in East-Central Asia give their name to the proposed language family.
Origins The earliest known reference to a unified language group of Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages is from the 1692 work of
Nicolaes Witsen, which may be based on a 1661 work of
Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur,
Genealogy of the Turkmens. A proposed grouping of the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages was 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, he may not have intended to imply a closer relationship among those languages. Later proposals to include the Korean and Japanese languages into a "Macro-Altaic" family have always been controversial. The original proposal was sometimes called "Micro-Altaic" by
retronymy. According to Blench & Dendo (2008), most proponents of Altaic continue to support the inclusion of Korean, but fewer do for Japanese. Some proposals also included
Ainuic but this is not widely accepted even among Altaicists themselves. to which Macro-Altaic would add Korean,
Jeju, Japanese, and the
Ryukyuan languages, for a total of about 74 (depending on what is considered a language and what is considered a
dialect). These numbers do not include earlier states of languages, such as
Middle Mongol,
Old Korean, or
Old Japanese.
Uralo-Altaic hypothesis In 1844, the Finnish
philologist Matthias Castrén proposed a broader grouping which later came to be called the
Ural–Altaic family, which included Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu-Tungus (=Tungusic) as an "Altaic" branch, and also the
Finno-Ugric and
Samoyedic languages as the "Uralic" branch (though Castrén himself used the terms "Tataric" and "Chudic"). Indeed, "Ural-Altaic" may be preferable to "Altaic" in this sense. For example,
Juha 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."
Korean and Japanese languages In 1857, the Austrian scholar Anton Boller suggested adding
Japanese to the Ural–Altaic family. In the 1920s,
G.J. Ramstedt and
E.D. Polivanov advocated the inclusion of Korean. Decades later, in his 1952 book, Ramstedt rejected the Ural–Altaic hypothesis but again included Korean in Altaic, an inclusion followed by most leading Altaicists (supporters of the theory) to date. His book 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 that has since set the standard in Altaic studies. Poppe considered the issue of the relationship of Korean to Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic not settled. Since then, the "Macro-Altaic" has been generally assumed to include Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese. In 1990, Unger, emphasizing the need to establish language relationships rigorously "from the bottom up," advocated comparing Tungusic with the common ancestor of Korean and Japanese before seeking connections with Turkic or Mongolic. However, many linguists dispute the alleged affinities of Korean and Japanese to the other three groups. Some authors instead tried to connect Japanese to the
Austronesian languages. In 2022, Zheng Tiang et al. criticized Robbeets' view, stating that it suffers from fundamental problems, several contradictions, as well as non-replicable and invalid data. They found no empirical support for either a "Transeurasian" language family, nor for associating the five different language families with the spread of Neolithic farmers from the
West Liao River region. In 2023,
Juha Janhunen affirmed that Japonic and Koreanic are completely unrelated to "Micro-Altaic":
The Ainu language In 1962, John C. Street proposed an alternative classification, with Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic in one grouping and Korean-Japanese-
Ainu in another, joined in what he designated as the "North Asiatic" family. The inclusion of Ainu was adopted also by James Patrie in 1982. The Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic and Korean-Japanese-Ainu groupings were also posited in 2000–2002 by
Joseph Greenberg. However, he treated them as independent members of a larger family, which he termed
Eurasiatic. The inclusion of Ainu is not widely accepted by Altaicists.
Early criticism and rejection Starting in the late 1950s, some linguists became increasingly critical of even the minimal Altaic family hypothesis, disputing the alleged evidence of genetic connection between Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages. Among the earlier critics were
Gerard Clauson (1956),
Gerhard Doerfer (1963), and Alexander Shcherbak. They claimed 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.
Modern controversy A major continuing supporter of the Altaic hypothesis has been
Sergei Starostin, who published a comparative lexical analysis of the Altaic languages in 1991. He concluded that the analysis supported the Altaic grouping, although it was "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". In 2003,
Claus Schönig published a critical overview of the history of the Altaic hypothesis up to that time, siding with the earlier criticisms of Clauson, Doerfer, and Shcherbak. and by Alexander Vovin in 2005. Other defenses of the theory, in response to the criticisms of Georg and Vovin, were published by Starostin in 2005, Blažek in 2006, Robbeets in 2007, and Dybo and G. Starostin in 2008. In 2010,
Lars Johanson echoed Miller's 1996 rebuttal to the critics, and called for a muting of the polemic.
List of supporters and critics of the Altaic hypothesis The list below comprises 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 supporters of the theory, 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.
Major supporters •
Pentti Aalto (1955). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean. •
Anna V. Dybo (S. Starostin et al. 2003, A. Dybo and G. Starostin 2008). •
Frederik Kortlandt (2010). •
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. •
Peter Benjamin Golden •
Martine Robbeets (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2015, 2021) (in the form of "Transeurasian"). •
G. J. Ramstedt (1952–1957). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean. •
Georgiy 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". •
Talât Tekin (1994). Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean. •
James Patrie (1982) •
Joseph Greenberg (2000–2002).
Major critics •
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) The term "Micro-Altaic" or "Core-Altaic" is widely used for the grouping of Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages, while Macro-Altaic refers to a broader grouping that also includes Koreanic and Japonic. ==Arguments==