Talk:Altaic languages/Archive 1

Just A Few Suggestions

 * David, some notes on the consonant/vocalic correspondences don't use the SUP commands and look weird.
 * All notes (especially on phon. correspondences) could be clickable (I can make them clickable if you wish)
 * As for the morphological correspondences, I would use either of the following strategies (for better lucidity):
 * Put the Altaic proto-morpheme into one column, and its meaning into another column
 * You could do the same thing for daughter proto-languages, but that would result in too many columns, hence:
 * Those morphemes which differ in function from that reconstructed for the Proto-Altaic, could use notes (instead of bracketed explanations).

--Pet'usek [petr dot hrubis at gmail dot com] 18:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
 * The same for the cognate tables. Also, if there are more forms, I would choose only one, moving the rest to the notes. You can make a separate column for comments and explain the superscript numbers therein.
 * Sometimes you could use the < BR > in the tables, too...

87.80.9.63 (talk) 04:52, 31 January 2008 (UTC) --T O'Connell 12.43 20 April 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.193.3.253 (talk) 11:43, 20 June 2008 (UTC)
 * This article is very long with far to much abtruse detail. It should be cut back dramatically to work as an encyclopaedia article. Remember that the primary purpose of an encyclopaedia is to impart succinct, informed and accurate information to people who may not anything about the subject. This article reads more like an essay intended to be read by experts and, judging by the discussion, a controversial one at that.
 * Seconded, either the sound correspondences tables be moved into their own article or deleted altogether, seeing as the information they provide is confusing and strange out of context.

Comments
You guys really need to get your facts straight, this is one the reasons why Wikipedia will never become a 100% trusted source of information. For one the theory that Japanese is part of the Altaic family is a theory that died out among linguists in the early 1900s, the most accepted theory is that Japanese is in the Japonic language family and there is NO linguist out there worth his weight that claims Japonic to be a part of Altaic. Please look up the facts before spattering them online, thank you.

This is a purely amateur opinion.

Linguists may not have proven a genetic relationship of Japanese or Korean, but the syntax is so similar I was able to learn it quickly simply by plugging the words into the same place they would be in Japanese (a language I have written 7 books in). If the relationship is only a "sprachbund," I wonder how it is so close a fit structurally speaking. Could we have genetic relationships which involve more than one parent and include some borrowing by contact so that this is not an either/or matter?

In respect to the non/existance of a Altaic language family, an anecdote:

In an Indian grocers in London I heard some men talking at work in the back of the store and asked if they spoke Tamil. They said ""yes," do you know Tamil?" I said, "No, this is the first time I have ever heard it."

Yes, I knew it because Tamil sounded just like Japanese (Niigata prefecture, to be exact). I had heard Tamil was Ural-altraic and what do you know!

robin d. gill "Rise, Ye Sea Slugs!"


 * I m not professional linguistic either, but so far what I know, similar syntax is not very strong proof for genetic realtonship between languages. Also Tamil is not Ural-Altaic, but Dravidian language. I think this article is still slightly POV. Altought Ural-Altaic hypothesis has strong supporters, majority of the linguistics do not favor this idea. I will do some editing and if someone has objections, please bring them up here.--Kulkuri 09:29, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * I strongly disagree with the claim that Altaic is mainly based on similar syntax and typology; it is practically a slander on the many linguists who have put together collections of Altaic roots, and indeed reconstructions, one of which I have linked to below. While I agree that most linguists probably don't favor the idea, I am not at all convinced that that applies to the majority of historical linguists, or of linguists working on these languages.  The case against Altaic needs to be made too, but not by attacking claims that Altaicists haven't made. - Mustafaa 20:24, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for edits and feedback. Especially history of altaic theory is useful. I will do some editing later, perhaps splitting article in two paragraphs (pro and against altaist theory). Right now I will take few weeks holiday from wikipedia and other duties.--Kulkuri 07:22, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That sounds great - I'll be interested to see what you come up with! - Mustafaa 07:29, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm.... and how about that unrealistic map that accompanies this article? Kurds of eastern Turkey--an Indo-European speaking people, are painted green like Turks, and so is the entire eastern half of northern Siberia too! Russians---another Indo-European speaking people, constitute the vast majority of the inhabitants in those areas, with the Altaic Yakuts forming just a small minority.

Maps are supposed to be helpful in clarifying things not mislead people. But try to drive this home with all the bourgeois nationalists who inhabit Wikiland.

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.131.180.206 (talk) 01:49, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

reworked opening paragraph
I have, er, "improved" the opening paragraph. I felt that "controversial" is best used for something whose existence is accepted but whose importance or value is debated, and have replaced it with "putative", which I believe better indicates that some people just don't believe in it. Likewise I have rephrased other points for consistency with this state. I do not claim that the original was insufficiently NPOV, and I do not believe I have increased or decreased the level of scepticism within the article, but rather used terms more consistently conditional.

Also I've reworked the bullet list into a sentence, the better to increase symmetry with the latter items, rather than have three items bulleted and three not.

Sharkford 22:12, 2004 Oct 20 (UTC)

A recent anon edit on Ural-Altaic languages
...which I rejected as off-topic there, but is more relevant here, and informative, if highly POV. - Mustafaa 04:09, 21 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * There are two main schools of thought about the Altaic theory. One is that the proposed constituent language families (Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic in the basic theory; with the addition of Korean and Japanese in extended 'Macro' versions) are genetically or 'divergently' related by descent from a common ancestor, 'Proto-Altaic'. The other school rejects this theory (so it is often called the 'Anti-Altaic' school) and argues that the member languages are related by convergence (mainly loan influence). The adherents of the divergence theory reject the criticism of the 'convergence' theorists, but they have not been able to overcome some flaws pointed out by the critics that essentially disprove the 'divergence', or traditional 'Altaic' theory. The continued popularity of 'Altaic' nevertheless exceeds that of the Flat Earth theory. Some adherents of the theory note strong similarities in the pronouns and other elements of the proposed members of the family and argue that the languages may even be related through a larger family such as Nostratic, but this is popular linguistics and wishful thinking that distorts or ignores the scientific principles of historical-comparative linguistics. The 'Altaic' and 'Ural-Altaic' theories are based on typology and loanwords. Both Uralic and 'Altaic' languages do follow the principle of vowel harmony, are agglutinative (stringing suffixes, prefixes or both onto a single root) and lack grammatical gender (see noun case). However, this is not evidence of genetic relationship. Unfortunately, genetic (divergence) theories are much more popular than convergence theories. No scholar of the convergence school has written a thorough monograph on the debate, citing the scattered, rather obscure scientific literature and examples.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ural-Altaic_languages"

References are a bit out of date, I'm afraid
The citation of Comrie (1981) is out of date and may be misleading. Comrie seemed to follow Greenberg and Ruhlen in believing that Altaic was too narrow a group. In any case, in The Atlas of Languages, rev. ed., (2003), Comrie et al. include Altaic as a language family. See page 38, where Altaic, Uralic, and Indo-European are postulated as part of the larger Eurasiatic group. For more, see pages 46-49, which shows that Comrie et al. clearly accept Altaic but are not sure about the affiliation of Korean and Japanese. This affiliation is strongly advocated by Miller (1995) in Languages and History, an excellent summary of the Altaicist position, showing its basis in phonology and morphology (sounds and words) rather than relying on syntax and loanwords.

Most opponents of the "Altaic hypothesis" apparently are specialists in Indo-European. See Winfred P. Lehmann (1962/1997) p. 86 but compare to p. 87. Lehmann says "such proposed relationships...are not based on evidence obstained through the comparative method..." which suggests he has not read Miller. Roger Lass (1997) actually seems quite upset that anyone would propose "Altaic", but he singles out Greenberg and Ruhlen in Scientific American (1992) and R. Wright in Atlantic Monthly (1991) for scolding. He makes no mention of Miller. However, both Lass and Lehmann refer to Lyle Campbell's article in Philip Baldi (ed.) Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology (1990). I haven't had a chance to read this, because I live in Taiwan and don't have access to a good library; I will, however, try to read it this summer when I am back home (USA).

Taking the "pro" side, Aleksandra Steinbergs in an article in Grady et al. (1996) claims there is "substantial evidence that Korean and Japanese are also members of the Altaic family." (pp. 396-7).

Finally, when I clicked on Roy Miller, there was no article. When I checked the web, there were so many entries under that name that it was difficult to sort for the right one. I propose using his full name, Roy Andrew Miller, which narrows the web search considerably (but still leaves some sorting to do). I will shortly prepare an article on Miller for Wikipedia; the problem is finding out where he is and what he's doing now. Any suggestions? Retired in Hawaii? Teaching in Norway?

As for the discussion of affiliations, I worry about the problem of loanwords coming into play. Both Japanese and Korean borrowed heavily from Chinese, especially nouns and verbs. Anyone who has studied Japanese can see remnants of this in the use of kanji; kana are used to show inflections and postpositions, making the division clear. Korean is not so clear, but as a student of Chinese I often use the loanwords to figure out the meaning of Korean sentences. The fact that Japanese and Korean have very similar patterns (syntax) is also interesting. Postpositions in both languages follow very similar rules and even sound the same. This, of course, may be due to borrowing. Both Korean and Japanese may have had different syntaxes long ago, the way Old English did. Without records, we cannot be sure. This is what makes Miller's work on reconstruction so informative and helpful.

