Talk:Ural-Altaic languages

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==Example of relation Altaic to Uralic==
  • English: I, you
  • Finnish (Uralic): minä, sinä
  • Tatar (Altaic): min, sin
  • Azerbaycan Turkish (Altaic): men, sen -->(this line added by anon user. not by vuo 10.may.2006)
  • Turkey Turkish (Altaic): ben, sen -->(this line added by anon user. not by vuo 10.may.2006)

English is not really the best language to compare with in this case. Observe that in Swedish, a Germanic language closely related to English, there are these forms: "mig, dig". Compare to the English "me", "thee". They are no less than exactly "mig", "dig", when the take the sound shifts in English into account (mi, thi) and then write it in Swedish orthography (adding -g, changing th to d). Much closer to "minä", "sinä" than the English "I", "you".

Another thing that is ignored in this case is that in Finnish, pronouns don't really have that much significance. "I run" is "juoksen", "run+1-person-sg". Finnish could do well without pronouns. They could be very old loans or a remnant of the ancestral language of Indo-European and Fenno-Ugric (which is disputed). --Vuo

Pronouns are sometimes borrowed, it's true; however, Isidore Dyen's studies found them to be among the most stable parts of the vocabulary. Moreover, the pronouns cannot be considered in isolation from the suffixes, which corroborate the point: the -t of olet is actually more like proto-IE *te than sinä is, for example. - Mustafaa 17:32, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The word *te in itself would be useful for proving a genetic relationship between Uralic and Indo-European. However, as far as I know, not for Uralic and Altaic.
But, you're right that the suffices are a better starting point. Finnish suffices are: -n "I", -t "you", *-k "s/he" (realized as a long vowel in modern Finnish); and first-, and second-person plurals just add the corresponding pronoun, i.e. -me "we", -te "you(pl.)", and then -vat "they". The actual usage is not this; the impersonal -aan is used with the pronoun me, and -vat is ignored. Does this support the Ural-Altaic theory? --Vuo 21:26, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I know of no real evidence that supports the Ural-Altaic theory; but the pronouns have certainly be argued to support either Nostratic or Eurasiatic, in particular the 1st and 2nd singulars: eg Finnish minä, Uzbek men, Latin me; Finnish sinä, Uzbek sen, Latin te. - Mustafaa 21:35, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I would like to mention that the original you (singular) in the Uralic languages started with t-. Only later in Baltic-Finnic languages it changed to s-. The original t has obviously survived in the Finnish suffixes. Hungarian, for example, has retained a more original form, te.--Jyril 19:22, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

As a lay person, there appears to be serious similarities between Uralic and Altaic, so why is this theory rejected? What would they regard as valid evidence of a relationship then?

  1. Merely showing that two groups are related isn't enough; to form a valid group, they have to be more closely related to each other than they are to any other language groups.
  2. The extent of the similarities is disputed; a lot of them are argued by some linguists to result from borrowing rather than common inheritance. - Mustafaa 21:58, 9 July 2005 (UTC)
I guess (I really don't know, I'm just another layman) the lack of evidence is one reason (for example, there are no common root words). Reason why the Uralic and "Altaic" languages seem similar is that they are very different when compared to other languages in Europe. However, almost all European languages belong to the Indo-European family. So it may be that the similarity between Ural and Altaic languages is only apparent, and the Indo-European family is the one which is different. Personally, I think it would be nice if a link between these groups will be found.--Jyril 19:22, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Policy?

I'm wondering what is considered arguing for a point and what is encyclopedic, namely on the Proto-Uralic vowel harmony issue. The document "Indo-Uralic verb" by Kortlandt cites that Sammallahti thinks that /a/ and /i/ get some sort of fronted allophones /ä/ and /ï/. Is this good encyclopedic material, or arguing? --Vuo 11:55, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

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[edit] Question

Around what timeframe was the "Uralo-Altaic family" rejected? I remember reading it was valid or accepted in books from the 20th century. Is this a fairly recent rejection? Maybe the article should fill in a little more on the history, since it isn't sourced whatsoever. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 03:17, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I think it's a problem of people not understanding the real-world concept of "non-integer probabilities", if you will. Most people think black and white. Either proven or not proven (which is improperly equated with "rejected"). So on the topic of Ural-Altaic, most Uralicists and Altaicists who know anything can flat-out see the connections but might typically say that it's unproven and hard to tell whether it's truly genetic or the result of areal influence.

But "unproven" isn't the same thing as "rejected" until there is proof against it. How could there be proof against the premise of Ural-Altaic until we know enough about pre-Uralic and pre-Altaic, which we don't! Otherwise we'll never be certain enough of the ancestries of both groups to reject the hypothesis entirely! It should be considered "unproven", not "rejected". --Glengordon01 10:26, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

A brief comment on this as well (cf. below). It is customary in science to "reject" (i.e. decline to accept) theories that are unproven. Moreover, it is logically impossible to disprove a hypothesis of linguistic relationship, and hence demanding such proof is a fallacious argument.
Furthermore, as a professional Uralic comparative linguist I would be really intrigued to see what the purported "connections" are that most specialists "can flat-out see" - perhaps I don't "know anything" as I haven't heard of such yet. (Just a rhetorical question, though - this is not the place for such a discussion.) --AAikio 19:18, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Trust me, Ante. In general, "rejected" implies something very absolute in the English language. It implies that the premise is not just unproven, but defective in logic. It's the common use of "rejected" as "defective" that makes its usage here misleading and thus inappropriate in this entry. There is nothing defective in the logic of the basic premise of Ural-Altaic itself; there is only a lack of convincing data. ( For a full definition of "to reject", click here ). Your science lesson is unnecessary since I understand how science works (or rather, how it is ideally supposed to work when politics is properly divorced from it, which is seldom ever the case). When you take away the impartiality, the entry should say something to the effect of "Ural-Altaic is insufficiently proven and unrecognized by many linguists". However, it cannot be said to have ever been formally and scientifically rejected in the absolute sense that this word is implying. You're not writing for linguists here. You're writing for everyday people. --Glengordon01 08:30, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the link you gave gives "To refuse to accept, submit to, believe, or make use of" as the first definition, just like about any dictionary. I still do not really see the difference. And in any case, the Ural-Altaic hypothesis is not accepted by almost any specialist, and there is no ongoing scientific discussion or controversy on the issue. --AAikio 07:14, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merger with Altaic Hypothesis

