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| Ural-Altaic | |
|---|---|
| Turanian | |
| (obsolete as a genealogical proposal) | |
| Geographic distribution | Eurasia |
| Linguistic classification | convergence zone |
| Subdivisions | |
| Language codes | |
| Glottolog | None |
.png) Distribution of Uralic, Altaic, and Yukaghir languages | |
Ural-Altaic orUralo-Altaic is a linguisticconvergence zone and abandonedlanguage-family proposal uniting theUralic and theAltaic (in the narrow sense) languages. It is now generally agreed that even the Altaic languages do not share a common descent: the similarities betweenTurkic,Mongolic andTungusic are better explained bydiffusion and borrowing.[1][2][3][4] Just as in Altaic, the internal structure of the Uralic family has been debated since the family was first proposed.[5] Doubts about the validity of most or all of the proposed higher-order Uralic branchings (grouping the nine undisputed families) are becoming more common.[5][6][7][full citation needed] The term continues to be used for the central Eurasian typological, grammatical and lexical convergence zone.[8]
Indeed, "Ural-Altaic" may be preferable to "Altaic" in this sense. For example, J. Janhunen states that "speaking of 'Altaic' instead of 'Ural-Altaic' is a misconception, for there are no areal or typological features that are specific to 'Altaic' without Uralic."[9] Originally suggested in the 18th century, the genealogical and racial hypotheses remained debated into the mid-20th century, often with disagreements exacerbated bypan-nationalist agendas.[10]
The Ural-Altaic hypothesis had multiple proponents in Britain.[11] Since the 1960s, the proposed language family has been widely rejected.[12][13][14][15] A relationship between the Altaic, Indo-European and Uralic families was revived in the context of theNostratic hypothesis, which was popular for a time,[16] with for exampleAllan Bomhard treating Uralic, Altaic andIndo-European as coordinate branches.[17] However, Nostratic too is now rejected.[9]
The concept of a Ural-Altaic ethnic and language family goes back to the linguistic theories ofGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; in his opinion there was no better method for specifying the relationship and origin of the various peoples of the Earth, than the comparison of their languages. In hisBrevis designatio meditationum de originibus gentium ductis potissimum ex indicio linguarum,[18] written in 1710, he originates every human language from one common ancestor language. Over time, this ancestor language split into two families; the Japhetic and the Aramaic. The Japhetic family split even further, into Scythian and Celtic branches. The members of theScythian family were: the Greek language, the family of Sarmato-Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Czech, Dalmatian, Bulgar, Slovene, Avar and Khazar), the family of Turkic languages (Turkish,Cuman, Kalmyk and Mongolian), the family of Finno-Ugric languages (Finnish, Saami, Hungarian, Estonian, Liv and Samoyed). Although his theory and grouping were far from perfect, they had a considerable effect on the development of linguistic research, especially in German-speaking countries.
In his bookAn historico-geographical description of the north and east parts of Europe and Asia,[19] published in 1730,Philip Johan von Strahlenberg, Swedish prisoner-of-war and explorer of Siberia, who accompaniedDaniel Gottlieb Messerschmidt on his expeditions, described Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Samoyedic, Mongolic, Tungusic and Caucasian peoples as sharing linguistic and cultural commonalities. 20th century scholarship has on several occasions incorrectly credited him with proposing a Ural-Altaic language family, though he does not claim linguistic affinitybetween any of the six groups.[20][note 1]
Danish philologistRasmus Christian Rask described what he called "Scythian" languages in 1834, which included Finno-Ugric, Turkic, Samoyedic, Eskimo, Caucasian, Basque and others.
The Ural-Altaic hypothesis was elaborated at least as early as 1836 by W. Schott[21] and in 1838 byF. J. Wiedemann.[22]
The "Altaic" hypothesis, as mentioned by Finnish linguist and explorerMatthias Castrén[23][24] by 1844, included theFinno-Ugric andSamoyedic, grouped as "Chudic", andTurkic,Mongolic, andTungusic, grouped as "Tataric". Subsequently, in the latter half of the 19th century, Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic came to be referred to asAltaic languages, whereas Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic were calledUralic. The similarities between these two families led to their retention in a common grouping, named Ural–Altaic.
Friedrich Max Müller, the German Orientalist and philologist, published and proposed a new grouping of the non-Aryan and non-Semitic Asian languages in 1855. In his workThe Languages of the Seat of War in the East, he called these languages "Turanian". Müller divided this group into two subgroups, the Southern Division, and the Northern Division.[25] In the long run, his evolutionist theory about languages' structural development, tying growing grammatical refinement to socio-economic development, and grouping languages into 'antediluvian', 'familial', 'nomadic', and 'political' developmental stages,[26] proved unsound, but his Northern Division was renamed and re-classed as the "Ural-Altaic languages".