--Monty 02:34, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Thank you for these thought-provoking points! It would be great if you could edit them into the article. - Mustafaa 20:13, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * I made a few minor modifications to the "controversy" part of the text. Monty 23:51, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)Monty

The footnote given after the parenthetical reference regarding Dr. Vovin's change of opinion does not lead the reader anywhere. The statement is accurate, however.

Updating information
I will tackle the editing shortly. I'm also waiting for a journal article and a recent book on the subject to arrive. Monty--163.28.81.2 08:54, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Why are the PIE experts so hard to convince that Altaic family exists?
This is the crux of the problem. Staunchest opponents of the Altaic theory do not know the languages involved. Turkish and Mongolian are so similar that dismissing a genetic relationship is like denying the genetic relationship of identical twins. On the other hand, the same experts lower the bar so low so that the extinct Anatolian languages can be admitted to IE. It is hard not to see the racist undertones in this general approach. Especially when "white" people speak a non-indo-european language there just isn't any interest in their languages and experts quickly annnounce that these languages are language isolates, suggesting that academic interest in such languages would not be a good career move. And about the non-white people's languages, well, frankly, these experts' time is too valuable to waste on such things.

Wikipedia could be most effective in such controversial topics by listing the facts and creating an enviroment where new knowledge is created. Turning Wikipedia an imitation of Encyclopedia Britannica by repeating what experts say is not doing justice to the power of this interactive medium.

By the way "A Board of Trustees" for Wikipedia is really a bad idea. -- Wait a minute. What you say about dismissing the relationship of Turkish and Mongolian is very true, and then you go on a tangent and make some icky comments that I feel the need to oppose.

Admitting the extinct Anatolian languages into IE can't seriously be called "lowering the bar" in any context. In fact, Anatolian is providing us with a wealth of new insight into Proto-IE. Hittite and the Indo-European Verb by Jay H. Jasanoff is still blowing my mind. Believe me, the inclusion of Anatolian raised the bar for IE.

Second of all, any educated IEist worth anything understands that Indo-European languages aren't quote-unquote "white languages". Indo-European covers everything from Pashto to Swedish. That's a pretty broad range of human skintones if you ask me! Any true racist simply couldn't be a recognizable IEist nowdays without having a major sense of conflict with known facts. They would inevitably become some nutty maverick off to the side claiming that Sweden is the true homeland of the IE or some crazy thing. And certainly Altaic et alia are not 'non-white languages' unless you can somehow explain what 'white' even means. Again, Altaic-speaking peoples have various physiologies and skintones. Let go of the "us-versus-them" mentality. IEists aren't out to destroy Altaic studies ;) However, perhaps if there is racism, it involves what the general masses are spending their time on. They will tend to gravitate to IE because there is so much more written about it, while Uralic and Altaic gets put to the side. And of course, there are those hardcore racists drawn to IE because of its unfortunate spinoff theories by the NAZIs and the bible-based Japhetic nonsense otherwise long since buried in IE Studies History.

But I'd bet that the obsession over IE instead of Uralic or Altaic is not so much because of any racist intentions on anyone's part so much as the fact that IE languages enjoy a longer written history than most other language groups. Semitic also has a long written history and much is known about that group and Proto-Semitic. Altaic does not have such a long written history.

Thirdly, a board of trustees idea is what I was thinking of too. I like the name :) It seems like a natural evolution of things. And I support your idea that new knowledge could be created. Perhaps people could be organized into 'organized projects' of sorts. Not just these simple "entry projects". It would really band people together towards various causes or interests. It would be a step up from this plain ol' Wikipedia thing ;) --Glengordon01 05:51, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

--

Are two separate disputes being had here?
It seems to me that wikipedia is oddly dubious of the Altaic languages, to an extent that is not true for similarly controversial language groups like, say, Nilo-Saharan. For instance, Category:Altaic languages is a member of Category:Proposed language families, which warns us to be careful of using it. Altaic is surely not a proposed language family in the same way as the Nostratic languages, or even the Elamo-Dravidian languages. Altaic has been accepted as a language family for a long time, and is generally listed as such in standard reference works. It seems as though a much more controversial issue - "should Korean and Japanese be included in Altaic?" - is being confused with the question - "should Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages be combined into Altaic?" While there is dispute about both questions, it seems as though the former theory has never reached the status of being generally accepted; while the latter was generally accepted, but is now being challenged. I think our treatment of both controversies should be to err on the side of the established convention - that is, of an Altaic language family that only includes Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic. This should be the baseline position given in the article, and controversies on both sides should be mentioned - is the group not broad enough? Is the group nonexistent? john k 18:14, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

--

Well said. Personally, I don't see what the fuss is about with Altaic. Even if it's a sprachbund, there is absolutely something left under all this rubble that can be still be called "Altaic". I think you're dead on about the "arguement confusion" and your suggestion is very reasonable to me. --Glengordon01 05:57, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

--

Edit on opening paragraph
I am merging the second and third sentences in the opening paragraph

"The relationships among these languages remain a matter of debate among historical linguists, and the existence of Altaic as a family is rejected by many. Some scholars consider the obvious similarity between these languages as genetically inherited, others propose the idea of the Sprachbund."

into

"The relationships among these languages remain a matter of debate among historical linguists, and some scholars consider the obvious similarity between these languages as genetically inherited, others propose the idea of the Sprachbund."

which enables the paragraph to sound more neutral while still strongly stating the doubt on its existence. My reason for this edit was that in the previous version, there was no information on the number of Altaic family proponents, only a mention of that it "is rejected by many". This asymmetry was also incompatible with the statement

"The Altaic theory is supported by many linguists, but many other linguists (eg Doerfer 1963) do not regard Altaic as a valid group"

later in the article. Atilim Gunes Baydin 12:48, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

More 'accessible' intro paragraph

 * As a non-linguist, may I suggest that this would be more understandable, without sacrificing meaning:

"There remains a scholarly disagreement among historical linguists as to the nature of the relationships between these languages, and the existence of Altaic as a distinct family of languages is a matter of linguistic debate. Some linguists consider that the obvious similarity between these languages points to their being genetically related, while other linguists consider that such similarities are a result of linguistic convergence and propose the idea of the Sprachbund."


 * While longer, I think it better explains the underlying concepts, as befits an introduction to an encyclopedia article, bearing in mind that this article will be read by those with no background in linguistics, as well as experts. User:Pedant 19:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Martin deleted
"In fact, its proponents have put together a large variety of grammatical, lexical, and syntactic regular correspondences between the sub-groups of Altaic (e.g., Ramstedt, Poppe, MARTIN, Starostin)."

Martin did in fact contribute very much to the discussion of the Altaic theory (namely, Korean and Japanese), but he isn't a proponent of the Altaic theory. Nowadays, he isn't even so sure about Japanese and Korean any longer, so he shouldn't be mentioned in a sentence like this.

content
i dont find the article incredibly useful it has very little information

Ural-Altaic, IE, Hungarian and Turkish
On the whole, I agree with most of Gordonglen's opinions on the subject - It is important to let go of the "us-versus-them" mentality and consider the issue with objectivity.

The "Altaic" problem has three sides to it:
 * The political perspective
 * The scientific perspective
 * The practical problems

The political perspective is that the "Pan-Turkic" movement (still kept alive in various countries) has its roots in the 19th century and the Ural-Altaic language group. If the Ural-Altaic hypothesis is generally accepted, the idea can be revitalized. ( For example, the common cultural ancestry of all Turkic speaking peoples and Mongolians, and Finnish and Hungarians could be traced to the Hsiang-Nu Emprise of the Asian Steppes. ) On the other hand, the PIE hypothesis could be used to support the Huntington claim of Clash of Civilizations thus: The IE ethnic group could be claimed to have intrinsic values that allows it to prevail, these values are shown in religion, daily life and are progressed through centuries by language; and the superiority of the IE culture can be claimed to be proven by the geography that it has expanded to. This problem arises when the language family is equated with an ethnic group - a speculative approach with dangerous political consequences: See Paleolithic Continuity Theory for an hypothesis claiming that IE *did* originate in Europe. Also see Genetics section under Proto-Indo-Europeans. (Contrary to what may appear to be the case, there is a claim that IE originated in Europe in the Paleolithic period, and it can have political consequences.) Fact is, that language families, apparently a harmless scientific subject, can become tools for right-wing policies when they are equated with ethnic groups, cultural spheres or races.

Both political views are way too much distorted and senseless to be considered seriously in academic circles; but both ideas have a chance gaining popularity - with 'masses general' as Glengordon puts it.

The scientific perspective is that the comparative linguistics is insufficient to explain certain cases in languages. I am also an amateur, however the following example could be good for explaining the dilemma: In modern Turkish, (Altaic family) the singular pronouns are as follows: Ben, sen, o. (3rd being neutral sex.) The Hungarian (Uralic family) singular pronouns are: En, Te, ö. (pronounced "o," same as the Turkish equivalent.) Here is the problem: The 1st and 3rd pronouns may suggest common ancestry. However, the 2nd pronoun could suggests otherwise. Pronouns are very basic word forms and are not usually borrowed. Therefore, the situation does not have sufficient evidence to suggest common ancestry, but borrowing is not a viable explanation as to the existence of common fundamental vocabulary.

On the other hand, the comparative linguistics method has been most succesful with the IE family, in a sense, the best support for comparative linguistics comes from the language family that gave rise to the theory. Imagine an alternate scenario where the theory for linguistic ancestry could have been developed by people speaking Nilo-Saharan family languages: Perhaps they would have considered a different methodology to find common ancestry?

