johanson (2010: 15–17) suggests that a resolution of the Altaic dispute may yet come from the examination of verbal morphology and calls for a muting of the polemic: "The dark age of pro and contra slogans, unfair polemics, and humiliations is not yet completely over and done with, but there seems to be some hope for a more constructive discussion" (ib. 17).

Similarity metrics[edit]

A 2015 analysis using the Automated Similarity Judgment Program resulted in the Japonic languages being grouped with the Ainu and Austroasiatic languages, but showing no connection to Turkic and Mongolic.^[23] However, similarities between Ainu and Japonic are also due to extensive past contact. Analytic grammatical constructions acquired or transformed in Ainu were likely due to contact with Japanese and the Japonic languages, which had heavy influence on the Ainu languages with a large number of loanwords borrowed into the Ainu languages, and to a smaller extent, vice versa.^[24]

The Ainu languages shows the least connection with Altaic. No genealogical relationship between Ainu and any other language family has been demonstrated, despite numerous attempts. Thus, it is a language isolate. Ainu is sometimes grouped with the Paleosiberian languages, but this is only a geographic blanket term for several unrelated language families that were present in Siberia before the advances of Turkic and Tungusic languages there.

Early attestation[edit]

The earliest known texts in a Turkic language are the Orkhon inscriptions, 720–735 AD,^[25] they were deciphered in 1893 by the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen in a scholarly race with his rival, the German–Russian linguist Wilhelm Radloff. However, Radloff was the first to publish the inscriptions.

The first Tungusic language to be attested is Jurchen, the language of the ancestors of the Manchus. A writing system for it was devised in 1119 AD and an inscription using this system is known from 1185 (see List of Jurchen inscriptions).

The earliest Mongolic language of which we have written evidence is known as Middle Mongol, it is first attested by an inscription dated to 1224 or 1225 AD and by the Secret History of the Mongols, written in 1228 (see Mongolic languages). The earliest Para-Mongolic text is the Memorial for Yelü Yanning, written in the Khitan Large Script and dated to 986 AD.

Japanese is first attested in a few short inscriptions from the 5th century AD, such as the Inariyama Sword, the first substantial text in Japanese, however, is the Kojiki, which dates from 712 AD. It is followed by the Nihon shoki, completed in 720, and that by the Man'yōshū, which dates from c. 771–785, but includes material that is from about 400 years earlier.^[26]

The most important text for the study of early Korean is the Hyangga, a collection of 25 poems, of which some go back to the Three Kingdoms period (57 BC–668 AD), but are preserved in an orthography that only goes back to the 9th century AD.^[27] Korean is copiously attested from the mid-15th century on in the phonetically precise Hangul system of writing.^[28]

Homeland[edit]

The prehistory of the peoples speaking these languages is largely unknown. Whereas for certain other language families, such as the speakers of Indo-European, Uralic, and Austronesian, we are able to frame substantial hypotheses, in the case of the proposed Altaic family much remains to be done.^[29]

Some scholars bear in mind a possible Uralic and Altaic homeland in the Central Asian steppes.^[30][31]

According to Juha Janhunen, the ancestral languages of Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese were spoken in a relatively small area comprising present-day North Korea, Southern Manchuria, and Southeastern Mongolia,^[32] however Janhunen (1992) is skeptical about an affiliation of Japanese to Altaic, while András Róna-Tas remarked that a relationship between Altaic and Japanese, if it ever existed, must be more remote than the relationship of any two of the Indo-European languages.^[33] Ramsey stated that "the genetic relationship between Korean and Japanese, if it in fact exists, is probably more complex and distant than we can imagine on the basis of our present state of knowledge".^[34]

Supporters of the Altaic hypothesis formerly set the date of the Proto-Altaic language at around 4000 BC, but today at around 5000 BC^[35] or 6000 BC,^[36] this would make Altaic a language family about as old as Indo-European (4000 to 7,000 BC according to several hypotheses^[37]) but considerably younger than Afroasiatic (c. 10,000 BC^[38] or 11,000 to 16,000 BC^[39] according to different sources).

List of Altaicists and critics of Altaic[edit]

Note: This list is limited to linguists who have worked specifically on the Altaic problem since the publication of the first volume of Ramstedt's Einführung in 1952. The dates given are those of works concerning Altaic, for Altaicists, the version of Altaic they favor is given at the end of the entry, if other than the prevailing one of Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean–Japanese.