Has everybody gone insane? Does the twat who suggested "merger" of Ural-Altaic with the "Altaic hypothesis" even understand what Altaic is? They should **not** be merged because they are completely seperate issues and controversies of differing order of magnitude. The issue of Altaic is far less controversial than the issue of Ural-Altaic. The issue of Altaic really involves the inclusion of Japanese and Korean in reality. It's hard to believe that anyone in their right mind today would argue against Turkish and Mongolian relationship. Why merge two distinct topics?! --Glengordon01 10:34, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

Numerous linguists that are considered distinguished experts in the history of these languages have heavily criticized the Altaic hypothesis (such as professor Juha Janhunen (University of Helsinki), to mention just one). In the spirit of the ad hominem above you might classify him, and everyone agreeing with him, as not being "in their right mind" as well. From an objective point of view, though, the Altaic hypothesis is highly controversial, and Ural-Altaic is not even controversial because it is rejected by practically every specialist in the field. But precisely because of this difference I oppose the merger. --AAikio 19:07, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

You didn't read my comment properly and are even adding things I didn't say. Real linguists do not speak of the Ural-Altaic hypothesis and Altaic interchangeably. Yes? That's my point. So the people who wish to merge the two topics on Wikipedia are dumb twats, not the linguists involved in the two hypotheses. Ad hominem, sure. The masses are dumb. I stand by my position. Since when did you confuse Wikipedians with published linguists, Ante? At any rate, I'm purely speaking of the merger, not the topics themselves. So be kind and don't add things I didn't say. I'd call Janhunen misguided rather than a dumb twat. --Glengordon01 21:13, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I had two points here, but I suppose my wording wasn't clear. First, I oppose the merger just like you do, because the Ural-Altaic and Altaic hypotheses are two entirely separate things; I guess we both agreed on this already. My second point was that your way of arguing here is rather aggressive. You originally wrote that "it's hard to believe that anyone in their right mind today would argue against Turkish and Mongolian relationship". This is the ad hominem I was referring to. Numerous linguists studying these languages have argued against the Altaic hypothesis; your statement that they are not "in their right mind" is just your personal opinion and doesn't bear the strength of an argument against anything. --AAikio 17:15, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proto-Altaic, how can anyone logically avoid it?

Since you're here, Ante, can you please explain to me how it is logically possible to wish away Altaic?

Let's talk about Japanese, for example. Some would have it that Japanese is not a bona fide Altaic language, if such a family exists at all. Fine, but how then are there demonstratable correspondences? How did "kokoro" enter the language and what language could it possibly have come from then if it happens to connect with Turkic and Mongolic words? Why does Japanese "y-" correspond with Turkic "d-"? We may argue that Japanese isn't really a true descendent of Proto-Altaic but somehow acquired loanwords with magically regular correspondences from time to time... but then a simple question is "from what?".

How can we possibly pretend that there is no "Altaic element" that is shared between Turkic and Mongolic if they are unrelated? Why do the pronouns in Turkic and Mongolic look similar to Uralic, yet are clearly not from Uralic? Why would they ditch all there pronouns for Uralic-looking ones; just to fool us? Surely there wasn't a Uralic substrate here... so there must be a genuine Uralic-related "Altaic element" to explain it.

This is why I think that the anti-Altaic camp just don't get it and are driven by irrational, political reasons rather than linguistic science and logic. No matter how you slice it, related or unrelated, I can't avoid the existence of an Altaic element that for lack of a better word must be called Proto-Altaic. --Glengordon01 21:55, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, Wikipedia is not the forum for an in-depth linguistic discussion. So I'll just make some notes on two general points here.
First, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and hence it should represent the consensus of specialists on the topic discussed. If there is no consensus, it should state just that. The Altaic hypothesis is controversial among specialists in "Altaic" historical linguistics, so that's what should be told in Wikipedia, regardless of what me and you might think of the Altaic hypothesis.
Second, about Ural-Altaic. I don't know a single specialist in Uralic languages who would support this idea. If you know a peer reviewed publication backing your claim that "the pronouns in Turkic and Mongolic look similar to Uralic, yet are clearly not from Uralic", then it may be worth adding to Wikipedia. If not, it is just a random claim which the Internet is full of. --AAikio 17:24, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

This is indeed the forum for such discussion because collaboration is the very basis of Wikipedia. There is no collaboration without communication. Your fears against discussion are unwarranted.

Your "consensus" is an empty claim. What consensus? How many constitute that consensus? Is this a Finnish consensus? Are linguists from Canadian universities graciously included in your consensus? Are airplane mechanics included in your consensus? Is logical reason included in your consensus? Etc, etc. A theory must be justified by facts, not status quo. Further, these justifications must be included in this encyclopedic entry, along with all the justifications from other camps regardless of your disapproval of them.

In regards to the pronouns, it's clear that when Altaic insists on plural pronouns in *-r2 instead of Uralic *-t or a 2ps with *s- instead of Uralic *t-, then we simply cannot say that these are positively Uralic loans. No doubt, the Altaic and Uralic pronominal systems must be related to each other but they are also notably different. At the very least, we require special sound changes to have occured first in order to explain, for example, why plural *-r2 is shared by the Altaic group, never *-t. This is basic knowledge, Ante.