The practical problem with the Altaic language family studies contitutes three issues: First, agreeing with Glengordon, IE enjoyed a much longer period of written texts. Second is the lack of texts in the given time period. The third is a general lack of interest: The IE languages were written with various alphabets, so common roots could be determined only after these different alphabets were transcribed in the modern latin alphabet. This is yet to be done for the Uralic and Altaic families.

For this page, I think it is best to mention that mainstream linguistics consider Uralic and Altaic families to be separate groups, but also to mention the Ural-Altaic hypothesis. It is certainly not a good idea to merge the pages: They should stay separate pages. This is also the framework for various common ancestries suggested for PIE, such as the Afro-Asiatic, Indo-Uralic and Proto-World.

On a side note: Hittite and Luvi *are* Indo-European. No "bar" is involved, in fact, Hittite is *the* language that supported the IE family in the sense that the theoretical basis for laryngels (proposed before Hittite was deciphered) was quote-unquote proven by Hittite. -- User:Sinanozel {timestamp} --
 * Ante Aikio claims on Talk:Ural-Altaic languages that the Ural-Altaic hypothesis is "dead" and "rejected". I assume you're referring to this? To me, "rejected" implies that the theory is disproven, which it of course isn't. A scientifically objective way of stating the status of Ural-Altaic is: "Ural-Altaic is insufficiently proven to the satisfaction of mainstream linguists". Also, Ural-Altaic may be a dead name but it's hardly a dead theory since it continues to thrive on in the form of a subhypothesis of the larger Nostratic family. So we should really perhaps be mentioning "Nostratic" not "Ural-Altaic" per se.


 * The dismissal of Uralic-Altaic comparisons is due more to a fundamental denial of Proto-Altaic itself by a vocal group of conservative extremists. Afterall, by denying Proto-Altaic altogether, it slyfully undermines any comparison of Uralic to a now-conveniently "non-existent" protolanguage. A delightfully orwellian tactic :) I've noticed extreme conservatives play mindgames by purposely abusing the term "mass comparison" to vilify anything produced by an opposing camp.


 * The pronominal systems of Uralic and Altaic are clearly related somehow because of not only the "mi-ti-an" pattern noticed long ago, but an entire set of deictic and interro-relative pronouns too, as well as the presence of a trace pronominal oblique case marker *-n- in both families. IE and Etruscan can even help to confirm all of these same patterns. Allan R. Bomhard has published ample stuff on this but I may be ignorant of other lesser known individuals who have as well. No sensible linguist thinks that it's unlikely that Uralic *mun ~ *minä (Jahunen) would be unrelated to Altaic *bi and its oblique stem *min- (Starostin) because these similarities are part of a larger structural context (namely specific similarities within an entire pronominal system that as a whole cannot likely be due to chance anymore).


 * If sound correspondences between Uralic and Altaic haven't been well laid out to this day, it is in my view strictly because of linguist politics that hold the field down by constantly propping up a petty war between narrow-minded conservatives and out-to-lunch mavericks. Somewhere in between are the victims of moderateness and honest science. I've already noted, for example, that the Altaic *m/*b alternation is a specific pattern attested in a few languages like Southern Min and the Guarani language where it is particularly associated with "nasal harmony" . In other words, we can see by comparison with real-world languages that *b in Altaic *bi must be from earlier *mi in order to explain the preservation of *m in the oblique *min- where a following *n is coincidentally present. Pre-Altaic nasal harmony is the only rational cause of this pattern based on my observation. That's how internal reconstruction is done. This common sense helps to balance out one-sided accusations by anti-Altaic denialists.


 * As for your whole apologetic self-described amateur thing, User:Sinanozel, hold your head up high. Never dismiss yourself as an amateur because that implies that there's actually a point when we're not. Modesty is a bad habit :) Not one of us knows everything. And consider: Should education only count if you pay for it? Is blindly following a pre-defined curriculum better than a self-directed education requiring a greater initiative and zest for knowledge? University is not set up to produce society's problem-solvers. A PhD is just a status symbol. While I'd love to live in an utopia, we have to accept that PhDs don't necessarily prove that their holders know what they're talking about. --Glengordon01 02:56, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

--

Question
"who now rejects a genetic connection between Korean and Japanese" In the above passage what does the term genetic mean? User:Pedant 17:09, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


 * That they are descended from a common ancestor. --Ptcamn 18:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Would that passage be equivalent to: "who now denies that the Korean and Japanese languages are derived from a common Language family" ?  I'm trying to wrap my brain around this article.  Thanks for your help User:Pedant
 * Yes, it would. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * 11:11, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Except that "deny" can imply "lie", while "reject" can't. Because we have no reason to suspect that Vovin is dishonest, to use "deny" would not be a good move.
 * To be pedantic myself: it would be "derived from a common ancestor", "derived from the same protolanguage", or "part of the same language family". David Marjanović 21:01, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Altaic Controversy
According to major reference works, everbody agrees on Turkic, Tungus, and Mongolian families. These language families have some common words and they are typologically similar. Whether they are genetically related or not is the subject of ongoing research. The similarities could be result of long-term contact.

All languages are influenced by languages they are in contact with. According to the standards set by linguists, languages that make up a family must show productive-predictive correspondences. The shape of a given word in one language should be predictable from the shape of the corresponding word, or cognate, in another language. Turkic, Tungus, and Mongolian satisfies all these similarities.

I do not agree with the idea that the Anti-Altaic hypothesis necessitates total abandonation of the Altaic one. This Altaic Language article seems to me a propaganda of the Anti-Altaic hypothesis rather than an objective comparison of the two.

The family name "Altaic" is a commonly used terminology to label these languages. Turkic, Tungus, and Mongolian are still Altaic regardless of exact status of Altaic is. The dispute is a minor issue among a small circle of specialists. Furthermore, even these specialists use the term Altaic to label, especially, for these three language groups. e104421 7 September 2006, 00:47 (UCT)


 * I completely agree with E104421. While I personally haven't seen any compelling evidence for an Altaic connection, I don't believe that the label is useless.  I've seen just as little evidence for the Niger-Congo language family and have seen very good arguments against the unity of the Uralic family, yet there's little dispute over whether or not they're useful labels.

Additionally, I agree that the emphasis in this article should be on Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic. Starostin's connection of Korean and Japanese to Altaic are much more controversial than previous definitions of the family and should possible get their own section within the article, rather than being lumped with the more established branches. Straughn 14:38, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok, first of all a brief note on the Altaic issue. Having thought about it, I now agree with E104421 that the discussion on the controversy should go to Altaic languages. And while this may be beside the point, I have to ask user Straughn: what are the these supposedly "very good arguments against the unity of the Uralic family"? If you're referring to Marcantonio's monograph, I can only recommend to read the reviews. --AAikio 16:20, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree as well that Altaic controversy need not exist independently of Altaic languages. As to the Uralic stuff, it seemed reasonable and well argued when I read it through, but I certainly didn't agree with Marcantonio's arguments.  I merely wanted to point out that even well-established families can come under fire and that Altaic was merely one that got a comparatively large amount of attention. Straughn 17:51, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I guess you mean the article Altaic hypothesis instead; I agree, it should definitely be merged with Altaic languages. As for Marcantanio, I must say that I found her book unreasonable and poorly argued instead. As has been pointed out by numerous reviewers, her main arguments are methodologically invalid, and often also based on ignorance or gross misrepresentation of Uralic data. For a brief summary of the book's flaws, please see my comments on the Linguist List: . --AAikio 06:56, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

I've made Altaic hypothesis a redirect. As stated on Talk:Altaic hypothesis, that article was nearly copy-paste only. --Pjacobi 11:35, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

348? Some random guy changed it from less than two hundred to over two hundred to finally over three hundred million speakers with no citation or reason why he changed it. Does anyone dispute this? Swatpig 23:09, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Cognates table
Hi, where did the cognates table come from? Some of the Korean items seem like gibberish, not Korean. --Kjoonlee 13:32, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, I think a few initial entries are from the published work cited before the table. I recently added some others from the German version of this article, Altaische Sprachen, which is highly complete and comprehensive compared to the English version, and is marked "lesenswert" (recommended for reading). I think no one knowing Korean checked the page before, could you please fix if there are mistakes? One possible reason that these might not make sense could perhaps be that they are Old-Korean and not properly marked. Pangapseumnida! Atilim Gunes Baydin 14:09, 11 October 2006 (UTC)


 * The only fixes I can do are deletions, because I'm unaware of any not knowledgeable about cognates, and adding non-cognates would be an error. I had a look at the German version, and I can only recognize 5 modern words out of the 18 pairs of Old Korean-Korean that are there. --Kjoonlee 01:32, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

No, no, no. Firstly, find the original source for the cognate table (no source is cited). If it's older than the Altaic Etymological Dictionary from 2003, DELETE IT. That book presents a new reconstruction of Proto-Altaic with radically different vowels. I'll look for a better cognate list in Blažek's paper (after I'll have finished transcribing the phoneme inventory and the correspondence lists from there).

If it survives, change what it looks like. Currently, the Turkish orthography is used for Turkish, one of the common transcriptions is used for Japanese (why modern Japanese instead of Old Japanese?), and a completely idiosyncratic phonetic transcription (probably Starostin's) is used for the rest (including Korean, for which two official transcriptions exist)! What we should do is obvious: use both official orthographies (which exist for all of the modern languages given) and IPA transcriptions.

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 21:40 CET, 2006/10/29 | major edit 17:53, 2006/10/30

(Regarding the deletion above, there are lots of cognates in Blažek's paper, but only a few selected Japanese, Silla, Koguryo, Kitan and/or Tabgač reflexes are given for each – nothing of encyclopedic value.)