Altaicists[edit]

• Pentti Aalto (1955). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.
• Anna V. Dybo (S. Starostin et al. 2003, A. Dybo and G. Starostin 2008).
• Karl H. Menges (1975). Common ancestor of Korean, Japanese and traditional Altaic dated back to the 7th or 8th millennium BC (1975: 125).
• Roy Andrew Miller (1971, 1980, 1986, 1996). Supported the inclusion of Korean and Japanese.
• Oleg A. Mudrak (S. Starostin et al. 2003).
• Nicholas Poppe (1965). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and perhaps Korean.
• Alexis Manaster Ramer.
• Martine Robbeets (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008) (in the form of "Transeurasian").
• G. J. Ramstedt (1952–1957). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.
• George Starostin (A. Dybo and G. Starostin 2008).
• Sergei Starostin (1991, S. Starostin et al. 2003).
• John C. Street (1962). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and Korean–Japanese–Ainu, grouped as "North Asiatic".
• Talat Tekin (1994). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean.

Major critics of Altaic[edit]

• Gerard Clauson (1956, 1959, 1962).
• Gerhard Doerfer (1963, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1981, 1985, 1988, 1993).
• Susumu Ōno (1970, 2000)
• Juha Janhunen (1992, 1995) (tentative support of Mongolic-Tungusic).
• Claus Schönig (2003).^{[citation needed]}
• Stefan Georg (2004, 2005).
• Alexander Vovin (2005, 2010). Formerly an advocate of Altaic (1994, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001), now a critic.
• Alexander Shcherbak.
• Alexander B. M. Stiven (2008, 2010)^{[citation needed]}.

Advocates of alternative hypotheses[edit]

• James Patrie (1982). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and Korean–Japanese–Ainu, grouped in a common taxon (cf. John C. Street 1962).
• J. Marshall Unger (1990). Tungusic–Korean–Japanese ("Macro-Tungusic"), with Turkic and Mongolic as separate language families.
• Joseph Greenberg (2000–2002). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic and Korean–Japanese–Ainu, grouped in Eurasiatic.
• Lars Johanson (2010). Agnostic, proponent of a "Transeurasian" verbal morphology not necessarily genealogically linked.

Comparative grammar[edit]

Reconstructed phonology[edit]

Based on the proposed correspondences listed below, the following phoneme inventory has been reconstructed for the hypothetical Proto(-Macro)-Altaic language (taken from Blažek's [2006] summary of the newest Altaic etymological dictionary [Starostin et al. 2003] and transcribed into the IPA):

Consonants[edit]

		Bilabial	Alveolar or dental	Alveolopalatal	Postalveolar	Palatal	Velar
Plosives	aspirated	/pʰ/	/tʰ/				/kʰ/
	voiceless	/p/	/t/				/k/
	voiced	/b/	/d/				/ɡ/
Affricates	aspirated				/tʃʰ/
	voiceless				/tʃ/
	voiced				/dʒ/
Fricatives	voiceless		/s/		/ʃ/
	voiced		/z/-1
Nasals		/m/	/n/	/nʲ/			/ŋ/
Trills			-/r/-2	/rʲ/
Approximants			/l/	/lʲ/		-/j/-2

¹ This phoneme only occurred at the beginnings of words.
² These phonemes only occurred in the interior of words.

Vowels[edit]

	Front		Back
	unrounded	rounded
Close	/i/	/y/	/u/
Close-mid	/e/	/ø/	/o/
Near-open	/æ/
Open	/a/

It is not clear whether /æ/, /ø/, /y/ were monophthongs as shown here (presumably [æ œ~ø ʏ~y]) or diphthongs ([i̯a~i̯ɑ i̯ɔ~i̯o i̯ʊ~i̯u]); the evidence is equivocal. In any case, however, they only occurred in the first (and sometimes only) syllable of any word.

Every vowel occurred in long and short versions which were different phonemes in the first syllable. Starostin et al. (2003) treat length together with pitch as a prosodic feature.

Prosody[edit]

As reconstructed by Starostin et al. (2003), Proto-Altaic was a pitch accent or tone language; at least the first and probably every syllable could have a high or a low pitch.

Sound correspondences[edit]

If a Proto(-Macro)-Altaic language really existed, it should be possible to reconstruct regular sound correspondences between that protolanguage and its descendants; such correspondences would make it possible to distinguish cognates from loanwords (in many cases). Such attempts have repeatedly been made, the latest version is reproduced here, taken from Blažek's (2006) summary of the newest Altaic etymological dictionary (Starostin et al. 2003) and transcribed into the IPA.

When a Proto-Altaic phoneme developed differently depending on its position in a word (beginning, interior, or end), the special case (or all cases) is marked with a hyphen; for example, Proto-Altaic /pʰ/ disappears (marked "0") or becomes /j/ at the beginning of a Turkic word and becomes /p/ elsewhere in a Turkic word.

Consonants[edit]

Only single consonants are considered here; in the middle of words, clusters of two consonants were allowed in Proto-Altaic as reconstructed by Starostin et al. (2003); the correspondence table of these clusters spans almost seven pages in their book (83–89), and most clusters are only found in one or a few of the reconstructed roots.