Between the 1850s and 1870s, there were efforts by Frederick Roehrig to including some Native American languages in a "Turanian" or "Ural-Altaic" family, and between the 1870s and 1890s, there was speculation about links with Basque.[27]
InHungary, where thenational language is Uralic but with heavy historical Turkic influence—a fact which by itself spurred the popularity of the "Ural-Altaic" hypothesis—the idea of the Ural–Altaic relationship remained widely implicitly accepted in the late 19th and the mid-20th century, though more out of pan-nationalist than linguistic reasons, and without much detailed research carried out.[clarification needed] Elsewhere the notion had sooner fallen into discredit, with Ural–Altaic supporters elsewhere such as the Finnish AltaicistMartti Räsänen being in the minority.[28] The contradiction between Hungarian linguists' convictions and the lack of clear evidence eventually provided motivation for scholars such asAurélien Sauvageot andDenis Sinor to carry out more detailed investigation of the hypothesis, which so far has failed to yield generally accepted results.Nicholas Poppe in his articleThe Uralo-Altaic Theory in the Light of the Soviet Linguistics (1940) also attempted to refute Castrén's views by showing that the common agglutinating features may have arisen independently.[29]
Beginning in the 1960s, the hypothesis came to be seen even more controversial, due to the Altaic family itself also falling out universal acceptance. Today, the hypothesis that Uralic and Altaic are related more closely to one another than to any other family has almost no adherents.[30] In hisAltaic Etymological Dictionary, co-authored with Anna V. Dybo and Oleg A. Mudrak,Sergei Starostin characterized the Ural–Altaic hypothesis as "an idea now completely discarded".[30] There are, however, a number of hypotheses that propose a largermacrofamily including Uralic, Altaic and other families. None of these hypotheses has widespread support. In Starostin's sketch of a "Borean" super-phylum, he puts Uralic and Altaic as daughters of an ancestral language of c. 9,000 years ago from which theDravidian languages and thePaleo-Siberian languages, includingEskimo–Aleut, are also descended. He posits that this ancestral language, together withIndo-European andKartvelian, descends from a "Eurasiatic" protolanguage some 12,000 years ago, which in turn would be descended from a "Borean" protolanguage viaNostratic.[31]
In the 1980s, Russian linguistN. D. Andreev [ru] (Nikolai Dmitrievich Andreev) proposed a "Boreal languages [ru]" hypothesis linking theIndo-European,Uralic, andAltaic (including Korean in his later papers) language families. Andreev also proposed 203 lexical roots for his hypothesized Boreal macrofamily. After Andreev's death in 1997, the Boreal hypothesis was further expanded bySorin Paliga (2003, 2007).[32][33]
Angela Marcantonio (2002) argues that there is no sufficient evidence for a Finno-Ugric or Uralic group connecting theFinno-Permic andUgric languages, and suggests that they are no more closely related to each other than either is to Turkic, thereby positing a grouping similar to Ural–Altaic or indeed to Castrén's original Altaic proposal. This thesis has been criticized by mainstream Uralic scholars.[34][35][36]
There is general agreement on severaltypological similarities being widely found among the languages considered under Ural–Altaic:[37]
Such similarities do not constitute sufficient evidence of genetic relationship all on their own, as other explanations are possible.Juha Janhunen has argued that although Ural–Altaic is to be rejected as a genealogical relationship, it remains a viable concept as a well-definedlanguage area, which in his view has formed through the historical interaction andconvergence of four core language families (Uralic, Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic), and their influence on the more marginal Korean and Japonic.[38]
Contrasting views on the typological situation have been presented by other researchers.Michael Fortescue has connected Uralic instead as a part of anUralo-Siberian typological area (comprising Uralic,Yukaghir,Chukotko-Kamchatkan andEskimo–Aleut), contrasting with a more narrowly defined Altaic typological area;[39] while Anderson has outlined a specifically Siberian language area, including within Uralic only theOb-Ugric andSamoyedic groups; within Altaic most of the Tungusic family as well asSiberian Turkic andBuryat (Mongolic); as well as Yukaghir, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Eskimo–Aleut,Nivkh, andYeniseian.[40]
The Altaic language family was generally accepted by linguists from the late 19th century up to the 1960s, but since then has been in dispute. For simplicity's sake, the following discussion assumes the validity of the Altaic language family.