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 17:50 CET, 2006/11/3

So. I replaced the old cognates table two new tables, based on the EDAL ( = Starostin et al. 2003), one for a large number of numerals and one for other nouns; note that some of the new reconstructions (e. g. "heart") are strikingly different from the old version. I think the article is long enough now. :o) David Marjanović 17:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Sound correspondences
[sorry for the chaos yesterday – that bizarre computer didn't show me the cognate table because I hadn't refreshed the page, but did show me my own edits!!!]

I'm the one who made today's changes. I put the sentence about Comrie in italics because I don't understand it. Does Comrie think that Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic are members of Nostratic, but not more closely related to each other than any of them is to any other Nostratic language families?

I'll start adding the sound correspondences listed by Blažek next. Someone, after all, has to put some actual evidence for Altaic into the article! David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 21:40 CET | 2006/10/29
 * Added correspondences between the plosives.
 * David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 23:13 CET | 2006/10/29
 * Finished consonant and vowel tables.
 * Yesterday I also added the reconstructed phonology of Proto-Altaic. Then someone moved it below the sound correspondences. If nobody protests till Sunday, I'll put it back, above the correspondence tables, because the current order, although more logical scientifically, is worse didactically and stylistically: readers should first see what sounds there presumably were (two short tables) and then how they evolved (two very long tables).
 * Done. Also renamed "reconstructed morphology" to the much better fitting "morphological correspondences".
 * David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 17:49 CET | 2006/11/9
 * Next: Case and number suffixes and pronouns from Blažek's paper.
 * I hope somebody can check out the prosody table in that paper. Does it mean Starostin et al. reconstruct pitch accent or even tone for Proto-Altaic?
 * Also please compare my version of the vowel correspondences to the original. Blažek puts a dot under some Proto-Turkic /a/ and /e/ and a breve on some Proto-Korean /a/; those are apparently separate phonemes, but what are they supposed to have been pronounced?
 * David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 19:25 CET | 2006/11/1
 * Hi, as someone very much interested in Altaic studies, I'm following your contributions to the article with great excitement. May I suggest you to create a proper Wikipedia account and continue with your work on the article using that? If you haven't noticed yet, it's very simple to get an account, just use the "Create account" link on the top right corner of any Wikipedia page. That way, it would be easier to communicate with you (via your talk page) and recognize your contributions in the edit summaries. Edits from a registered user always get more credence than from an anonymous ip address. There are situations where anonymous edits are not allowed at all, like on pages with "protected" status. Please see Why create an account? and keep up the good work. Regards, Atilim Gunes Baydin 19:15, 1 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thank you – I will register sometime soon to create the article Phylogenetic nomenclature which is sorely missing. So far I don't need an account, IMHO. I don't need any credence at present – I cite my sources, which are usually available online for free and linked to in the references or external links section (as in this case), and I mention my edits on the respective talk pages.
 * Communication might be even easier via e-mail. That's why I put my address in my "signature".
 * David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 22:19 CET | 2006/11/1
 * Entered morphology table and pronoun table. Please check for misunderstandings! Unlike Starostin et al. I put the forms and the /s/- forms in the same lines because the required sound shift would be no weirder than what happened in Greek (Classical Greek /sy/ "thou" instead of the expected */ty/, without a regular sound shift).
 * I wonder if anyone who has read the etymological dictionary by Starostin et al. has ever argued against the existence of Proto-Altaic… do we know if there still is a controversy?!?
 * David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 22:24 CET | 2006/11/1


 * To answer my own question... yes, Vovin and Georg. I've read Georg's critique. It doesn't seem to make any arguments except that some, perhaps many, etymologies are wrong or doubtful – OK, but that still leaves a lot! – and that Starostin's method of using a part of glottochronology to "prove" that languages are related is entirely unconvincing – a point on which I agree, but which has nothing to do with the rest of the EDAL. Importantly, Georg does not provide an alternative hypothesis about what the branches of Altaic are supposed to be related to; as a biologist, I prefer having a hypothesis over having none. David Marjanović 01:01, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Just a quick comment: This link to John Whitman is incorrect. The link goes to a different John Whitman (an author) and not the historical/asian linguist at Cornell university. 163.152.180.29 16:28, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

revert 13.3.2007
I reverted the edit by User:David Marjanović for two reasons. First, I don't think it's a good idea to introduce a less common term such as Buyeo languages to the infobox, especially as that classification is in itself highly controversial; and second, the "Altaic" origin of Japanese is certainly not a very widely accepted view among specialists (see Japanese language classification).--AAikio 11:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

"Buyeo languages" is not a common term i agree with you, but Japanese language or at least Old Japanese language and Goguryeo language are very close, you can not refute that hypothesis because there are proofs written in the Hou Han Shu and also Old Korean book written in Classical Chinese characters. According to my knowledge, there are also no real evidence relationship between Japanese language and Ryukyuan languages, which both belong to the Japonic language family. RegardsWhlee 19:09, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, OK. At least Korean is back in again.

However, whoever wrote "Unofficial" into the Altaic languages template (at the bottom of the page) was being childish. This is science, not bureaucracy. There is no such thing as "official". There are only "disproven", "controversial", "improbable" and the like.

The main reason why I put Buyeo (a term I had never seen before; I've only seen "Koreo-Japonic", which is an ugly word, and "Eastern Altaic", which is vaguely mentioned in the EDAL) into the infobox, instead of just restoring Korean, was that it spares me the work of including Goguryeo, Silla, Baekje and whatever else all separately...

That the membership of Japonic in Altaic is not widely accepted (at least among people who haven't read the EDAL :-> ) does not matter here – what matters is that most Altaicists (maybe all now, now that the EDAL has been published) include it.

I'll write "Korean and its relatives" and "Japonic and its relatives" into the infobox, make them "often included", and restore Ainu as "rarely included" – it's not included in the EDAL, but for all I know there are still people who consider it possible that Ainu is Altaic (rather than "Austric" or than just giving up). David Marjanović 23:10, 21 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Better yet: to avoid confusion, I wrote "and its extinct relatives" behind Korean and Japonic. David Marjanović 23:18, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Template
This seems like a better location to get this discussion going... I'd like to propose deleting Template:Altaic languages. It doesn't seem to achieve anything new or informative. It includes the same information and links already presented in Categories and Infoboxes. All it does at the moment is take up space on the page. Is a template really needed? --Stacey Doljack Borsody 15:44, 15 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I think we should keep that template : Template:Altaic languages, because lots of Koreans "ignore" that pure/native Korean words (i.e. those which are not Sino-Koreans words) of the Korean language are related to the Altaic languages family, i'm also wondering whether Japanese peoples know that pure Japanese vocabulary (Kun-yomi) may also come from the same family. On the other hand, i also think that we should improve that template by being inspired on Template:Romance languages. I would be glad to be helped. Regards. Whlee 07:36, 16 March 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't understand your reasoning. It doesn't have any basis in webpage and information design.  Take a look at a page like Turkish language.  You can view an Infobox to the right side that clearly lists language family, with links to Oghuz languages, Turkic languages, and Altaic languages.  A reader can quickly gather information regarding the classification of this language and click on the links to see what they are about.  This is good presentation of information.  The templates at the bottom don't do anything except take up page space and act as a redundant "See also" section.  I'm not a big fan of these kinds of templates.  Template:Romance languages and Template:Turkic languages are equally useless, but tolerable since the scope of the "family" is small.  --Stacey Doljack Borsody 23:28, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


 * because lots of Koreans "ignore" – you have mixed up French (where ignorer means "not know") and English (where ignoring something is a deliberate act of not recognizing it). David Marjanović 01:03, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes you are right, ignore in that case means do not know (and not refuse to recognize). I made confusion between those terms. Thanks for your comments. Regards.Whlee 08:48, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
 * A couple of quick comments from me. I study ancient near east languages, especially the semitic ones. They have distinct regional dialects and many modern derivatives. The whole language family is important to my field of study, because sometimes the best way to get a good guess at an ancient word that is ambiguous in context is to look for possible cognate words. What this means is, for my purposes only, the templates at the bottom are more useful than the info boxes. I'm a rare breed, but I'm not alone. I think rare people like me want the info in the templates at the bottom. Most people want the info box, but some of us want the template. I think it is appropriately placed at the bottom, that way people can ignore it unless they are serious. It comes after See also and references. Essentially the template box is just a way of organizing a lot of See also and category type information for the page. Let's just try to make these templates default to hidden form, as they do on the medical pages, what do people think? Alastair Haines 02:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Japanese connection to Altaic is a joke
The supposed link between Proto-Japonic personal pronouns and Proto-Altaic pronouns is, guess what, also the same for many Chinese dialects (Sino-Tibetan language family)!

In the Wu dialect of Chinese, "I" is a (open schwa) or ala /6?la/ (阿拉); "thou" is /na/ (那); the plural in the Wu dialect is /la/ (伊拉 = they); the alternative plural is /ta?/ (儂達 or 儂塔 = you all); the dative-locative is /li/; and the possessive is /g@?/ (个). I don't think anyone is suggesting that a southern coastal Chinese dialect like Wu is Altaic now? Additionally, the purported Proto-Altaic phonology (including its pitch accent) looks almost identical to the modern Shanghainese phonology. The only thing missing in Shanghainese is the vowel harmony, which frankly Japanese doesn't quite have anyway. This just shows that convergence doesn't imply genetic relationship.