Proto-Altaic	Proto-Turkic	Proto-Mongolic	Proto-Tungusic	Proto-Korean	Proto-Japonic
/pʰ/	0-1, /j/-, /p/	/h/-2, /j/-, -/b/-, -/h/-2, -/b/	/p/	/p/	/p/
/p/	/b/	/b/-6, /h/-2, /b/	/p/-, /b/
/b/		/b/-, -/h/-, -/b/-9, -/b/	/b/	/p/, -/b/-	/p/-, /w/, /b/10, /p/11
/tʰ/	/t/-, /d/-3, /t/	/t/, /tʃ/4, -/d/	/t/	/t/	/t/
/t/	/d/-, /t/	/t/, /tʃ/4	/d/-, /dʒ/-7, /t/	/t/, -/r/-	/t/-, /d/-, /t/
/d/	/j/-, /d/	/d/, /dʒ/4	/d/		/d/-, /t/-, /t/, /j/
/tʃʰ/	/tʃ/	/tʃ/	/tʃ/	/tʃ/	/t/
/tʃ/	/d/-, /tʃ/	/d/-, /dʒ/-4, /tʃ/	/s/-, -/dʒ/-, -/s/-		/t/-, -/s/-
/dʒ/	/j/	/dʒ/	/dʒ/		/d/-, /j/
/kʰ/	/k/	/k/-, -/k/-, -/ɡ/-5, -/ɡ/	/x/-, /k/, /x/	/k/, /h/	/k/
/k/	/k/-, /k/, /ɡ/8	/k/-, /ɡ/	/k/-, /ɡ/-, /ɡ/	/k/-, -/h/-, -0-, -/k/
/ɡ/	/ɡ/	/ɡ/-, -/h/-, -/ɡ/-5, -/ɡ/	/ɡ/	/k/, -/h/-, -0-	/k/-, /k/, 012
/s/	/s/	/s/	/s/	/s/-, /h/-, /s/	/s/
/z/	/j/			/s/
/ʃ/	/s/-, /tʃ/-13, /s/	/s/-, /tʃ/-13, /s/	/ʃ/
/m/	/b/-, -/m/-	/m/	/m/	/m/	/m/
/n/	/j/-, -/n/-	/n/	/n/	/n/	/n/
/nʲ/	/j/-, /nʲ/	/dʒ/-, /j/, /n/	/nʲ/	/n/-, /nʲ/14	/m/-, /n/, /m/
/ŋ/	0-, /j/-, /ŋ/	0-, /j/-, /ɡ/-15, /n/-16, /ŋ/, /n/, /m/, /h/	/ŋ/	/n/-, /ŋ/, 0	0-, /n/-, /m/-7, /m/, /n/
/r/	/r/	/r/	/r/	/r/	/r/, /t/4, 15
/rʲ/	/rʲ/				/r/, /t/
/l/	/j/-, /l/	/n/-, /l/-, /l/	/l/	/n/-, /r/	/n/-, /r/
/lʲ/	/j/-, /lʲ/	/d/-, /dʒ/-4, /l/			/n/-, /s/
/j/	/j/	/j/, /h/	/j/	/j/, 0	/j/, 0

¹ The Khalaj language has /h/ instead. (It also retains a number of other archaisms.) However, it has also added /h/ in front of words for which no initial consonant (except in some cases /ŋ/, as expected) can be reconstructed for Proto-Altaic; therefore, and because it would make them dependent on whether Khalaj happens to have preserved any given root, Starostin et al. (2003: 26–28) have not used Khalaj to decide whether to reconstruct an initial /pʰ/ in any given word and have not reconstructed a /h/ for Proto-Turkic even though it was probably there.
² The Monguor language has /f/ here instead (Kaiser & Shevoroshkin 1988); it is therefore possible that Proto-Mongolian also had /f/ which then became /h/ (and then usually disappeared) in all descendants except Monguor. Tabgač and Kitan, two extinct Mongolic languages not considered by Starostin et al. (2003), even preserve /p/ in these places (Blažek 2006).
³ This happened when the next consonant in the word was /lʲ/, /rʲ/, or /r/.
⁴ Before /i/.
⁵ When the next consonant in the word was /h/.
⁶ This happened "in syllables with original high pitch" (Starostin et al. 2003:135).
⁷ Before /æ/, /ø/ or /y/.
⁸ When the next consonant in the word was /r/.
⁹ When the preceding consonant was /r/, /rʲ/, /l/, or /lʲ/, or when the next consonant was /ɡ/.
¹⁰ Before /a/, /ə/, or any vowel followed by /j/.
¹¹ Before /j/, or /i/ and then another vowel.
¹² When preceded by a vowel preceded by /i/.
¹³ Before /a/.
¹⁴ Starostin et al. (2003) follow a minority opinion (Vovin 1993) in interpreting the sound of the Middle Korean letter ᅀ as [nʲ] or [ɲ] rather than [z]. (Dybo & Starostin 2008:footnote 50)
¹⁵ Before /u/.
¹⁶ Before /a/, /o/, or /e/.

