Ural-Altaic

 

(yʊrăl'ĭk, ăltā'ĭk) , two groups of related languages thought by many scholars to form a single Ural-Altaic linguistic family. However, other authorities hold that the Uralic and Altaic groups constitute two unconnected and separate language families. The Ural-Altaic tongues are spoken by over 150 million people, who inhabit discontinuously a vast area that reaches from E Europe across Russia and Asia to the Pacific Ocean. The Ural-Altaic family takes its name from the Ural Mts., which separate Europe and Asia, and the Altai, a central Asian mountain range, where the languages of this family are believed to have originated. The speakers of the Ural-Altaic languages apparently began to migrate from this original homeland to their present dwelling areas many centuries ago. If the Ural-Altaic tongues are regarded as forming one family, this family consists of two subfamilies, the Uralic and the Altaic. The Uralic subfamily can be divided into two principal subdivisions, Finno-Ugric (see Finno-Ugric languages) and Samoyedic. Speakers of the languages of the Samoyedic subdivision, over 30,000 in all, reside in NW Siberia and NE Europe. Samoyede is the chief language of this subdivision.

Two important features that characterize the Ural-Altaic languages, with few exceptions, are agglutination and vowel harmony. These two points of similarity have led a number of authorities to accept Ural-Altaic unity. In an agglutinative language, different linguistic elements, each of which exists separately and has a fixed meaning, are often joined to form one word. In these languages multiple suffixes are added to a root while prefixes are almost totally lacking. Vowel harmony refers to the agreement between the vowels in the root of a word and the vowels in the word's suffix or suffixes. Such agreement is illustrated in the Turkish words ev [house] and evde [at the house]; masa [table] and masada [at the table]. Thus, most suffixes have a double form, one with a front vowel (e.g., e, i, ö, ü) to correspond to a root with a front vowel, and one with a back vowel (e.g., a, ı, o, u) to match a root with a back vowel. Grammatical gender (with its distinctions of masculine, feminine, and neuter) is generally lacking in the Ural-Altaic languages. Stress varies in the different tongues. The Ural-Altaic languages also have a small common vocabulary consisting of basic words, among them some personal pronouns, some words indicating kinship (e.g., mother, father), and some words that denote plants and animals, name occupations, and the like. This rudimentary vocabulary is common to all the tongues and is considered by some to be additional evidence for Ural-Altaic unity. At the same time, speakers of the Ural-Altaic languages also borrowed words from the various tongues of other peoples with whom they came in contact.

Bibliography

See N. Poppe, Introduction to Altaic Linguistics (1965); B. Collinder, Survey of the Uralic Languages (2d ed. 1969).

The Ural-Altaic language family (also known as Uralo-Altaic) is an hypothetical grouping of the Uralic and Altaic languages into one field. The word Turanian has also been used to describe the Ural-Altaic field and its people. The term is from the Transoxiana, 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.^{[attribution needed]} 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.

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 Swedes had a political motivation to present 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 neotenous 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 Ural-Altaic theory was the consensus in the 19th century but is no longer widely accepted. Though the direction of language and population spread do not necessarily correlate to each other DNA studies have shown that despite the geographic isolation of the Finnish and Sami peoples they are unambiguously related to other Europeans. the existence of a Ural-Altaic stock cannot be expressed genetically but rather by non-genetic social factors, the field of genetic science is often confused with the topic of language origins for the purpose of creating sensationalistic rhetoric for both sides of the debate and often to support racial propaganda.

Languages

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, Merya, Muromian, Meshcherian, Southern Sami, Ume Sami, Lule Sami, Pite Sami, Northern Sami, Kainuu Sami, Kemi Sami, Akkala 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 Ugric languages are Hungarian, Khanty, and Mansi

• 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, Mator, and Selkup (these 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, and Tungusic languages. Some have proposed, largely on the basis of certain typological similarities, that Korean and the Japonic languages might be highly divergent Altaic languages, but this hypothesis is even more controversial than the more limited one that would group only the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages together.

• The Turkic languages include Chuvash, Khazar, Hunnic, Bolgar, Turkish, Azeri, Turkmen, Ottoman Turkish, Old Turkic, Afshar, Crimean Tatar, Urum, Qashqai, Khorasani, Salar, Gagauz, Khalaj, Pecheneg, Kipchak, Tatar, Bashkir, Baraba, Urum, Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, Karaim, Krymchak, Kypchak, Cuman, Chagatay, 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

• The Japonic languages are Japanese, Amami, Okinawan, Miyako, Yaeyama, and Yonaguni

• Korean is a language isolate.

Further reading

• Vago, R. M. (1972). Abstract vowel harmony systems in Uralic and Altaic languages. [Bloomington]: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
• Shirokogoroff, S. M. (1931). Ethnological and linguistical aspects of the Ural-Altaic hypothesis. Peiping, China: The Commercial Press.

See also

• Uralic languages
• Uralo-Siberian languages
• Altaic languages
• Nostratic languages
• Turanian Tribes

References

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