From article: "The many correspondences between Altaic pronouns found by Starostin et al. (2003) could be rather strong evidence for the existence of Proto-Altaic." "strong evidence"? What a load of crap.

--Naus 03:17, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

My sentiments exactly, Naus! The "Japanese and Altaic" controversy is all the convoluted aftermath of a certain linguist's bad joke.

But it should be noted that Wu dialect 伊拉 (i-la, "they") looks like a compound of Tungusic i ("he/she") or Korean i ("one, the one that...") with Turkic -lar ~ -ler (plural suffix) or Japonic -ra (plural/collective suffix). And we really should emphasize the fact that Japanese does not have vowel harmony. Ebizur 01:31, 25 May 2007 (UTC)


 * People, did you read the article? Firstly, the latest reconstruction of Proto-Altaic lacks vowel harmony. Whether Japanese later developed vowel harmony and then lost it again doesn't matter. Secondly, it's not just the pronouns: it's the pronouns plus lots of other words plus regular sound correspondences plus a considerable amount of grammar.
 * (Incidentally, I find it interesting that you use Chinese characters as a syllabary.) David Marjanović 17:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Turkic Numerals
Here are some thoughts ("original research", I know..) that I, as a non-scholar, came across and would like share:

conflictive opinions in favour of either the "Altaic language familiy" or the "Altaic sprachbund" theory seem to be kind of revolving around the controversy about the numerals of the Turkic languages that differ strikingly from its Mongolian and Manchu-Tungusian counterparts (note: Indo-European languages' affinity have been largely established through comparison of ancient written languages, thus old Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Avestian, and the clear etymologies concerning numerals; comparative linguistics seem to be relying rightfully on this empiricism when dealing with other languages). But... look, here: the numeral four in Turkic resembles its Mongolian counterpart, whereas the numeral five resembles Indo-Iranian (Saka/Scythian?!). Is this simply coincidence? Original numerals in Proto-Turkic could have been replaced by loans. Then what about the other numerals? What struck me when comparing numerals in Turkic to modern Mandarin (sorry, this is by no means scientific research I am doing, just my observation..), was that the words for one, two and six and seven (with a little imagination and background info) sounded really similar! Consider this: Chinese is a tonal language. Since over the course of history Chinese has changed quite a lot concerning pronunciation, those Turkic numerals that I stated above could be its speakers' interpretation of the Chinese numerals that they heard; thus adapted to Proto-Turkic pronunciation.

Just think of the numerals of sinic background in Korean and Japanese. The only numeral that has common spelling (almost 100%) in these languages (non-tonal, of course) is three. Pronunciation and interpretation of original Chinese varies greatly. So what about Turkic then? Only speculating, but the spelling variants of the word for three at hand could be derived from a common idiomatic rendering of a word which might have sounded like sam/san. Ok, the argument looks weak here.

Some other aspect that I think should be taken into account is this: the numerals 6-9 in Turkic show two types of suffixes (the latter lacking in Tuvan, for example) that seem to indicate plural or could be connected with the tribal organizations of the peoples that spoke Turkic, i.e. originally these might have not been present in the Turkic counting system.

Turkic, to me, seems to be an Altaic language that due to contact of Proto-Turkic tribes with Iranic tribes had evolved to some sort of "Creolic" nature (excluding language characteristics, grammar, etc.). Common vocabulary between Turkic and Mongolian does not necessarily mean these are loans. There also exists common vocabulary between Turkic and Tungusian languages, which Mongolian lacks. It should also be noted that Proto-Japanese originally might have been an Altaic language with vowel harmony, or it might have separated from Altaic at an early stage of that language when there was no vowel harmony.

Thraco-Anatolian Turkish might be a bad choice for research on Altaic. But it highlights something that is remarkable: loanswords can replace (basic) vocabulary, even everyday language can be affected; religious cult, fashion and trends, an affinity for sedentary cultures can prove so influential that the use of foreign vocabulary can substitute original vocabulary of a language, hence the evolvement of Ottoman-Turkish. Salyr Turkmen, for instance is a better choice in my opinion. The lack of older written documents further complicates research. 134.100.32.213 15:37, 28 May 2007 (UTC)


 * If comparing with Chinese you might use the reconstructed Old Chinese or Middle Chinese numerals. I do not see similarity with the reconstructed Proto-Altaic numerals. --JWB 19:02, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I meant certain Turkic numerals as opposed to Mongolian and Tungusian, clearly not the reconstructed Proto-Altaic numerals. Thanks anyway. 134.100.32.213 07:22, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I can't see any resemblance whatsoever between Turkic and Chinese (at any stage) numbers. Could you list actual examples? --JWB 07:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Not just Chinese. If you can, have a look at the reconstructed Proto-Sino-Tibetan numerals. No particular resemblance to Proto-Turkic or for that matter Proto-Altaic.
 * Also, please read the article again: vowel harmony was most likely not a feature of Proto-Altaic, it developed separately in each branch in different ways.
 * The "Old Turkic" mentioned in the article is the language of the Orkhon runes. That is fairly old.
 * It may well be that Turkish is a poorer choice than Turkmen – but is Turkmen a good choice? No: the only good choice, for obvious reasons, is reconstructed Proto-Turkic.
 * Don't use "a little imagination". Instead, look for regular sound correspondences. If you find any, and get that published, the Wikipedia article will need to be updated. Otherwise not. David Marjanović 17:46, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I didn't consider changing the article at all. All I wanted to know was if there is actually any theory that deemed certain Turkic numerals as loans from Chinese. Here are the sound correspondences that I found (note: I added the sinic numerals in Japanese and Korean for comparison; of course none of them are exactly identical, just illustrating how the pronunciation can vary):

1 Turkic: bir ~ Chinese: yī ~ Korean: il ~ Japanese: ichi

2 Turkic: eki ~ Chinese: èr ~ Korean: i ~ Japanese: ni

6 Turkic: alty (alt) ~ Chinese: liù ~ Korean: ryuk/yuk ~ Japanese: roku

7 Turkic: yeti (jeti for explanation see above).

By the way are there any theories that claim the Turkic numeral five (besh/pesh) is a loan from Indo-Iranian (possibly Saka)? 134.100.32.213 09:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)


 * All the Chinese and xenosinic numerals descend from Middle Chinese, which is later than Proto-Turkic, so you should use Middle Chinese or Old Chinese as basis for comparison with Proto-Turkic.


 * It looks like your resemblances are as little as the words containing i, e, l for 1, 2, 3. --JWB 16:40, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Cognate table
The cognate table is confusing. How come there are two words for "I" and "thou"? No case is given, what's the difference? What does (8) mean in the numeral table? There are a lot of these small things that need fixing... 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * 11:23, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
 * It's a very good question why there are two words for "I" and "thou" each. Normally when such phenomena are reconstructed, we are looking at irregular case differences (as in English: "I" vs "me", "we" vs "us") – but I have only read the preface of Starostin et al. (2003), and there they simply present these forms without explaining them. I can send you the preface as a pdf (warning: it has 270 pages).
 * "(8)" referred to the footnote 8. The parentheses are there to make clearer that the 8 is superscript. Obviously this didn't work. I just changed that to a superscript "(footnote 8)". David Marjanović 17:38, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Alright, thanks for answering. I believe you, however sloppy it looks. 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * 19:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Found it! EDAL p. 225:
 * "4.2.3.1. Personal pronouns"
 * "1 p. *bĭ̀, pl. *ba ~ *bu (obl. *mi-n-, *ma-n- ~ *mu-n-)"
 * "For PA we can also reconstruct a stem *ŋa, reflected in some cases as Mong. *na-d-, *na-m-, and preserved in Korean as *nà and in Jpn. as *a-."
 * "2 p. *si, pl. *su (obl. *si-n-, *su-n-)"
 * "It seems also possible to reconstruct a second stem *na, preserved in Kor. *nə̀ and Jpn. *ná, and possibly reflected in the PT 2d p. ending *-ŋ (although velarization here is not quite clear)."
 * "The relationship within the suppletive pairs *bi - *ŋa and *si - *na is not quite clear; the forms *ŋa and na may have originally been restricted to some oblique cases (cf. the situation in Mongolian)."
 * Not that I knew the situation in Mongolian, but this seems fair enough to me. David Marjanović 17:04, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Aaahh.. Well done! 惑乱 分からん * \)/ (\ (&lt; \) (2 /) /)/ * 17:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Three more things

 * Why do people insist that Korean and Japanese are only "sometimes included"? Georg et al. (1999) make clear that, by now, almost all Altaicists include Korean, and that most include Japanese. Give me your e-mail address, and I'll send the pdf to you.
 * Why do people keep deleting the sentence saying that Korean and Japonic do have shared innovations according to Starostin et al. (2003)? That's a fact: Starostin et al. really do say that, and they published several years after Vovin said Korean and Japonic lack shared innovations. I can send the pdf of the introduction to Starostin et al. (2003) to interested parties – warning: it has 270 pages.
 * Precisely why is the "neutrality disputed" tag up there? It may well be justified – I have not been able to get all relevant papers, and it seems nobody who has read them contributes here – but slapping such a tag on an article without explaining why is not going to help anyone. David Marjanović 18:16, 2 June 2007 (UTC)


 * You should ask User:Naus. This is the diff where the tag was included. It seems he doesn't agree with Korean and Japanese being Altaic languages. And I would be interested in those PDFs. I'd appreciate if you share the files. I can be reached at cydevil@naver.com Cydevil38 02:12, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to get a copy of those pdf files also. My email is yerhan @ earthlink dot net  (without the spaces and dot = .)