Vowels[edit]

Vowel harmony is pervasive in the languages attributed to Altaic: most Turkic and Mongolic as well as some Tungusic languages have it, Korean is arguably in the process of losing its traces, and it is controversially hypothesized for Old Japanese. (Vowel harmony is also typical of the neighboring Uralic languages and was often counted among the arguments for the Ural–Altaic hypotheses.) Nevertheless, Starostin et al. (2003) reconstruct Proto-Altaic as lacking vowel harmony. Instead, according to them, vowel harmony originated in each daughter branch as assimilation of the vowel in the first syllable to the vowel in the second syllable (which was usually modified or lost later). "The situation therefore is very close, e.g. to Germanic [see Germanic umlaut] or to the Nakh languages in the Eastern Caucasus, where the quality of non-initial vowels can now only be recovered on the basis of umlaut processes in the first syllable." (Starostin et al. 2003:91) The table below is taken from Starostin et al. (2003):

Proto-Altaic		Proto-Turkic	Proto-Mongolic	Proto-Tungusic	Middle Korean	Proto-Japonic
first s.	second s.	first syllable
/a/	/a/	/a/, /a/1, /ʌ/1	/a/	/a/	/a/, /e/	/a/
	/e/	/a/, /ɯ/	/a/, /i/			/ə/
	/i/	/ɛ/, /a/	/a/, /e/		/a/, /e/, /i/	/i/
	/o/	/o/, /ja/, /aj/	/a/, /i/, /e/		/ə/, /o/	/a/
	/u/	/a/	/a/, /o/, /u/		/a/, /ə/, /o/, /u/	/u/
/e/	/a/	/a/, /ʌ/, /ɛ/	/a/, /e/	/e/	/a/, /e/	/a/
	/e/	/ja/-, /ɛ/, /e/2	/e/, /ja/		/a/, /e/, /i/, /ɨ/	/ə/
	/i/	/ja/-, /ɛ/, /e/2	/e/, /i/		/i/, /ɨ/, /a/, /e/	/i/
	/o/	/ʌ/, /e/	/a/, /e/, /y/3, /ø/3		/ə/, /o/, /u/	/ə/, /a/
	/u/	/ɛ/, /a/, /ʌ/	/e/, /a/, /o/3		/o/, /u/, /a/	/u/
/i/	/a/	/ɯ/, /i/	/i/	/i/	/a/, /e/	/a/
	/e/	/ɛ/, /e/2	/e/, /i/		/i/, /ɨ/	/i/
	/i/	/i/	/i/, /e/1		/i/	/i/
	/o/	/ɯ/	/i/		/o/, /u/, /ɨ/	/i/, /ə/
	/u/	/ɯ/, /i/			/i/, /ɨ/	/u/
/o/	/a/	/o/	/o/, /u/	/o/, /u/	/a/, /e/	/a/
	/e/	/ø/, /o/	/ø/, /y/, /o/		/ɨ/, /o/, /u/	/ə/
	/i/	/ø/, /o/	/ø/		/o/, /u/	/u/
	/o/	/o/	/u/		/a/, /e/	/ə/
	/u/	/o/	/o/, /u/		/ə/, /o/, /u/	/u/
/u/	/a/	/u/, /o/	/a/, /o/, /u/	/o/, /u/	/a/, /e/	/a/
	/e/	/y/	/o/, /u/, /y/	/u/	/a/, /e/	/ua/, /a/1
	/i/	/y/, /u/	/y/, /ø/		/o/, /u/, /ɨ/	/u/
	/o/	/u/	/o/, /u/	/o/, /u/	/o/, /u/, /ɨ/	/ə/
	/u/				/o/, /u/	/u/
/æ/	/a/	/ia/, /ja/, /ɛ/	/a/	/ia/, /i/4	/ə/, /a/3	/a/
	/e/	/ia/, /ja/	/i/, /a/, /e/	/i/	/i/, /e/, /je/	/ə/
	/i/	/ia/, /ja/, /ɛ/	/i/, /e/	/ia/, /i/4	/ə/, /e/, /je/	/i/
	/o/	/ia/, /ja/, /a/1	/e/	/o/, /u/	/ə/, /o/, /u/	/a/
	/u/	/e/, /a/, /ʌ/1	/a/, /o/, /u/		/o/, /u/, /e/, /je/	/u/
/ø/	/a/	/ia/, /ja/, /a/1	/a/, /o/, /u/	/o/, /u/	/o/, /u/, /ə/	/a/
	/e/	/e/, /a/, /ʌ/1	/e/, /ø/		/o/, /u/, /je/	/ə/, /u/
	/i/	/ia/, /ja/, /a/1	/i/, /e/, /ø/		/o/, /u/, /ə/	/i/
	/o/	/o/, /u/	/ø/, /y/, /o/, /u/	/i/	/i/, /e/, /je/	/ə/, /a/
	/u/	/u/, /o/	/e/, /i/, /u/	/ia/, /i/4	/ə/, /u/, /je/	/u/
/y/	/a/	/ɯ/	/o/, /u/, /i/	/o/, /u/	/a/, /e/	/a/
	/e/	/y/, /ø/, /i/2	/ø/, /y/, /o/, /u/	/y/, /u/1	/a/, /e/, /ja/, /je/, /o/, /u/	/u/, /ə/
	/i/	/y/, /ø/		/i/, /u/1	/ɨ/, /i/, /o/, /u/	/i/
	/o/	/u/, /o/	/o/, /u/	/y/	/a/, /e/, /ja/, /je/, /o/, /u/	/u/, /ə/
	/u/	/ɯ/	/i/, /o/, /u/, /y/, /ø/	/o/, /u/	/o/, /u/, /i/, /ɨ/	/u/

