Ural-Altaic languages
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The Ural-Altaic language family (also Uralo-Altaic) is an hypothetical grouping of the Uralic and Altaic language families into one field. The word Turanian has also been used to describe the Ural-Altaic field. The term is from the Persian word for places beyond the Oxus, Turān.
The Ural-Altaic grouping is speculative, as it has not been proven to the satisfaction of most linguists that there is any genetic relationship between the two language families, and even the existence of the Altaic group as one family is today questioned. This could be for lack of analytic opportunity, however. On the other hand, particularly the southern and central Uralic languages have been in extensive contact with Turkic languages, which introduces a risk of interpreting exchange arising from contact as a genetic relationship.
The Uralic languages family tree has three main groups, Finno-Permic, Ugric, and Samoyedic languages, and a relationship to Yukaghir languages has been proposed.
- The Finno-Permic languages are Komi, Komi-Permyak, Udmurt, Mari, Erzya, Moksha, Southern Sami, Ume Sami, Lule Sami, Pite Sami, Northern Sami, Inari Sami, Kildin Sami, Skolt Sami, Ter Sami, Estonian, Finnish (including Meänkieli or Tornedalian Finnish, Kven Finnish, and Ingrian Finnish), Ingrian (Izhorian), Karelian, Lude, Olonets Karelian, Livonian, Veps, Võro, and Votic.
- The Samoyedic languages are subdivided into northern and southern, including Enets, Nenets or Yurak, Nganasan or Tavgy/Tawgi, and Yurats (all Northern); Kamassian or Kamas and Selkup (both Southern).
- The two Yukaghir languages are called Northern Yukaghir and Southern Yukaghir.
The language families classed as Altaic always include the Turkic languages, Mongolic languages, Tungusic languages, usually include Korean, and commonly include the Japonic languages.
- The Turkic languages include Chuvash, Turkish, Azeri, Turkmen, Crimean Tatar, Urum, Qashqai, Khorasani, Salar, Gagauz, Khalaj, Tatar, Bashkir, Baraba, Urum, Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, Karaim, Krymchak, Kazakh, Karakalpak, Nogay, Uzbek, Uyghur, Lop, Kyrgyz, Altay,Yakut ,Tuvan, Khakas, Shor, Fuyü Gïrgïs, Chulym, Tofa, Dolgan, Western Yugur, and Northern Altay.
- The Mongolic languages include Khalkha (Halh) Mongolian, Urdus, Oirat (Kalmyk), Darkhat, Buryat, Khamnigan Mongol, Dagur or Daur, Monguor, Kangjia, Bonan, Dongxiang, Eastern Yugur (Shira Yugur), and Moghol.
- The Tungusic languages include Evenki, Even or Lamut, Oroqen, Negidal, Solon, Manegir, Nanai, Akani, Birar, Kile, Samagir, Orok, Ulch, Oroch, Udege, Manchu, and Sibe
- Korean is a language isolate.
[edit] Controversy
Most modern linguists argue that Uralic and Altaic have not been shown to bear any exclusive genetic relation (if the latter, as understood today, should itself be considered a language family at all), ascribing proposed similarities to coincidence or mutual influence resulting in "convergence". Some suggest the two families may instead be related through a larger family, either Nostratic or Eurasiatic, within which Uralic and Altaic are no more closely related to each other than either of them is related to any of this macrofamily's other members, e.g. Uralic with Indo-European or Altaic with Indo-European.
Others point out strong similarities in the pronouns of Uralic and Altaic languages. Other observations are that both Uralic and Altaic languages follow the principle of vowel harmony, are agglutinative (stringing suffixes, prefixes or both onto a single root), employ SOV word order, and lack grammatical gender (see noun class). However, typological similarities such as these do not, on their own, constitute evidence of a genetic relationship, as they may be a result of regional influence or coincidence.
The vowel harmony argument is sometimes used to justify the necessity of the Ural-Altaic family, but vowel harmony is found in other, unrelated language groups. Moreover, vowel harmony is a typological feature, and as such does not serve as evidence for genetic relationship.
There are also political motivations that have been unscientifically used to support or oppose this hypothesis. The Hungarians would welcome a linguistic relationship to Turkic languages, as the people itself has much Turkic ancestry. The Swedes had a political motivation to present the the Sami as "Asian", or an "inferior race". A linguistic connection was integral in demonstrating an Asian ancestry. Particularly important proponents of the politically motivated idea of "Finnic race" were Herman Lundborg and Gustav von Düben. Their work was based on craniometry: by finding "childlike" or retarded features in the skulls of Uralic-speaking peoples, they reached the conclusion that Uralic speakers are racially Mongolian, and recommended policies of colonization, eugenics and racial hygiene. [1] This was supported by the Swedish government: the government funded the Institute of Race Biology, where Lundborg produced his research. The Swedish eugenics movement was an important precursor to the Nazis. The Ural-Altaic theory was the consensus in the 19th century but is no longer widely accepted.
While DNA studies have shown that, despite the geographic isolation of the Finnish and Sami peoples, they are unambiguously related to other Europeans, the field of genetic science is far too often confused with the topic of language origins, often for the purpose of creating sensationalist rhetoric for both sides of the debate. It remains a fact that the direction of language spread and the direction of population spread do not necessarily correlate. Quite naturally, our mother tongue cannot be expressed in our genes but purely a matter of non-genetic, social factors. The existence of a Ural-Altaic stock must in the end be determined by linguistic means alone.
