Altaic languages

The term Altaic languages refers to a proposed language family linking three established linguistic groups of northern Eurasia: the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages. Some scholars have extended the hypothesis to include the Koreanic and Japonic families, forming a broader Macro-Altaic or Transeurasian grouping. Although these languages share several observable typological features—most notably agglutinative morphology, head-final syntax, and certain lexical parallels—the idea that they descend from a common ancestral language has been largely rejected by modern comparative linguistics. Most specialists today attribute their similarities to language contact within a long-standing Eurasian sprachbund rather than to genetic inheritance.

Overview of the Proposal

The Altaic hypothesis emerged in the eighteenth century when European scholars working in Russia observed resemblances among the languages of Inner Asia. Early formulations grouped Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic into a single family. With time, the proposal was broadened to include Korean and Japanese, leading to two versions of the theory:

• Micro-Altaic: Turkic + Mongolic + Tungusic
• Macro-Altaic / Transeurasian: Micro-Altaic + Koreanic + Japonic

The family takes its name from the Altai Mountains, which lie roughly at the centre of the geographical range of the three core language groups.

Reasons for Rejection

By the mid-twentieth century, detailed comparative work raised substantial objections:

• Invalid cognates: Many proposed shared roots could not be shown to be genuine inherited vocabulary.
• Lack of regular sound correspondences: Hypothesised phonological relationships between the branches were not supported.
• Evidence of convergence: Turkic and Mongolic in particular show patterns more consistent with borrowing and areal diffusion than with divergence from a common ancestor.
• Independent family integrity: Each of the traditional branches (Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic) shows robust internal reconstruction, but no overarching proto-system linking all three has gained acceptance.

Consequently, the Altaic family is now considered by the majority of linguists to represent a linguistic area rather than a genealogical unit.

A Sprachbund of Inner Asia

In the sprachbund model, shared characteristics arise from long-term contact, bilingualism, and cultural interaction, rather than common descent. Typically cited shared features include:

• Agglutinative structure with suffixing morphology
• Subject–object–verb (SOV) word order
• Postpositions rather than prepositions
• Vowel harmony in many languages
• Similar patterns in case marking and derivation

Because such features can spread readily through contact, they do not constitute decisive evidence for a genetic family.
Despite broad scholarly consensus against the genetic Altaic hypothesis, a small but persistent minority continues to work on reconstructing a supposed Proto-Altaic, notably within the Russian academic tradition. The idea also remains symbolically influential in Turanism, a multiethnic nationalist movement historically prominent in parts of Central Asia and Turkey.

Earliest Attestations

Although a genetic relationship among the Altaic languages is unproven, the historical records of the major branches are well documented.
Turkic

• Possible early Proto-Turkic elements appear in Chinese sources such as Shizi (c. 330 BC) and the Book of Han (AD 111).
• The earliest full Turkic texts are the Orkhon inscriptions (AD 720–735).

Tungusic

• The earliest attested Tungusic language is Jurchen, written from AD 1119 onwards with inscriptions surviving from 1185.

Mongolic and Para-Mongolic

• The earliest Mongolic inscription is on the Stele of Yisüngge (1224/5).
• The Secret History of the Mongols (1228) is the most important early literary monument.
• Para-Mongolic Khitan texts are earlier, with inscriptions dating from AD 986 and earlier finds from the sixth and seventh centuries (e.g., Bugut inscription, His Tolgoi inscription).

Japonic

• Names in Classical Chinese on artefacts such as the Inariyama Sword (5th century) mark the first attestations.
• Full texts begin with the Kojiki (712), Nihon Shoki (720), and Manyōshū (c. 771–785).

Koreanic

• Early Korean survives in fragmentary form via the Hyangga poems (originally from 57 BC – AD 668 but preserved in 9th-century orthography).
• Abundant and phonetically precise documentation dates from the fifteenth century onward with the invention of Hangul.

Historical Development of the Concept

The first recorded notion linking Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic comes from Nicolaes Witsen (1692), possibly influenced by a 1661 historical work by Abu al-Ghazi. In 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg presented a classification grouping these languages; although it is uncertain whether he intended to posit a genealogical family, later scholars took his grouping as foundational.
Nineteenth-century scholars such as Matthias Castrén expanded the model into a broader Ural-Altaic family. This included both Altaic (in the narrow sense) and the Uralic languages (Finnic and Samoyedic). While this idea lingers in some reference works, it has been discredited within historical linguistics. Even proponents of Macro-Altaic reject the Uralic connection, though the term “Ural–Altaic” is still used typologically to describe Eurasian convergence zones.

Micro-Altaic and Macro-Altaic Today

• Micro-Altaic refers to the core three families (Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic), totalling around 66 modern languages.
• Macro-Altaic adds Koreanic (Korean, Jeju) and Japonic (Japanese, Ryukyuan), giving around 74 languages, depending on classifications of dialects.