¹ When preceded by a bilabial consonant.
² When followed by a trill, /l/, or /lʲ/.
³ When preceded or followed by a bilabial consonant.
⁴ When preceded by a fricative (/s/, /ʃ/, /x/).

Prosody[edit]

Length and pitch in the first syllable evolved as follows according to Starostin et al. (2003), with the caveat that it is not clear which pitch was high and which was low in Proto-Altaic (Starostin et al. 2003:135). For simplicity of input and display every syllable is symbolized as "a" here:

Proto-Altaic	Proto-Turkic	Proto-Mongolic	Proto-Tungusic	Proto-Korean	Proto-Japonic
á	a	a1	a	à2	á
à	a	a	a	á	à
áː	aː	a1	a	à2	á
àː	a	a	aː	á	à

¹ "Proto-Mongolian has lost all traces of the original prosody except for voicing *p > *b in syllables with original high pitch" (Starostin et al. 2003:135).
² "[...] several secondary metatonic processes happened [...] in Korean, basically in the verb subsystem: all verbs have a strong tendency towards low pitch on the first syllable." (Starostin et al. 2003:135)

Morphological correspondences[edit]

Starostin et al. (2003) have reconstructed the following correspondences between the case and number suffixes (or clitics) of the (Macro-)Altaic languages (taken from Blažek, 2006):

Case
Proto-Altaic	Proto-Turkic (*), Old Turkic	Proto-Mongolic (*), Classical Mongolian	Proto-Tungusic	Proto-Korean (*), Middle Korean	Proto-Japonic (*), Old Japanese
nominative: -	-	-	-	-	-
accusative: /be/			/ba/, /be/		/wo/
partitive: /ɡa/	-/ʁ/, -/ɯʁ/, -/ɡ/, -/iɡ/	*-/ʁ/ (accusative)	/ɡa/		/ɡa/ (possessive)
genitive: -/nʲV/	-/ŋ/	*-/n/	-/ŋi/	-/nʲ/	/no/
dative-locative: /du/, /da/	-/ta/, -/da/, -/te/, -/de/ (locative-ablative)	-/da/ (dative-locative), -/du/ (attributive)	/du/ (dative), -/daː/ (locative)		-/tu/ (attributive-locative)
dative-instrumental: -/nV/	-/n/, -/ɯn/, -/in/ (instrumental)				/ni/ (dative-locative)
dative-directive: -/kʰV/	-/qa/, -/ke/ (dative)		/kiː/ (directive)
comitative-locative: -/lV/	-/li/, -/lɯʁ/		/laː/ (locative), -/liː/ (prolative), -/luʁa/ (comitative)	-/ro/ (instrumental-lative)
comitative-equative: -/tʃʰa/	-/č‘a / (equative)	/tʃa/ (ablative), /tʃa/, /tʃaʁa/ (terminative)			-/to/ (comitative)
allative: -/ɡV/	-/ʁaru/, -/ɡery/ (directive)	*-/ʁa/, -/a/	/ɡiː/ (allative)	-/ei/
directive: -/rV/	-/ʁaru/, -/ɡery/	-/ru/		-/ro/ (lative)
instrumental-ablative: -/dʒV/	*?-/i/ terminal dative		/dʒi/		/ju/ (ablative)
singulative: -/nV/		*-/n/	-/n/
Number
dual: -/rʲV/	*-/rʲ/ (plural for paired objects)		-/r/ (plural)		*-/rə/ (plural for paired objects)
plural: -/tʰ/-	*-/t/	-/d/	-/ta/, -/te/, -/tan/, -/ten/	*-/tɨr/	*-/tati/
plural: -/s/-		*-/s/	-/sal/
plural: -/l/-	*-/lar/	*-/nar/	-/l/, -/sal/		*-/ra/

/V/ symbolizes an uncertain vowel. Suffixes reconstructed for Proto-Turkic, Proto-Mongolic, Proto-Korean, or Proto-Japonic, but not attested in Old Turkic, Classical Mongolian, Middle Korean, or Old Japanese are marked with asterisks.