To insist that Altaic pronouns are indeed Uralic loans would mean that the Altaic languages in Central Asia had a proto-Uralic-Yukaghir ad/sub/meta/whatever-strate (since Proto-Uralic itself is too far west to affect Central Asian languages directly). Claiming that a set of Uralic pronouns managed to somehow migrate far eastward with intermediaries showing the changes of *-t to *-r2 or *t- to *s- is wild conjecture. Where are these intermediaries? What evidence?! In other words, claiming anything other than Proto-Altaic requires a multiplication of hypotheses concerning a highly hypothetical and baseless spread of a whole slew of individual areal features. By the wisdom of Athena, why obscure the obscure? --Glengordon01 02:42, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that you still understood my point. In science a pervasive lack of consensus usually results from lack of clear or conclusive evidence. While I am not an Altaic specialist (even though I am a Uralic one), it seems to me that this is exactly the case with Altaic, so I follow this rule of thumb as long as I have not seen an extensive corpus of convincing etymologies, demonstration of regular correspondences, etc.
As, to the actual linguistic argumentation, I note that you tend to introduce all kinds of speculations as supposedly "basic knowledge" - such as your claim that "the Altaic and Uralic pronominal systems must be related to each other". Why must they be? In what peer reviewed pubication is this documented? Why is it that hardly any Uralicist supports such an idea? Why is this "basic knowledge" not even mentioned in basic references of Uralic comparative linguistics? etc. But maybe you'll come up with another conspiracy theory that explains away why no one else subscribes to this claim - cf. your argument above: "the anti-Altaic camp just don't get it and are driven by irrational, political reasons rather than linguistic science and logic". --AAikio 07:29, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
What "conspiracy theory", Ante? Don't protest against ad hominems when misrepresenting other's views.
I've presented facts, and in return you present emotional rhetoric. It doesn't do your linguistics degree justice. --Glengordon01 08:41, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
I already quoted your argument that I was referring to: "the anti-Altaic camp just don't get it and are driven by irrational, political reasons rather than linguistic science and logic". While this is not, strictly speaking, a real conspiracy theory, in any case it is an ad hominem of the conspiratory type: the adherents of the opposing view are portrayed as having some kind of unscientific/hidden/secret agenda. After this, it is interesting to notice that you classify your messages as "presenting facts" and my replies as "emotional rhetoric". --AAikio 07:32, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
PS, about my "the Altaic and Uralic pronominal systems must be related to each other" claim. I'm at a loss as to why you find that so objectionable. The pronominal system of Altaic shows *-n just as we find in Uralic, along with a set that ultimately shows an underlying pattern of *mi and *tu in the 1p and 2p, AND a plural in *-t that can easily rhotacize to *-r2. The fact that in IE we find both an oblique *n (*mene "of me" vs *me "me"), the underlying pattern once again (*me, *t(w)e), and a plural *-es (sibilantized as is the 2ps non-indicative *-s from earlier *-t) shows that there is something more here that needs to be researched. I'm not comparing isolated words here. I'm comparing entire grammatical systems. Conspiracy theory? No. It's called classic comparative linguistics.
I wouldn't be surprised that specialists are so hopelessly specialized that they fail to notice what exists in other language families. (The old tale of the individual who couldn't see the forest for the trees.) This is part of why misunderstandings and hasty rejections take place in linguistics all the time. Science trudges on nonetheless. --Glengordon01 08:52, 22 July 2006 (UTC)
There has been quite a bit of discussion on the "mitian phenomenon" (the similarities of pronouns in many Eurasian languages), and most linguists do not see them as convincing evidence of common ancestry. For most comparativists minimal criteria for such evidence include much more extensive grammatical evidence and regular sound correspondences in basic vocabulary.
As to your argument against the views of specialists, you almost seem to consider specialist knowledge a demerit in comparative linguistics. But the fact remains that the Ural-Altaic hypothesis has been dead and buried in Uralic linguistics for almost a hundred years (a "hasty rejection"?), and the chances of it being resurrected seem pretty slim. --AAikio 07:50, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the "mitian phenomenon" inaccurately refers to some inescapable data like...
Meaning Altaic Uralic
I [1ps] Turkish ben
Tatar min
Uighur män
Turkmen men
Chuvash ebǝ
Tuva men
------
Khalkha bi ([gen] minij)
Ordos bi ([gen] mini)
Mogol bi ([gen] mini)
------
Evenki bi
Manchu bī
------
Old Japanese wa-		 Finnish minä
Estonian ma
Lappish mǭn
Mordvin mon
Udmurt mon
Khanty mä
------
Nenets mań
Enets mod́i
Tawgi mannaŋ
Selkup mat
we [1pp] Turkish biz
Tatar bez
Uighur biz
Turkmen bīz
Chuvash ebǝr
Tuva bis
------
Khalkha bid, ba, man-
Ordos man-
------
Evenki bu, mit
Manchu bō, mesǝ		 Finnish me (meid-)
Estonian me
Hungarian mi
thou [2ps] Turkish sen
Tatar sin
Uighur sän
Turkmen sen
Chuvash ezǝ
Tuva sen
------
Evenki si
Manchu šī		 Finnish sinä
Estonian sina
Lappish dǭn
Mordvin ton
Udmurt ton
Komi te
Hungarian te
------
Enets tod́i
Tawgi tannaŋ
Selkup tat

The term "mi-ti-an" is so 20th-century though. We are aware of common 1st, 2nd and 3rd pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, interro-relatives, and a list of distinct morphemes with clear functions attached to these pronouns (oblique *-n-, plural *-t and dual *-k for example), confirmed in at least four language groups: Indo-European, Aegean (Etruscan), Uralic and Altaic, thereby suggesting sound correspondences to work with rather than reinventing the wheel. Unfortunately, everyone wants to reinvent the wheel, sigh. But anyways, it's misleading to suggest this is just a matter of three similar-looking pronouns. This is a long list whose coincidence would be statistically implausible.

True, "Ural-Altaic" is dead, but the name only. Fortescue shows a stronger relationship between Uralic and Eskimo-Aleut and it's based on system comparisons, not just "mitian" (read Uralo-Siberian). A relationship of Uralic-Yukaghir-CK-EA to Altaic and IE (or even "Indo-Aegean") remains a thriving subhypothesis within Nostratic. If progress should seem slow, it's because anyone competent enough to make serious headway in this field and who enjoy thinkey things like grammatical structure or credible sound systems that don't defy all tendencies of human language (!!) inevitably end up corrupted by politics. That silly fear of being blacklisted a "Nostraticist". (For similar irrational human behaviour, see the term Communist as used in the Cold War Era.)