Two senses should be distinguished in which Uralic and Altaic might be related.
In other words, showing a genetic relationship does not suffice to establish a language family, such as the proposed Ural–Altaic family; it is also necessary to consider whether other languages from outside the proposed family might not be at least as closely related to the languages in that family as the latter are to each other. This distinction is often overlooked but is fundamental to the genetic classification of languages.[41] Some linguists indeed maintain that Uralic and Altaic are related through a larger family, such asEurasiatic orNostratic, within which Uralic and Altaic are no more closely related to each other than either is to any other member of the proposed family, for instance than Uralic or Altaic is to Indo-European (for exampleGreenberg).[42]
To demonstrate the existence of a language family, it is necessary to findcognate words that trace back to a common proto-language. Shared vocabulary alone does not show a relationship, as it may be loaned from one language to another or through the language of a third party.
There are shared words between, for example, Turkic and Ugric languages, or Tungusic and Samoyedic languages, which are explainable by borrowing. However, it has been difficult to find Ural–Altaic words shared across all involved language families. Such words should be found in all branches of the Uralic and Altaic trees and should follow regular sound changes from the proto-language to known modern languages, and regular sound changes from Proto-Ural–Altaic to giveProto-Uralic and Proto-Altaic words should be found to demonstrate the existence of a Ural–Altaic vocabulary. Instead, candidates for Ural–Altaic cognate sets can typically be supported by only one of the Altaic subfamilies.[43] In contrast, about 200 Proto-Uralic word roots are known and universally accepted, and for the proto-languages of the Altaic subfamilies and the larger main groups of Uralic, on the order of 1000–2000 words can be recovered.
Some[who?] linguists point out strong similarities in the personal pronouns of Uralic and Altaic languages, although the similarities also exist with the Indo-European pronouns as well.
The basicnumerals, unlike those among theIndo-European languages (compareProto-Indo-European numerals), are particularly divergent between all three core Altaic families and Uralic, and to a lesser extent even within Uralic.[44]
| Numeral | Uralic | Turkic | Mongolic | Tungusic | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finnish | Hungarian | Tundra Nenets | Old Turkic | Classical Mongolian | Proto-Tungusic | |
| 1 | yksi | egy | ӈобˮ (ŋob) | bir | nigen | *emün |
| 2 | kaksi | kettő/két | сидя (śiďa) | eki | qoyar | *džör |
| 3 | kolme | három | няхарˮ (ńax°r) | üs | ɣurban | *ilam |
| 4 | neljä | négy | тет (ťet°) | tört | dörben | *dügün |
| 5 | viisi | öt | самляӈг (səmp°ľaŋk°) | baš | tabun | *tuńga |
| 6 | kuusi | hat | матˮ (mət°ʔ) | eltı | ǰirɣuɣan | *ńöŋün |
| 7 | seitsemän | hét | сиˮив (śīʔw°) | jeti | doluɣan | *nadan |
| 8 | kahdeksan | nyolc | сидндет (śid°nťet°) | säkiz | naiman | *džapkun |
| 9 | yhdeksän | kilenc | хасуюˮ (xasuyu") | toquz | yisün | *xüyägün |
| 10 | kymmenen | tíz | юˮ (yūʔ) | on | arban | *džuvan |
One alleged Ural-Altaic similarity among this data are the Hungarian (három) and Mongolian (ɣurban) numerals for '3'. According to Róna-Tas (1983),[45] elevating this similarity to a hypothesis of common origin would still require several ancillary hypotheses:
The following consonant correspondences between Uralic and Altaic are asserted by Poppe (1983):[46]
Regardless of a possible common origin or lack thereof, Uralic-Altaic languages can be spoken of as aconvergence zone. Although it has not yet been possible to demonstrate a genetic relationship or a significant amount of common vocabulary between the languages other than loanwords, according to the linguist Juha Jahunen, the languages must have had a common linguistic homeland. The Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages have been spoken in the Manchurian region, and there is little chance that a similar structural typology of Uralic languages could have emerged without close contact between them.[47][48] The languages ofTurkish andFinnish have a number of similar structures, such asvowel harmony andagglutination,[49] and it has been suggested byEdward Vajda that Early Turkic may have loaned palatal harmony from Uralic.[50]
Similarly, according to Janhunen, the common typology of the Altaic languages can be inferred as a result of mutual contacts in the past, perhaps from a few thousand years ago.[51]
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