This correspondences, however, have been harshly criticized^[40] for several reasons: There are significant gaps resulting in the absence of etymologies for certain initial segments: an impossible situation in the case of a genetic relationship; lack of common paradigmatic morphology; in many cases, there are ghosts, invented or polished meanings; and word-list linguistics rules supreme, as there are few if any references to texts or philology.^[41]

There are also many reconstructions proved to be totally false, for instance, regarding Korean, Starostin et al. state that Middle Korean genitive is /nʲ/, while it actually was /s/ in its honorific form, and /ój/ or /uj/ as neutral forms.^[42]

In addition, some "cognates" are visibly forced, like the comparison between Turkish instrumental -/n/, -/ɯn/, -/in/ and Japanese locative /ni/. A locative postposition expresses an absolutely different meaning to that of an instrumental, so it is evident that both of them are not related whatsoever, the same applies for Japanese /ga/ and Proto Tungusic /ga/. The first of those particles expresses genitive case, while the second is the partitive case, which bear no resemblance of meaning at all either. Therefore, those two are not cognates. A different kind of issue is that of the Old Turkish genitive /Xŋ/ (where "X" stands for any phoneme) and Old Japanese genitive /no/, although they share the same consonant, the fact that the former is a vowel plus a consonant, and the second is a fixed set of the consonant /n/ plus vowel /o/ makes the fact that those two are cognates extremely unlikely.^[43]

Selected cognates[edit]

Personal pronouns[edit]

The table below is taken (with slight modifications) from Blažek (2006) and transcribed into IPA.

	Proto-Altaic	Proto-Turkic	Proto-Mongolic (*), Classical Mongolian	Proto-Tungusic	Proto-Korean (*), Middle Korean	Proto-Japonic
"I" (nominative)	/bì/	/be/	*/bi/	/bi/	/-i/	/bà/
"me" (oblique cases)	/mine/-	/men/	*/min/-	/min/-
"I"	Old Chinese: */ŋa/		*/nad/-, -/m/- (oblique)		/nà/ (Korean: 나) /ú/ (Sino-Korean: */我/, */吾/), yi (矣)1	/a/- (Sino-Japanese: */我,吾/, わ- 私)
"thou" (nominative)	/si/ and/or /tʰi/	/se/ (Turkic: Sen, Сен)	*/tʃi/ (Mongolian: чи)	/si/ (Manchu: Si, Nanai: Си)	/-si/, /-sya/1	/si/
"thee" (oblique cases)	/sin/- and/or /tʰin/-	/sen/ (Turkic: Sen, Сен)	?*/tʃin/-
"thou"	Proto-Tibeto-Burman /ná/	-/ŋ/			*/nè/ (Korean: 너)	/ná/ (Japanese: な */那/)
"we" (nominative)	/bà/	/bi-rʲ/ (Turkic: Biz, Біз)	*/ba/ (Mongolian: Бид)	/bue/ (Nanai: Буэ Manchu: be)	/ú-rí/ (Korean: 우리,울 */于尸/)	/bà/
"us" (oblique cases)	/myn/-		*/man/-	/myn/- (Manchu: muse)
"ye" (nominative)	/sV/ and/or /tʰV/	/si-rʲ/ (Turkic: Siz, Сіз)	*/ta/ (Mongolian: та нар)	/suː/ (Manchu: suwe)
"you" (oblique)	/sVn/-			/sun/-

As above, forms not attested in Classical Mongolian or Middle Korean but reconstructed for their ancestors are marked with an asterisk, and /V/ represents an uncertain vowel.

There are, however, several problems with this proposed list. Aside from the huge amount of non-attested, free reconstructions, some mistakes on the research carried out by altaicists must be pointed out, the first of them is that Old Japanese for the first person pronoun ("I", in English) was neither /ba/ or /a/. It was /ware/ (和禮), and sometimes it was abbreviated to /wa/ (吾). Also, it is not a Sino-Japanese word, but a native Japanese term; in addition, the second person pronoun was not /si/, but either /imasi/ (汝), or /namu/ (奈牟), which sometimes was shortened to /na/. Its plural was /namu tachi/ (奈牟多知).^[44]

Other basic vocabulary[edit]

The following table is a brief selection of further proposed cognates in basic vocabulary across the Altaic family (from Starostin et al. [2003]). Their reconstructions and equivalences are not accepted by the mainstream linguists and therefore remain very controversial.