To suggest that all these so-called Altaic languages simply happen to borrow Uralic pronouns and that there is no reconstructable Proto-Altaic is based on the absence (or willing ignorance) of data. It's not tenable. Altaic shows *widespread* alternation of m- and b- in the 1ps as you can see in the table above; Uralic doesn't at all. Not even Yukaghir shows b-. So from whence Turkish ben or Evenki bi? Surely not Uralic. Uralic has no *s- in the 2ps; Altaic clearly insists on it. From whence Turkish sen or Manchu šī? Again, surely not Uralic. Anyone claiming such things evidently has never come across the term "multiplication of hypotheses" in their life. Yet, the similarities of the entire system are obvious.

Luckily for my position, *m- > *b- is a sound change observable in Southern Min dialects of Chinese and Guarani, provoked by nasal vocalism no less (ie: *m- > *m- in *mVN-, otherwise *m- > *b-... and likewise *n- > *d-). Sibilantization of /t/ to /s/ happens to be an exceedingly common sound change worldwide too. Ergo, the optimal way to explain the Altaic pronominal system properly is to A) acknowledge the logical necessity of a Proto-Altaic language family sharing distinct features in its pronominal system as shown above, and B) the Uralic and Altaic pronominal systems must ultimately be inherited from a common ancestor with pre-Altaic undergoing denasalization and sibilantization. Interestingly, it seems that pre-IE shares pre-Altaic's choice to sibilantize *t, at least in final position.

So when you're willing to confront these package of facts as a whole, let me know. Good luck. I'm rootin' for ya, hehe ;) --Glengordon01 13:23, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

The "mitian" phenomenon (including the kind of data you summarized above) is not considered valid evidence for drawing genetic conclusions by most linguists, because it is an instance of similarity instead of systematic correspondence, and the comparative method does not operate on similarities. Let's clarify this by taking a bit closer look at the Uralic data you presented.
Since the 1980s the understanding of Uralic historical phonology has grown much more precise than earlier, and espicially our understanding of vowel correspondences has progressed considerably. This increased knowledge has revealed an interesting detail of the singular 1p and 2p pronouns, first pointed out by Janhunen in 1981: there are actually two different cognate sets which do not regularly correspond to each other. The Saami, Mordvin and Samoyed pronouns you list above reflect Proto-Uralic *mun "I" and *tun "you (sg.)", whereas the rest of the items derive from front vocalic forms *mVnä "I", *tVnä "you (sg.)" (*mi/e/änä, *ti/e/änä); there is some inconsistency in the reflexes of the latter forms. This duality, which seems to go back to a very early stage, likely to the proto-language itself, has not been explained so far. Furthermore, there is strong evidence that the elements *-n and *-nä in these pronouns are petrified remnants of some case suffix or other secondary element, which consequently reduces the similarity to Altaic.
The crucial question here is: why should we believe that the Uralic pronouns you list reflect some entirely hypothetical Ural-Altaic forms, if they cannot even be demonstrated to reflect the same Proto-Uralic forms? For no reason, obviously, until regular sound correspondences are demonstrated between Uralic and "Altaic", which also validate the hypothetical connection between the pronouns. No one has ever demonstrated such correspondences.
As a general remark: if you consider it possible to demonstrate regular and systematic correspondences between Uralic and "Altaic" which validate a historical connection between these families, I suggest that you write a paper on this topic and submit it for review in a peer reviewed journal like Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen, or the like. If you, or anyone, can prove such a hypothesis to the general satisfaciton of specialists in the field, or even show that such a connection is likely, this would be a revolutionary finding in Uralic comparative linguistics.
Then a brief remark on this argument of yours: "If progress should seem slow, it's because anyone competent enough to make serious headway in this field and who enjoy thinkey things like grammatical structure or credible sound systems that don't defy all tendencies of human language (!!) inevitably end up corrupted by politics." Your constant playing of the politics card will not win your linguistic claims any credence; you should be aware that this is just a classic example of a fallacious argument. --AAikio 10:02, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
Write a paper, eh?... hmmm ;) It would be a long one. I'll do it on a dare. Place your bets, people.
In response to the rest, Ante, your beliefs are self-contradictory and disorganized so let's summarize why they are:
Contradiction #1 (Pronominal case markings prove Altaic is not related to Uralic)
1. Uralic languages show either of two pronoun sets (*mun/*tun vs. *mVnä/*tVnä'). (Jahunen 1981)
2. Despite, Uralic pronominal stems are securely *mV- and *tV- in both sets reconstructed.
3. You claim endings *-n and *-nä likely reflect case markings.
4. You then claim that these suffixes "consequently reduce the similarity to Altaic."
5. Pronominal case-shifts can and do occur (Eg: Guyanese English me for "I, me, my")
6. While Turkish shows nominative ben, many Altaic languages show *-n- in non-nominative cases (eg: Khalkha bi vs. minij).
7. So naturally, the petrified Altaic pronominal oblique case marker *-n-, to the contrary, increases likelihood of genetic relationship to Uralic.
Contradiction #2 (Politics in linguistics is heresy)
1. You imply linguistics is free of academic politics (or at least sufficiently free from it as to be trivial).
2. ad hominem: The act of attacking the person rather than the logical argument(s) stated by that person.
3. politics: The manipulation of individuals within a group in an attempt to save face at the expense of Reason.
4. You claim that those who mention the existence of such politics are alarmists and conspiracists.
5. You imply that dismissing such people in this manner is neither ad hominem nor politics as defined above.