Disputed reconstructions of single words
Starostin et al. (2003) mention a Proto-Japonic word */nəmpV/ "neck". An anonymous user slapped a "dubious – see talk page" tag on this and commented their edit with "There is no form */nobV/ in Japanese that means "neck." Who comes up with this BS?)". Well, who? Starostin et al., as cited. I don't have the part of the book where they explain how they arrived at this particular reconstruction, but keep in mind that Proto-Japonic is not the same, lexically, as even Old Japanese.

If you put a "see talk page" tag into an article, why don't you write something on the talk page…?

However, I've found a paper that disputes another reconstructed word in that table. I'll fix that in a few minutes. David Marjanović 16:33, 16 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Someone added this link to starling.net.ru citing two words from Ryukyuan languages as evidence for Proto-Japonic */nəmpV/ "neck". Accordingly I have removed the "dubious" tag. David Marjanović 22:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

It is the words "father" and "mother" that give us the direction
We all know that when comparing with words from different languages, no linguists will use the words "father" and "mother" for almost all the languages are the same in these two words. But the languages below will tell us how unique their father and mother are. It is their uniqueness that gives us the right direction.

father/mother

finnish:isä/ema nenets:nāće/nema turkish:aka/ana yakut:aka/ije khalkha:eceg/ex daguar:ecig/eg

manchu:ama/ənijə evenki:ami/əňin

korean:apoji/omoni

japanese:chichi/haha and otou/okaa

ainu:míci/hápo

nivkh:etk/emk

yukaghir:et'ie/emej

chukchi:ellen/ella itelman:is'h/lahs'h

inuit:aapa/aana tlingit:eesh/tlaa apache:taa/maa


 * Please explain what your point is. I don't get it. David Marjanović 21:58, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Question about A. Vovin
I would like to know what Alexander Vovin's current position on Altaic is since I have no chance to lay my hands on his publication "The End of the Altaic Controversy"(2005). From the sparse information that I have read elsewhere he is now an opponent of the supposed genetic relationship of Japanese and Korean, and their genetic affiliation with Altaic respectively. But does he now contest the very existence of the Altaic language family as consisting of Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic in favor of the Sprachbund theory?

It would be appreciated if that info was worked into the article or at least discussed on the talk page. Thanks. 134.100.1.101 12:24, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


 * I have now read a paper by Georg and Vovin where they explain they accept half of Altaic – a Tungusic-Korean-Japonic grouping they term Manchuric. I'll update the article later today. David Marjanović 17:17, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

This is history by now. Both Vovin and myself (Stefan Georg) do not hold this any longer. It was meant as an eirenic statement at the time, but we came to the conclusion that we are not going to further defend or support this. Stefan Georg —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.79.166.21 (talk) 13:14, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Vovin's and Georg's position
My name is Stefan Georg and I have occasionally written on the Altaic matter, both together with Alexander Vovin and independently. I am well acquainted with A. Vovin's position on the matter (and mine, of course :-) and I can confirm that Vovin, especially in his 2005 article, explicitly opposes the view that the so-called Altaic languages form a valid genealogical grouping. I share this position entirely, which extends to saying that, indeed, there is no genealogical relationship between any of the language families involved. It is true that, in earlier publications, we acknowledged some possibilities for what we called "Macro-Tungusic" back then, but we both are no longer prepared to defend this possibility (of course this does not preclude any future progress in the field). On the Starostin et al. dictionary, we both hold (and are ready to defend, like, incidentally, most published reviews of this work) the position that the dictionary, in spite of its size, does not represent any meaningful progress towards the (inevitability of) the acceptance of Altaic as a genealogical grouping, since we find a huge amount of factual and methodological infelicities, paired with a neglect of the state of the art of the individual philologies (and of course the discussion as a whole, as it developed over the last 150 years or so), so that we regard this work as basically failed. Btw., when I sent off my reply to Starostin's reply (on my review of his dictionary), which is mentioned in the article, to Diachronica, Sergej Anatolevich was still alive, news about his untimely demise reached me only later, so this mention may create the impression that I endulged in a quarrel with a man who was no longer able to defend himself, which never was my intention. I, and I can speak for A. Vovin here, too, maintain, though, that the genealogical relationship of "Altaic" has never been sufficiently demonstrated. I am actively involved in investigating the *areal*, i.e. convergence, relationship which *does* hold between at least the continental languages, which I and others regard as the only fruitful way to meaningfully describe the commonalities of these languages.

Stefan Georg Georg-Bonn@t-online.de —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.79.166.21 (talk) 12:41, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

The meaning of "Altay"
Someone has written in the caption of our photo of the Altay Mountains that altay means "high (mountain)" in Turkic. This is completely false. Altay means "Gold Mountain" if anything. Ebizur (talk) 23:47, 17 January 2008 (UTC) Altın = Gold, al= red, dağ= mountain tay= colt may be Aldağ (red mountain?), Aladağ( redish mountain) or simply Al+tay=red cold

No, this is completely right, the etymology involves ala "high" and tag/taw/tay "mountain", "gold" would be "altun", and for this, the name is lacking an entire syllable. Of course, etymologizing names is always a risky business and the result can hardly ever be controlled. But "gold" is definitely out here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.79.166.21 (talk) 11:29, 7 February 2008 (UTC)


 * According to my Turkish dictionary, /ala/ means "speckled, mottled, variegated in color; brightly colored; red, reddish, light brown." Nowhere does it mention /ala/ meaning "high." /ala/ as "high" sounds more like a Manchu-Tungus form, e.g. Manchu /alin/ (mountain), /alarame/ (along a hill), etc. The link that has been provided as a reference for the claim that "Altay" means "High Mountain" in Turkic is a Turkish website that allows one to search a database of Turkish personal names; this is not really an appropriate reference for the claim that is being made on the "Altaic languages" wikipage. Should no one provide a better source for the etymology of Altay as "High Mountain" in Turkic, I will altogether remove the claim of Turkic etymology from the Altaic languages page. Ebizur (talk) 20:34, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Your interpretation is not correct. The word Altay is often used as personal name in Turkish. The site is the official site of Turkish language association. Mentioning the meaning of "Altay" in Turkic languages is informative. Regards. E104421 (talk) 21:06, 11 February 2008 (UTC)


 * It doesn't matter whether "Altay" is frequently used as a personal name in Turkey. That website is not an adequate reference for the etymology of /altay/ as a toponym, as in "Altay Mountains."
 * I have just looked at another Turkish-English dictionary, the Langenscheidt Standard Dictionary, and these are the six entries it has between /akzambak/ "Madonna lily" and /alabanda/ "bulwarks; broadside":


 * al1 1. scarlet, crimson, vermillion, red; 2. chestnut (horse); 3. bright red; 4. rouge; 5. [med.] eryspelas.
 * al2 deceit, intrigue.
 * âl, -li 1. family, dynasty; 2. high-born; âli Osman Ottoman Dynasty.
 * ala 1. colo(u)rful; 2. light brown; 3. s[ee] alabalık; ~ kaz white-cheeked goose.
 * âlâ first-rate, excellent, very good.
 * alabalık zo[ology] trout.


 * Thus, there is nothing in either of the Turkish-English dictionaries I have investigated to support the contention that there exists a Turkic etymon having the morphophonological form /al/ or /ala/ and having the meaning "high" (as in "High Mountain"). I request that you provide evidence from another Turkic language or from a reputable, verifiable source to support the present claim that the name of the Altay Mountains derives from a Turkic expression meaning "High Mountain." Ebizur (talk) 02:00, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * By the way, the editors of the Altay Mountains wiki have taken the position that "Altay" derives from Turkic etyma with the meaning "gold mountain," while the editors of the Alatau wiki have taken the position that "Alatau" derives from Turkic etyma meaning "motley mountain" (i.e. "mottled mountain"). Your contention that "Altay" means yüksek dağ ("high mountain," "lofty mountain," "great mountain") is apparently not generally accepted. All these wikipages need to be provided with scholarly references so that readers may verify the claims of particular etymologies for "Altay" or "Alatau." Ebizur (talk) 02:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)


 * As a native speaker of Turkish, i can confirm that "altay" means "high mountain". The Turkish Language Association's dictionary is a reliable source. I recommend you to check the Turkish-Turkish dictionaries. You're trying to construct the meaning mathematically, but linguistics is not mathematics. Yes, "al" means "red" but also it means "take". On the other hand, "alt" means "below or under" and "ay" means "the moon". Mathematically, one can deduce that "alt" + "ay" = "altay" meaning "under the moon" :))), but that's not correct, again. The word "altay" is used as a name, means "high mountain". That's it. How the word came about historically is another question. Yes, all wiki articles should reflect the same information. I'll check. Regards. E104421 (talk) 05:24, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

And as a native speaker of Turkish i ask you where do you get definition of "high" as it is logical to suggest tay as dağ, i ve never heard such usage of "al" if you can explain everyone will be happy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.244.184.162 (talk) 15:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Controversy
There are clearly a number of controversies about Altaic. I've tried to clarify It also seems as though opinion differs: ...which presumably underlies contentiousness.
 * the validity of the family, and
 * the inclusion of particular languages in the family, notably Japanese and Korean.
 * Between specialists in Altaic and specialists in individual languages it appears that Altaic specialists tend to include Japanese in Altaic, while Japanese specialists tend to exclude Japanese from Altaic
 * Between different linguists
 * Over time

AFAICT, the family is relatively (but not universally) accepted by linguists, but Japanese and Korean are widely not included; there's clearly an ongoing debate on these matters, as evidenced by the references.