Proto-Altaic meaning	Proto-Altaic	Proto-Turkic	Proto-Mongolic	Proto-Tungusic	Proto-Koreanic	Proto-Japonic
that	/tʰa/	/di/- or /ti/-	/te-re/	/ta/	/tjé/	/tso-re/
eye	/næ̀ː/		/ni-dy/	/nʲia-sa/5	/nú-n/	/mà/-
neck	/móːjno/	/boːjn/		/moŋa-n/	/mje-k/	/nəmpV/
breast	/kòkʰè/	/køky-rʲ/1	/køkø-n/2	/kuku-n/2	/kokajŋi/ "pith; medulla; core"	/kəkə-rə/1 "heart"
stone	/tǿːlʲì/	/diaːlʲ/	/tʃila-ʁu/	/dʒola/	/toːrh/3	/(d)ísì/
star	/pʰǿlʲo/	/jul-durʲ/	/ho-dun/	/osi/4	/pjɨːr/	/pə́tsí/
oath, god, sky[45]	/tàŋɡiri/	/teŋri/	/taŋgarag/	/taŋgura/		/tiŋkir/

¹ Contains the Proto-Altaic dual suffix -/rʲV/: "both breasts" – "chest" – "heart".
² Contains the Proto-Altaic singulative suffix -/nV/: "one breast".
³ Compare Baekje */turak/ "stone" (Blažek 2006).
⁴ This is in the Jurchen language; in modern Manchu it is usiha.
⁵ This is disputed by Georg (2004),^[46] who states: "The traditional Tungusological reconstruction *yāsa [ = /jaːsa/] cannot be replaced by the nasal-initial one espoused here, needed for the comparison." However, Starostin (2005)^[47] mentions evidence from several Tungusic languages cited by Starostin et al. (2003). Georg (2005)^[48] does not accept this, referring to Georg (1999/2000) and a then upcoming paper.^[49]

Numerals and related words[edit]

In the Indo-European family, the numerals are remarkably stable, this is a rather exceptional case; especially words for higher numbers are often borrowed wholesale. (Perhaps the most famous cases are Japanese and Korean, which have two complete sets of numerals each – one native, one Chinese.) Indeed, the Altaic numerals are less stable than the Indo-European ones, but nevertheless Starostin et al. (2003) reconstruct them as follows. They are not accepted by the mainstream linguists and are controversial. Other reconstructions show little to no similarities in numerals of the proto-languages.

Proto-Altaic meaning	Proto-Altaic	Proto-Turkic	Proto-Mongolic	Proto-Tungusic	Proto-Korean	Proto-Japonic
1	/byri/	/bir/	/byri/ "all, each"		/pìrɨ́/ "at first"	/pi-tə/
single	/nøŋe/	/jaŋɯrʲ/	/nige/ "1"	/noŋ/~/non/ "be the first, begin"		/nəmi/ "only"
front	/emo/	/øm-gen/ "upper part of breast"	/emy/-	/emu/~/ume/ "1"	/maen-/~/môn-chô "first of all"26	/upe/ "upper" /mape/ "front"
single, one of a pair	/sǿna/	/sɯŋar/ "one of a pair"	/son-du-/ "odd"	1	/hə̀nàh/ "1" or /hə̀t-/ 1	/sa/- "together, reciprocally"
2	/tybu/	2	/dʒiw-rin/~/dʒui-rin/ "2 (feminine)"3	/dʒube/	/tuː/, /tuː-rh/4
pair, couple	/pʰø̀kʰe/	/eki/ "2", /ekirʲ/ "twins"; ?/(j)ɛɡir-mi/ "20"	/(h)ekire/ "twins"
different, other	/gojV/		/gojar/ "2"	/goj/~/gia/		/kía/
pair, half	/putʃʰu/	/butʃ-uk/			/ptʃa-k/	/puta/- "2"
3	/ŋy/	/o-turʲ/ "30"5	/gu-rban/; /ɡu-tʃin/ "30"		6	/mi/-7
(footnote 8)	/ìlù/	/øløŋ/9		/ila-n/ "3"		/ùrù-pu/ "bissextile (year or month)"
object consisting of 3 parts	/séjra/		/sere-ʁe/ "trident, pitchfork"		/seːi(h)/ "3"	/sárápi/ "rake, pitchfork"
4	/toːjV/	/døː-rt/	/dø-rben/; /dø-rtʃin/ "40"10	/dy-gin/		/də/-
5	/tʰu/		/ta-bun/; /ta-bin/ "50"11	/tu-nʲɡa/	/tà/-	/i-tu-/12
6	/nʲu/		/dʒi-rɡu-/; /dʒi-ran/ "60"13	/nʲu-ŋu-/	14	/mu/-
7	/nadi/15	/jeti/	/dolu-ʁan/; /dala-n/ "70"15	/nada-n/	/nìr-(kúp)/16	/nana/-
8	/dʒa/			/dʒa-pkun/	/jè-t-/17	/da/-
9	/kʰeɡVnV/			/xegyn/		/kəkənə/
10	/tʃøbe/ or /tøbe/			/dʒuba-n/		/təwə/18,/-so/"-0"/i-so/50
many, a big number	/dʒøːrʲo/	/jyːrʲ/ "100"		19	/jér(h)/ "10" /jə̀rə̀/ "many"	/jə̀rə̀/- "10,000" /jə̀rə̀/ "many"
	/pʰVbV/	/oː-n/ "10"	/ha-rban/ "10", /ha-na/ "all"	20		-/pə/, -/pua/ "-00"21
20	/kʰyra/	/ɡɯrk/ or /kɯrk/ "40"22	/kori-n/	/xori-n/		/pata-ti/23
100	/nʲàmò/	?/jom/ "big number, all"	/dʒaʁu-n/24	/nʲamaː/		/muàmuà/
1000	/tʃỳmi/	/dymen/ or /tymen/ "10,000"25			/tʃɨ̀mɨ̀n/	/ti/