I'll reply briefly to some of your points above:

  • "Despite, Uralic pronominal stems are securely *mV- and *tV- in both sets reconstructed." -- This is a mistaken interpretation. The point was that Uralic *mun and *mVnä have not been shown to have the same stems. *mV- is not a "stem", because the symbol *V is just an arbitrary cover symbol for any vowel. Moreover, even if a common proto-form *mV- and *tV- could be "securely reconstructed", your Ural-Altaic Gleichsetzungen would still consist of elements with a length of one segment only (as *V is just an arbitrary vowel and does not count for anything here), and furthermore without any demonstration of regular (i.e. recurring) sound correspondences involving those segments. In the framework of the comparative method such comparisons are methodologically invalid.
  • "Pronominal case markings prove Altaic is not related to Uralic" -- I said no such thing; what I said is that they reduce the similarity to Altaic. It is logically impossible to prove the absence of a genetic relationship; we discussed this already. The are notable discrepancies in the distribution of these supposedly petrified markers of the type *-n(V), and as far as their background is not reconstructed in more detail in each family, they consitute just a similarity, not a systematic correspondence.
  • "You claim that those who mention the existence of such politics are alarmists and conspiracists" -- You have not mentioned any plausible examples, but merely made obscure references to some kind of unspecified political agendas. Let's take an earlier argument of yours as an example: "anti-Altaic camp... are driven by irrational, political reasons rather than linguistic science and logic". What political reasons? Why? What political aim is prof. Juha Janhunen trying to achieve? What about the rest of the anti-Altaicists?

--AAikio 06:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

  • You say: "The point was that Uralic *mun and *mVnä have not been shown to have the same stems." The vocalism is a trivial issue as any linguist can see. How can two sets of pronouns with identical consonantism occuring within the same language not ultimately reflect the same stems? Would any competent IEist claim that athematic *kwi- is unrelated to its thematic counterpart *kwo- or that *so is unrelated to its feminine *seh2? Never. You're talking garbage again.
  • Then more craziness: "[...] your Ural-Altaic Gleichsetzungen would still consist of elements with a length of one segment only". Arbitrary nonsense. What recognized linguistic principle is this based on? None. Indeed, if your objection were linguistically valid, IEists would equally fail to recognize *n̥-, *h1e and *to-, the most basic elements of IE's reconstructed vocabulary! Now, you're really being daft!
  • You ask: "What political reasons? Why? What political aim is prof. Juha Janhunen trying to achieve? What about the rest of the anti-Altaicists?" The most common political reason in general has to be "pride". Peer pressure forces some to hold on to mistakes, trying endlessly to justify them. When you publish things in print, you can't change them once you make a mistake and that unsettles certain personality types. Sometimes the reasons are purely ideological (Example, Albert Einstein and his fight against the Uncertainty Principle). Bad, Albert! Bad! Other reasons could be nationalistic fervor, ethnocentricity, onset of dementia and too many others to count. Whenever beliefs are shown to be irrational, a bias is present in those that continue to believe it. Seems you've never heard the saying "Reader beware".
  • Your failure to rationalize the anti-Altaic viewpoint, combined with a wanton contradiction of mainstream comparative linguistics as you show above, strongly warrants my suspicion that the anti-Altaic position is more a religion than a view.

--Glengordon01 08:18, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

PS, if you want a real solution to the Uralic "mystery" of *mun/*mVnä instead of whining about, my instinct would be to check for analogical levelling, split ergativity and case shifting. Starting with nominative *mi/*tu, ergative *min/*tun and oblique *min-/*tin-, analogical levelling produces nominative-ergative stems *mu- and *tu- in pre-Uralic. Subsequent semantic shifts cause the marked ergatives to replace the unmarked nominative forms. The ergative-locative *minä and *tinä likewise shift in the same way to the nominative case, but retaining their oblique vocalism. The result is the vocalism "mystery" that you fret about. But hey, since my name isn't Juha, I know nothing ;) --Glengordon01 08:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Some brief comments:

  • "The vocalism is a trivial issue as any linguist can see." -- Brushing vowel irregularities under the carpet is just typical of long-range comparisons.
  • "How can two sets of pronouns with identical consonantism occuring within the same language not ultimately reflect the same stems?" -- Well, they probably are in some way ultimately connected. But we do not know how they are connected.
  • "Arbitrary nonsense. What recognized linguistic principle is this based on?" -- Calm down and read my comment again. What I said is that you're comparing elements consisting of one segment only, and that you have not shown any evidence of the regularity of the sound correspondences involving this one-segment form. This is what is methodologically invalid.
  • "most common political reason in general has to be "pride". Peer pressure forces some to hold on to mistakes, trying endlessly to justify them." -- This is a logically invalid argument. If you take a moment to reflect upon I'm sure you notice it.
  • "if you want a real solution to the Uralic "mystery" of *mun/*mVnä instead of whining about, my instinct would be to check for analogical levelling, split ergativity and case shifting." -- This is possible, but clearly there are also numerous other possibilites how the Uralic data could be explained. A clear problem for your hypothesis of vocalism analogy is that, as far as we know, there is no Uralic language which would have preserved both a front-vocalic and u-type variant. So we would have analogy in one direction or the other everywhere, which makes the claim at least close to ad hoc.

Then another thing. It does no good to your argumentation to keep on using this kind of rhetoric: "You're talking garbage again", "more craziness", "you're really being daft!", "nationalistic fervor, ethnocentricity, onset of dementia", "whining about", "the vocalism "mystery" that you fret about". It only makes it look like that you're running out of serious arguments and that I really managed to hit a nerve by suspecting Ural-Altaic. --AAikio 10:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Ante, as per all you've said above, you deny:

  • that Proto-Uralic pronominal system is adequately reconstructed despite all published facts,
  • that Uralic's pronominal stems exist at all,
  • that Altaic (a language group you admit is well outside your expertise) is even possible despite its comparanda,
  • that linguistics is free of politics (despite your demonstrated attitudes towards me and debate no less!)

Your entire position can be summed in one word: denial. From the start you not only deny that the sky is blue but feel that debate is an attack on your credibility. Then little Wiki-friends back you up with POV attacks. What is this immature nonsense of yours?