Nbarth (email) (talk) 22:55, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

whats the definition to altaic languages
in chemistry a group of elements has common chemical properties not phisical but as i see Turkic Mongolian comparison is mostly due to similarity of vocabulary and slightly grammar, but those are also similar to Hungarian language, and if the vocabulary is enough then Northwest caucasian languages are in the same group with Latin due to similar vocabulary of basic words(i know there are some hypothesis about abkhazian and hatti language).

anyway my point is if you want to form a group you must show a common ancestor or ancestors hybridizing, deriving etc etc as for IE languages or semitic if not Turkic is itself a group, Mongolian  forms another group....

About genetics... hey dont forget Mongolian army, almost all of the women in continental asia were raped by them sure you can also find genetic clues with turkics that suffered from mongolian invasions( the ones who managed flee are in middle east caucasus and balkany will surely show less mongolic properties) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.244.184.162 (talk) 15:48, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Whoever you are, the talk about physical genetics is irrelevant to discussion of linguistic relationship. Linguists use the term "genetic relationship" to talk STRICTLY about language--not about DNA, etc.  American English has a genetic relationship with German even though 10% of our population is of Mediterranean and Mesoamerican Indian origin genetically, about 8% is of African origin genetically, etc.  But our LANGUAGE has a genetic relationship with northern Europe no matter what our DNA says.  So don't start talking about "rape" here.  It's irrelevant. (Taivo (talk) 17:31, 1 April 2008 (UTC))

Phenetic?
While Greenberg's method of multilateral comparison is undoubtedly "controversial", I have removed its characterization as "phenetic". Phenetics is a method used in biological taxonomy and its validity as a descriptor of Greenberg's linguistic method is obscure. VikSol 04:29, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I've never heard a linguist use the word "phenetic". I thought it was a typo for "phonetic". (Taivo (talk) 06:46, 30 April 2008 (UTC))

"postulated" to "arrived at"
Taivo, I see what you are getting at with the change of "found" to "postulated", but there is a problem of idiom with "postulating" something "using" something else. I have changed "postulated" to "arrived at", which I hope is neutral enough for you. VikSol 23:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm a native speaker of English and I have no problem with "idiom" between "used" and "postulated". Einstein used mathematical formulas to postulate the theory of relativity.  Ptolemy used the biblical text to postulate that the Earth was flat.  Just because we "use" a tool to study an issue does not mean that we can't "postulate" why something happens when the tool is used. (Taivo (talk) 07:02, 2 June 2008 (UTC))

"Anti?"
I think that your list of "anti-Altaicists" is very misleading. It implies that "anti-Altaic" is a minority position, when it is, in fact, the majority position among historical linguists. You would need to mention most authors of historical linguistics textbooks (e.g., Lyle Campbell, Terry Crowley, etc.) who are all "anti-Altaic" and cite the controversy in terms of the confusion between areal features and genetic features. Just because they have not written a full-length monograph refuting the Altaic hypothesis does not mean that they are any less authoritative in being "anti-Altaic". It's fine to list prominent Altaicists with their proposals. I actually found the "pro" list quite informative. But leave out the "anti" list. It's not a true picture of the field in historical linguistics. (Taivo (talk) 08:57, 8 June 2008 (UTC))


 * Taivo, I'm happy to get your feedback. I agree we need to present a balanced picture. I too have been thinking that the nub of the controversy is areal versus genetic interpretations and that it is perhaps time to state this explicitly in the article, since it constitutes the real underlying issue. I think, though, that it is just as important to give people an overview of the principal critics of Altaic as of its advocates: Clauson began the critique, Doerfer has done the most substantive work on it, and Shcherpak and Rona-Tas are often considered the other most important critics of Altaic. I'm simply putting the names in that have come to my attention to this point. If the numbers are not equal, this might be simply because destructive criticism is more economical than constructing a language family, valid or invalid.


 * The headings "Altaicists" and "Anti-Altaicists" are not meant to take a position. I also thought of "Linguists in favor of Altai / Linguists opposed to Altaic" and "Pro-Altaic / Anti-Altaic". We could also try "Proponents of Altaic / Critics of Altaic" and the like. I would be equally happy with these or any reasonably equivalent set of expressions.


 * I have provisionally put the Anti-Altaicists back in, because I think the information given is very important.


 * It's true that not being an Altaic specialist (pro or con) does not mean a linguist may not have a very authoritative position. Also, a linguist may delve into these issues quite deeply without necessarily publishing extensive matter on the subject. I actually hesitated about Helimski, for instance, who has I believe done quite a bit of work on Turkic. I see you have already put him under the Altaicists.


 * So let me try to find unimpeachably neutral categories here, which would permit us to list as many linguists as relevant, while giving the reader an accurate view of the actual spread of prevailing opinion.


 * I have put in the material under new headings which hopefully recontextualizes it (or at least begins to) and added the names you suggest.


 * The lists given are not meant to be definitive. As you can see, they have holes in them, e.g. not all authors have a work cited yet. They will I hope be considerably expanded by interested parties. Regards, VikSol 09:56, 8 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Much better. I just didn't like the way the other format looked like a "vote".  I tweaked it just a bit.  I don't think we need a laundry list of everyone who has written a page against Altaic (Campbell, for example) or everyone who has listed it as a "bad idea" (Crowley, for example).  I think if we leave it at "Major Critics" then we have the meat of the issue--those who have expended some serious ink (or toner?) on showing that Altaic is not a genetic unit without going through the last 40 years of publications in historical linguistics.  Nichols may not have written a specific treatise on Altaic, but her methodology is the "in thing" right now and since her methodology doesn't support Altaic, she needs to be here. (Taivo (talk) 11:53, 8 June 2008 (UTC))


 * Taivo, On Johanna Nichols's website, she lists her areas of specialization as:


 * Areas of specialization:


 * Chechen, Ingush, and East Caucasian (Nakh-Daghestanian) languages
 * Origin and prehistory of the Slavic language family
 * Language origins and language spreads on the western Eurasian steppe periphery, Neolithic to present
 * Typology and comparative grammar
 * Origin and dispersal of languages


 * In her complete list of publications, I find only one item with a possible relevance to the Altaic question, a 1979 article on Manchu-Tungus, but this is apparently focused on a particular question of syntax.


 * Thus, by the criterion now adopted of including only people who have done extensive hands-on work on the Altaic question, we cannot include Nichols. I have therefore removed her name from the list of "Major critics of Altaic".


 * I agree that her theoretical orientations have been highly influential but this would point to listing her prominently on a page concerning language classification or the like but not specifically on Altaic. Hope that, on reflection, you agree. Regards, VikSol 09:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I, for one, am happy with the notion "Anti-Altaicist", I frequently used and continue to use it to describe my position. Stefan Georg —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.79.166.21 (talk) 13:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Ref for majority for Sprachbund
I'm in the middle of packing to move back to the U.S. from Ukraine so I can't look it up at the moment to make sure, but I'm fairly certain that Campbell & Mixco's Dictionary of Historical Linguistics probably says this very thing--that "Altaic" is the minority opinion. (Taivo (talk) 00:00, 28 June 2008 (UTC))


 * OK, we'll put the reference in in due course. Have a good trip. VikSol 00:10, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Section move and new heading on "Comparative grammar"
I have moved the "List of Altaicists and critics of Altaic" from the end of the article to after the "Urheimat" section, because it seems to go with the first part of the article rather than the second part. The second part falls rather neatly into the category of comparative grammar of Altaic - brief and sketchy but a genuine grammar nonetheless.

Some have complained about articles of this type that such material is too technical for the average reader and is accompanied by insufficient explanation to be comprehensible. It has been suggested that it belongs in a separate article of a more technical nature. This may well be the case, but the material seems valuable to me, both in itself and as providing the kind of evidence linguists actually look at. On balance, I tend to think it is most valuable as part of this article rather than a separate one on the "Comparative grammmar of the Altaic languages". However, it seems to me that it forms a coherent whole and is distinct from the more discursive material that precedes it, which tells the history of the Altaic idea, gives names and dates, etc. So it seems to me to deserve its own section heading.

Other than this, I have simply added additional equals signs to the section headings concerned to move them down one category. There are no edits to the text whatsoever.