¹ Manchu /soni/ "single, odd".
² Old Bulgarian /tvi-rem/ "second".
³ Kitan has /tʃur/ "2" (Blažek 2006).
⁴ -/uː/- is probably a contraction of -/ubu/-.
⁵ The /y/- of /ytʃ/ "3" "may also reflect the same root, although the suffixation is not clear." (Starostin et al. 2003:223)
⁶ Compare Silla /mir/ "3" (Blažek 2006).
⁷ Compare Goguryeo /mir/ "3" (Blažek 2006).
⁸ "third (or next after three = fourth)", "consisting of three objects"
⁹ "song with three out of four verses rhyming (first, second and fourth)"
¹⁰ Kitan has /dur/ "4" (Blažek 2006).
¹¹ Kitan has /tau/ "5" (Blažek 2006).
¹² "(the prefixed i- is somewhat unclear: it is also used as a separate word meaning ‘fifty’, but the historical root here is no doubt *tu-)" (Starostin et al. 2003:223). – Blažek (2006) also considers Goguryeo */uts/ "5" (from */uti/) to be related.
¹³ Kitan has /nir/ "6" (Blažek 2006).
¹⁴ Middle Korean has /je-(sɨs)/ "6", which may fit here, but the required loss of initial /nʲ/- "is not quite regular" (Starostin et al. 2003:224).
¹⁵ The Mongolian forms "may suggest an original proto-form" /lʲadi/ or /ladi/ "with dissimilation or metathesis in" Proto-Mongolic (Starostin et al. 2003:224). – Kitan has /dol/ "7".
¹⁶ /ɖirkup/^{[citation needed]} in Early Middle Korean (タリクニ/チリクヒ in the Nichūreki (ja)).
¹⁷ "Problematic" (Starostin et al. 2003:224).
¹⁸ Compare Goguryeo /tok/ "10" (Blažek 2006).
¹⁹ Manchu /dʒiri/, /dʒirun/ "a very big number".
²⁰ Orok /poːwo/ "a bundle of 10 squirrels", Nanai /poã/ "collection, gathering".
²¹ "Hundred" in names of hundreds.
²² Starostin et al. (2003) suspect this to be a reduplication: */kɯr-kɯr/ "20 + 20".
²³ /kata-ti/ would be expected; Starostin et al. (2003) think that this irregular change from /k/ to /p/ is due to influence from "2" /puta-tu/.
²⁴ From */nʲam-ŋu-/.
²⁵ Also see Tümen.
²⁶ Modern Korean – needs further investigations

See also[edit]

• Classification of the Japonic languages
• Nostratic languages
• Uralo-Siberian languages
• Xiongnu
• Pan-Turanism
• Turco-Mongol
• Yeniseian languages

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

Works cited[edit]

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Altaic languages.

• Altaic at the Linguist List MultiTree Project (not functional as of 2014): Genealogical trees attributed to Ramstedt 1957, Miller 1971, and Poppe 1982
• Swadesh vocabulary lists for Altaic languages (from Wiktionary's Swadesh-list appendix)
• Monumenta altaica Altaic linguistics website, maintained by Ilya Gruntov
• Altaic Etymological Dictionary, database version by Sergei A. Starostin, Anna V. Dybo, and Oleg A. Mudrak (does not include introductory chapters)
• LINGUIST List 5.911 defense of Altaic by Alexis Manaster Ramer (1994)
• LINGUIST List 5.926 1. Remarks by Alexander Vovin. 2. Clarification by J. Marshall Unger. (1994)