Yes, we will terminate this discussion but please stop purposely quoting others out-of-context to puff up your ego at the expense of others again lest you be accused of petty politics. Thank you for your time, goodbye. --Glengordon01 04:37, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proto-Altaic, how can anyone logically avoid it? (Original Research Tapdancers come out for encore)

Glengordon01, your argumentation here violates WP:NOR. Wikipedia is not a discussion forum for solving controversies, but rather a place to report various opinions of outside scholars on the controversies. Instead of going on these long-winded diatribes to make other editors believe the same things you do, please work to make the article reflect the opinions of all scholars, not your own suppositions. CRCulver 19:38, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

For example, look up Allan R. Bomhard and "Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis" (1996). He's also published work on relationships between Etruscan and IE. No, this is not "original research". It's frustrating that people continue to slander me as such simply because they themselves aren't full aware of what they're talking about.
PS, "long-winded diatribes"? This is directly insulting and most obviously violates NPOV. I can't cure your ADHD. If you feel it's too long, don't read it. But I can't bear to listen to yet another debate-troll give me yet another wiki-fascist "sky-is-red" response, denying any violations committed except my own.
The Ural-Altaic article simply should not be the sole undertaking of Ante Aikio and to be less POV it must be allowed to incorporate views from the pro-Altaic and even Nostratic camps. Anything less is the very bias that Wikipedia seeks to avoid. There? Is that what you want? --Glengordon01 05:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
Maybe I should also add: alternation of *b and *m is online in the late Sergei Starostin's vast online database. His Altaic reconstructions are directly searchable here: Tower of Babel - Altaic database. Under his entry for the Altaic 1ps pronoun *bĭ̀, he clearly comments: "An alternation *bi / *mi-ne- (sing.) ; *ba / *mi̯u-n- (plur.) should be reconstructed." While I object to a great deal of his reconstructions (as well as his uncomfortable biblical naming of his site), the alternation of *m and *b here remains self-evident to any first-year linguist student by that easily accessible PUBLISHED data as listed in my table above.
More PUBLISHED facts that relate to the phenomenon of word-initial denasalization connect it to assimilation/dissimilation with nasal segments in both Southern Min and Guarani where the not-so-common sound change occurs despite coy ignorance. Read!!! Denasalization of Ancient Initials — a phonetic based phonological analysis. Also Guarani language's article on nasal sandhi here on Wikipedia connects denasalization to nasal assimilation with other segments!
Clucking "original research" chickens without any clue of what's going on should be processed with the rest of the poultry in the meat factory. Oops, sorry if I'm being "politically" incorrect again. Just pop your Ritalin pills, you twats, and let Glen do your homework for you >;) --Glengordon01 20:14, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "What constitutes a language family"

A language family is by definition a set of languages that descend from a common genetic ancestor; hence I deleted the following passage as nonsense:

"That is the question which underlies the controversy about the hypothetical Ural-Altaic field, and the semi-hypothetical Altaic family of languages. Must languages descend from a common "genetic" ancestor to constitute a family; or is it possible for unrelated languages to intertwine with each other, owing to geographic proximity to one another, and thereby coalesce into a family or field of languages, as though by marriage?"

--AAikio 08:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Your definition of "language family" presupposes the concept of a "genetic ancestor". Unfortunately, opinions on how to define "genetic ancestor" in a linguistic contact are varied, and clearly the boundary between "sub/super/adstrate admixture" and "genetic ancestor" is fluid. it would have been enough to replace "family" with "group", and to point out the difference in opinions concerning the mechanisms of language contact. 18:21, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
This is not "my" definition of 'language family', but the generally accepted definition of it in comparative linguistics. I do not know what the varied opinions are you refer to. First of all, the assumption of a single genetic ancestor is implicit in the comparative method and cannot be rejected without rejecting the method itself. Second, contrary to your view, even in cases of heavy language contact it is in most cases possible to distinguish between genetic ancestry and borrowing (ad-, sub- or superstrate) and this is routinely done by comparative linguists. I do not see how mechanisms of language contact are related to this. --AAikio 16:25, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Linguistics and genetics, don't splice them together

I'm noticing that there's starting to be an obsession with genetics in this article. We need to be careful here. It's a layman tendency to confuse the topic of language origin and genetic origin together as if the two were synonymous. As I mention in the article itself with my recent add-ons, the two do not necessarily correlate. Often they don't at all.

I mean, just consider: If a Spanish-speaking Mexican moves to Canada to start a new life, he may learn English in the process. He may even, through time, forget how to speak his mother tongue and immerse himself completely in an English-speaking world. He's changed languages but his genes are the same! So it's frustrating to me to see people suckered by these half-brained genetic arguements.

Ural-Altaic is purely a linguistic theory. It doesn't concern geneticists whatsoever. So let's focus and start talking about the linguistics, not genetics and junk science. --Glengordon01 21:01, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I must say that attempting to wrestle the difficult issues into a consensus format isn't really an obsession. Much 19th century -based phrenology is found in even popular Finnish perception, not only in the net and in even academic sources. It is very important for a site like Wikipedia to introduce this problem and even refute the most obvious problems, such as the consensus in the linguistic community opposing this theory. Confusing genetics and linguistics is only one of these problems, and mentioning this is definitely necessary. --Vuo 21:58, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ural-Altaic former accepted pseudoscience?

Claiming that Ural-Altaic was once widely accepted in the 19th century, and then to say in the same sentence "as supported by the pseudoscience", seems like we're beating a dead horse. If it was accepted back then, it couldn't have seemed like "pseudoscience" to those at the time.

What exactly is pseudoscience in this context and in this timeframe? Isn't any past notion always at least in part pseudoscience because of modern advances? It's unfair to judge the past by modern standards, otherwise we could equally claim that IE was once supported by pseudoscience. --Glengordon01 21:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Revert

I reverted the following edit by Codex Sinaiticus the second time:

"The Ural-Altaic theory was the consensus in the 19th century and much of the 20th century, but is no longer accepted in the "new" thinking."

The Ural-Altaic theory has not been the consensus for "much of the 20th century". A small minority of specialists have supported it, and it has also been frequently mentioned in all kinds of secondary references written by non-specialists. Furthermore, it remains unclear what this "new thinking" is supposed to refer to, or why the word new is in quotation marks. --AAikio 10:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

First, might I suggest that part of the problem here is a confusion between THE Ural-Altaic theory exactly as it is named (which few would support now) and any similar theory under a myriad of other names like "Nostratic", "Eurasiatic", etc that attempts to demonstrate a common bond between Uralic and Altaic (whose proponents are collectively greater in number than those espousing THE Ural-Altaic theory). Of course, proponents of these two views taken collectively are most likely still a minority to those who feel that nothing is proven... but on the other hand, I don't remember anyone doing a poll on this ;)

Second, there should be a distinction between accepting the basic premise (that Uralic is likely to be related in some as-yet uncertain way to Altaic languages in part or in whole) and accepting more elaborate theories that attempt to prove this relationship with utmost certainty ("certainty" being a highly subjective term tossed around a lot by many linguists as though it had a common meaning). Chances are, those supporting the basic premise while feeling that it is unproven outnumber those who feel that it is proven.

Now, if we compare those that are absolutely dead-set against any Ural-Altaic connection whatsoever and those that are open to the mere possibility, yet again we may find the ratio to be different. I would dare say that there are far more in favour of agnostic openness than feverish opposition but this is probably because I have trouble accepting that science could be so horribly perverted nowdays as to tolerate closed minds.

Failing to disambiguate these hidden meanings of "Ural-Altaic" leads to a deception of how many truly support the basic premise vs. a more elaborate theory vs. THE theory. So when one is claiming that "Ural-Altaic" was supported in the 20th century, which one of the three interpretations do we read into this claim, or even into the rest of this swiss-cheese article? For that matter, which one of these do you mean, Ante? I assume you mean "Ural-Altaic" as in THE theory. --Glengordon01 11:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Let me explain what I mean by my edit. I mean that any book on linguistics you pick up from the 20th century will mention Ural-Altaic as if it were practically a fact. So will any encyclopedia. Pretending that this notion died out in the 19th century, when it didn't, is unadulterated POV-Pushing. (Literally, "pushing" the POV into the more distant past)... It wasn't taught all that long ago, because its what I learned myself in schools in the latter 20th century. And by contrast, the idea that Uralic and Altaic have no connections, that you claim is now suddenly the unquestioned majority, seems to be very new. What is the earliest source or reference you can cite for this idea that Uralo-Altaic is now inadmissible? I heard it first on wikipedia, to be quite honest. This will not be resolved until the article includes some references on the historiography of the theory. Simply stating that U-A is a quaint old 19th century view that unanimously fell out of favour in the year 1900, is going to be insufficient, and even seems rather dishonest - or maybe it's wishful thinking. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 17:07, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
Providing those references and displaying them on this article will really help balance things out. --Glengordon01 00:21, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Ok, now I see the idea behind this edit, and it is indeed true the Ural-Altaic idea has been widespread in all kinds of secondary sources for most of the 20th century. But it would be misleading to write that the Ural-Altaic theory has been "the consensus", if what is meant is that it has been the "consensus" among encyclopedia authors and linguists who write introductory textbooks but are not really specialists in the field in question. Scientific consensus is normally understood to mean the consensus of specialists in the relevant field, which is not necessarily the same as what is said in the majority of textbooks. So I suggest a rewording, maybe something like "During the 20th century, the majority of specialists became increasingly sceptical towards the Ural-Altaic theory, even though it continued to be mentioned as valid in textbooks and encyclopedias." --AAikio 08:14, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
In other words, certain people have appointed themselves to decide what everyone else is "supposed to think", and you're getting a bit impatient that everyone else isn't simply taking your word for it on faith, without actually seeing any evidence firsthand. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 16:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
First, to keep the point of this discussion in mind: your original edit included the claim that the Ural-Altaic theory has been the consensus for "much of the 20th century", and I reverted this for the reason that it is not true; i.e., there has been no such consensus. Second, in science the term specialist is entirely neutral and does not imply any self-appointed authority. A "specialist" in a particular field can be simply defined as a person who has published scientific research in that field. Because the majority of scholars in the field of Uralic and Altaic comparative linguistics have not supported the Ural-Altaic theory for "much of the 20th century", there has consequently been no "consensus" on this. This is just a description of the research history; I don't know where you got the idea that there is some kind of thought control behind this. --AAikio 03:40, 17 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and User:Wetman's paragraph entitled "Regarded by many" under NPOV: a neutral point-of-view is interesting to note when applied to this context. --Glengordon01 05:51, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An infobox necessary?

I don't think it's in any way necessery to create infoboxes for every obsolete theory in the world. (Unless of course the infobox is over ruled in red with the inscription "OBSOLETE" ;) which in turn would render the whole infobox a complete waste of effort and a source of "easy misinformation".) Clarifer 18:21, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I have difficulty understanding why you can't tolerate one simple infobox. I just find that useful, as I said, because of a certain better look in terms of layout, a quick summary of what the page is all about (this is a good thing and is the main motivation behind the idea of having infoboxes) and, for the sake of easy navigation. If that disturbs you because it looks like legitimizing a highly controversial (writing "obsolete" in all capital letters seems a bit like an overkill to me) language family, you could add "controversial" or "disputed" to the title. The infobox you reverted itself says that the family is highly controversial. And this fact is also clearly stated in the article, so please do not worry. I hope you could see that this is nothing more than a simple navigation / summary tool and I hope we could come to understand each other. I'm not reverting until we sort this out. Best regards, Atilim Gunes Baydin 19:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Hello, and thank you for your civil conduct! Very admirable! I think infoboxes are exactly what you described them to be: a fast tool for conveying information. What they should not be: a fast tool for conducting MISINFORMATION. Think of all the postulations, theories, beliefs and pseudoscience one could easily convey in a fast (mis)infobox giving the article a credible looking layout. There are no infoboxes in e.g. Indo-Uralic (hypothesis level), Geocentric model of the solar system (obsolete) nor does fire have an infobox as a Classical element (an obsolete theory). There's absolutely no benefit whatsoever from enlisting an obsolete or a highly speculative constellation such as a "Ural-Altaic language group" into an "infobox" as this would only unnecesserily highlight another dubious "theory". ;) Clarifer 14:09, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Hi again, I understand your concerns but the point is all those articles also could (and most probalby will) have their own infoboxes. And the fact that the Indo-Uralic article does not currently use this navigation aid does not make a case against using it here because Wikipedia is incomplete and it's constantly changing and that logic would definitely prohibit any change: think of a collection of articles to be updated with a newly invented feature, you could not start adding the feature to those because you could object to the first addition by saying that the feature is not in use in the similar articles. Anyway, sorry for the boring logic stuff.
Wikipedia aims to be an encyclopedia making use of the wiki markup language and the possibilites provided by the digital medium and every single article deserves navigation aids. An infobox is just a table of summary and a few links, and that's it. It certainly won't be (and, I believe, wasn't) a source of misinformation, itself clearly stating that the group is very much dubious and speculated (and obsolete, if you so much insist on that). There is no misinformation whatsoever in the article likewise. Regards, Atilim Gunes Baydin 20:37, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
The problem with "Ural-Altaic" as I've already pointed out is that it's too simple to state that the theory is obsolete. Only the name is, since it clearly survives in a modified form in Allan Bomhard's works on Nostratic. One may have misgivings towards it and Nostratic but to think that it's been conclusively disproved is wishful thinking on the part of those that feel strong emotions against the theory. --Glengordon01 21:47, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
And one more thing, by contrast, the geocentric model of the solar system is disproved in entirety by way of empirical science so it's easy to dismiss it now as pseudoscience. However, it's hard to "measure" something abstract like the relationship of two languages or language groups. It's because of this that linguists are often divided about these kinds of issues. Okay, I think I got everything off my chest now ;) Tschüs. --Glengordon01 21:51, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
Well, at least for me, the discussion under this section was more about a simple layout problem, rather than the nature of the theory. By the way, I'm reintroducing the summary table (or, infobox) to the article, since I think it does not provide any misinformation whatsoever. Regards, Atilim Gunes Baydin 23:13, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
The infobox will become a helpful tool of navigation as soon as the hypothesis of a Ural-Altaic language group becomes verified. Until then, it will be a source of easy misinformation and obsolete (just as the hypothesis itself). Clarifer 14:57, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
I maintain that there is no misinformation whatsoever provided by that infobox and I believe that you did not provide any solid evidence to the contrary. It very clearly states that the language group is controversial, and if you're saying that this is misinformation then it would mean that you actually don't think that the group is contorversial. I am putting it back and I very much regret that it has come to this. Regards, Atilim Gunes Baydin 22:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
Plase see e.g. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Johanna Laakso's homepage @ of the University of Vienna, Austria. [1] and moreover [2]. As the hypothesis has not been satisfactorily proven there's no point in presenting it in an infobox is there? (There's no distribution for a hypothesis, there are no sub groups for a hypothesis, the name only is not disputed but the whole concept etc. etc.). There's absolutely no necessity to consider this sort of speculation comparable to established language families such as the Indo-European or Sino-Tibetan or Finno-Ugric and put this speculation into an infobox. Clarifer 14:11, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, I thought you understood that I'm not even talking about the plausibility or acceptance of the language family. You see that kind of table called an infobox as a special thing reserved for established language families (or, like a stamp of acceptance) and I do not. This is the discussion here. Atilim Gunes Baydin 14:06, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Please realise that there are THOUSANDS of ill-founded opinions concerning any given thing (which even may/may have been popular at some time). An encyclopedia must not be too interested in random opinions but in researched and referenced facts. There is no point in filling Wikipedia with texts (infoboxes among other things) that only obscure the line between founded data and non-founded "information". Your infobox in the current version is as wildly misplaced here as an infobox with the header 'elements (disputed)' featuring fire, earth, air and water would be in the article on earth. I'm sorry for this. The idea of Ural-Altaic language group is not even disputed anymore: the clear majority of linguists think that: a) there is no such thing or b) there might be a connection but this can be understood in the frame work of an even larger macro family extending far beyond a mere ural-altaic connection. Therefore 'non-existent or obsolete' should be stated in the parentheses which in turn make the whole infobox very unnecessary. Perhaps you could think of another wording in the box and add more "would be"'s and "alledgedly"'s and "was thought to"'s or so? Clarifer 08:18, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

fwiiw, I am also opposed to the infobox. These infoboxes have a limited realm of usefulness, but they have a strong tendecy to spill beyond that. In this case, we do not need one, people can just look at the articles on Uralic and Altaic. Only undisputed, straightforward, bare-bone facts belong in infoboxes. It is not advisable or even possible to give satisfactory infobox summaries on disputed claims and half-truths. This is an article about a speculative linguistic hypothesis, and not so much about a "language family" and its speakes. The question must always be: what do we gain by an infobox. In this case, nothing. Infoboxes are for quick glances of basic facts. A reader going away with a quick glance of the respective distributions of Altaic and Uralic has learned nothing about the Ural-Altaic hypothesis, which is the topic of this article. Hence, the infobox does nothing towards summarizing information contained in this article. dab (ᛏ) 08:32, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why do all the Wikipedia pages view the Ural-Altaic superfamily as a hypothesis?

Most of the historical linguistics books that I have read and much research I have done has so much supporting evidence for it, yet Wikipedia pages seems to be controlled by the few linguists who are really against this theory. Korean and Japanese are accepted as Altaic by basically any linguist that has any knowledge of the languages.

Sources? -- Visviva 10:30, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Please see Univ.-Prof. Dr. Johanna Laakso's comments @ the University of Vienna for this. In essence: there is no satisfactory evidence of a special linguistic relationship between the Uralic and the Altaic languages. I'm sorry if your books are out-of-date. Clarifer 13:51, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

it is just that, a hypothesis. It isn't particularly loony, but it isn't really verifiable either. dab (ᛏ) 08:30, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A particularly Turkey related article?

I cannot see why this article should be considered such. Clarifer 15:10, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

I removed the tag claiming this article to be part of the Turkey project: think of how the talk pages of e.g. talk:Indo-European languages or more suitably the Talk:Indo-Uralic languages would look like if every country involved added such tags. Clarifer 15:34, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
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