Regards to all, VikSol 04:39, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Unbalanced article
As others have pointed out before, this article does not satisfy WP:NPOV. Reading this article, the reader is likely to believe that the general view among linguists is in support of the existence of the Altaic language family. Already in the first line, it's categorically stated that the "Altaic is a language family". That's not NPOV, as there is no such consensus. At the very least, saying that "Altaic is a proposed language family" is more correct, as it's something both sides can agree on. Personally I'd prefer controversial, but I can see why that would meet with opposition. However, the general tone throughout the article is just as bad. One user pointed out the bias in the list over people for or against the Altaic languages, and I'm amazed that the article completely ignores to mention that most linguists reject the existence of an Altaic language family.JdeJ (talk) 18:54, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

I suppose that the 1st person sing. nominative in b- and the genitive in mVn-, the lir/shaz correspondences (which Miller extends to Japanese) tracing back to a proto-Altaic /l/ v. /1'/ and /r/ v. /r'/ variation, and the presence of plenty of vocabulary items shared by Turkic and Tungusic but not found in Mongolian are of no importance. Greenberg addresses these correspondences, which Clauson and Doerfer address with silence in his "Does Altaic Exist?" which you can read here: http://www.nostratic.ru/books/(206)Greenberg%20-%20Altaic%20Exists.pdf But, of course, we will hear that most linguists reject the existence of Joseph Greenberg. What is important is not fashion among non-specialists, but evidence clearly presented. The bottom line is that linguists outside America, and those who specialize in this language family largely accept long standing evidence (Ramstedt, Poppe) of their relation. Indeed, splitting is the current fashion among a large vocal American minority. (There are even some who now deny the validity of Uralic.) And their objections are addressed at length in this article.  I have no objection to retaining or even strengthening their objections in the text.  But calling the family into doubt before it is even defined amounts to undue weight for the anti-altaicist POV. The family was identified over a century ago. It is not just now "proposed." To describe it as proposed is to mischaracterize it, and implicitly to assume the validity of the anti-Altaicists' POV. (Indeed, one could just as easily call the denials proposed.) Let the consensus lead stand, and add all the cited counterevidence you like to the article. Kja er (talk) 21:27, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

In the interest of NPOV I have changed the title of this section of the talk page. Kja er (talk) 21:30, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Kjaer, he impresses me very much. What he says is always NPOV, what others say is always POV and wrong. Call Kjaer what you want, balanced he is not. Nothing is wrong by saying that the language family is controversial, because it is controversial. Controversial does not mean rejected so as Kjaer appears to think. Controversial means that some linguists agree and the other linguists they do not agree. Kjaer mentions some who agree with him, I added reference stating very clear that many linguists do not agree with that. What is the problem with saying in intro that this is controversial when it is controversial. And why Kjaer thinks he owns Wikipedia and can decide what is POV just when it suits to him? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.214.107.211 (talk) 21:38, 28 November 2008 (UTC)


 * 30 years ago, it could have been said that the majority of linguists tentatively accepted Altaic as a valid language family. That is not true today--the majority of linguists no longer accept Altaic as a valid language family. Kjaer can complain about this all he wants, but the plain fact of the matter is that Altaic is no longer a proven genetic grouping among the majority of linguists. The article needs to express this view clearly.  While it is perfectly fine to present what little evidence there is for the grouping, it must always be presented as "X's arguments" and not as "proven fact". It's not "nonspecialists" who claim this, but the majority of historical/comparative linguists.  Time marches on, Kjaer. We don't get stuck in the 1950s. Kjaer complains about "American linguists", but it is American linguists who are in the lead in this particular field.  I've been to Europe and talked to European linguists.  They look to America as the fountainhead for linguistic thought and theory.  Others may lament the American lead, but that's just the plain fact of the matter.  Most European linguistics departments that I've seen are ten years behind American linguistics departments in terms of theory and resources.  They are hungry for American ideas.  Yep, it was American linguists who first rejected Altaic in large numbers. That's because in this field at least, Americans are at the front of the pack. (Taivo (talk) 06:48, 29 November 2008 (UTC))


 * I can only agree with Taivo, and I'd like to inform Kjaer about the Wikipedia policies of WP:OWN, WP:NPOV and WP:3RR. That's just on top of his dishonest edits, changing the words of other editors on talk pages. I think it is rather telling that the only support Kjaer could master up in his reply was from a non-scientific Russian site devoted to an even more extreme fringe theory; that's hardly what we call a good source. Kjaer is also being either dishonest or disinformed when he claims that the Altaic hypothesis was "accepted" long ago. It was suggested long ago, it has never gained general academic acceptance. JdeJ (talk) 10:04, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

The title of this section, "Unbalanced article" is inappropriate, it begs the question. Kja er (talk) 13:39, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

JdeJ, the title of a section is not "your comments" and my openly noted change of that title is not "extreme vandalism" nor does it warrant marking up my talk page. Your throwing a fit because I oppose your POV change of the consensus lead is not rational argument. It is only a fit. As for the Russian site where one can find greenberg's paper on the lack of argument by the anti-altaicists, does the editor claim that greenberg is not notable, or that the site has published a forgery of greenberg's work? Even if the site were a Nazi homepage, it would not matter, if the material they hosted were authentic. The only objection here is that that site does not onesidedly support your POV. But please note that that site does host Clauson's criticisms and those of many other critics. I suggest that we tone down the hysteria, and pay attention to the arguments. As it stands, "theoretical" is an appropriate qualification, but other attempts at discrediting this well documented and century old theory as "proposed" and oppposed by "many" (who?) ammounts to an attempt at shouting down a theory which you are not willing to disprove with counter-evidence. Kja er (talk) 13:39, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The title I choose to start a comment of mine is most certainly mine, so stop lying about what you did. Your liberties with the truth seems to continue as you chose to call your version "consensus" when the truth is that Taivo, the IP and myself all support the other version with you being the only one prefering your version. So the consensus is against you. The fact of the matter is that this hypotethical language family is controversial, as both Taivo's comments and the Cambridge publication added by the IP show. It's all very well to speak about consensus, hysteria and POV but the truth is that you're the only one objecting to a consensus, you're the one trying to claim that you alone define NPOV and all those who disagree and POV-agents. JdeJ (talk) 14:11, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I think this is pretty simple. Taivo, the IP and myself all seem to agree on mentioning right away in the first paragraph that this language family is controversial. It would be nice to have some more insight into it in the text and I think Taivo appears to be the person with the most knowledge and would be best suited to add it. Kjaer has made it clear that he doesn't like to have the controversy surrounding this hypothetical language family mentioned in the first paragraph, but since everybody else agrees I'd suggest that he moves on and contribute in a more responsible way. JdeJ (talk) 16:33, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I just did a major reworking of some sections of the article to accomodate 1) more reminders that "Altaic" is not a generally-accepted group ("proposed", "hypothetical", quotation marks, etc.); 2) less original argumentation (removed the "Mainstream or Marginal" section as simply POV pushing; removed phrases such as "more successful", "X proves Y", "X is a better indicator", etc.); 3) more quotes from critical sources (actually just one source right now--Schönig 2003). (Taivo (talk) 18:52, 29 November 2008 (UTC))
 * Thanks a lot Taivo! Those are great edits, making the article both more balanced, more up to date with contemporary views and more scientific. JdeJ (talk) 20:12, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

More issues
Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:23, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) The lead sentence currently is plain ungrammatical. Altaic is theoretical a language family? Maybe somebody meant to write ... a theoretical ..., but that isn't good either. What's a "theoretical family"? My suggestion would be: ... is a grouping of languages and proposed genetic language family .... Nobody doubts that there is something valid out in the real world that the term "Altaic languages" refers to. What people debate is whether that something forms a genetic family in the strict sense.
 * 2) The lead is far too long. Somebody must have suffered from a severe bout of lead fixation. The lead paragraph should be reduced to a mere definition of what it is, an overview of what language groups belong to it according to all or some versions, and the information that its interpretation as a genetic phylum is debated. All the details about who proposed which version when should go into sections.
 * 3) The information in the lead sentence about numbers of languages and speakers (putting the count to exactly 66 and all that) is self-contradictory with the statement immediately following that there are huge divergences about what subfamilies to count. This needs to be hedged at least with an ... according to one count ..., and it needs to be specified which definition this count is based on. Does it include Korean, Japanese etc.?
 * sorry, striking one bit, this seems to have been corrected in the latest revisions, I must have been looking at an older one. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:26, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Some comments to the issues raised above:
 * I see your point. In my view, it would be best to simply say "a proposed language family". The distinction between "a grouping of languages" and "a language family" may be lost on most readers.
 * That is very true, I agree 100%.
 * This is more tricky. The first part is easy, it's evident that we cannot say "66 languages". Japanese and Korean is another matter. Nobody disputes that the Turkic languages are related to each other (a non-issue here as there is already a family of Turkic languages). Including Mongolian and related languages is not universially accepted, but still the least contested part of Altaic. Adding Korean is more controversial; those who reject the Altaic hypothesis of course reject its inclusion but also some who support grouping Turkic and Mongolic together are unconvinved when it comes to Korean. And with Japanese, still more people drop out. All those who oppose Altaic, those who oppose Korean in Altaic but also some who support Korean in Altaic oppose Japonic languages in Altaic. So the definitions are a bit hard, but that's not to say that they should not be addressed. JdeJ (talk) 17:17, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

I often agree with Fut.Perf. but this time I have some objections to his changes to the lead. To be more precise, few if any of my objections concern information added by Fut.Perf., it was there before but since we're discussing the lead I thought it may be a good time to address it. I'm sure it's nothing that can't be sorted out here. My main concerns with the new lead are:
 * 1) A certain degree of weasel words. Unsourced phrases like "is generally considered", "while it is generally agreed", "some scholars consider", "according to some hypotheses". I think we all can agree that these sentences would benefit from being rewritten?
 * 2) I have reservations about relying on Pope too much in the lead. That source is more than 40 years old and stems from a time when Altaic enjoyed considerably more support than it does these days.
 * 3) I don't quite understand the "in the true sense" in the phrase "Its precise delimitation is debated among linguists, as is the question of whether it forms a genetic language family in the true sense." This sentence would be more correct by removing the last four words.
 * 4) Instead of saying "The Altaic group is generally considered to consist of at least the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families", I think it would be more correct to say that "According to the linguists supportin the Altaic theory, the Altaic group is considered to consist of at least the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families.". It would remove the "generally considered" that I mentioned above and make it more correct, as there are few such things as "generally considered" in the Altaic question.
 * 5) The third paragraph is very balanced and neutral in my eyes, although a few more recent sources instead of Pope would strengthen it a lot.
 * 6) Concerning Eurasiatic and Nostratic, I'm not too sure about saying that "These hypotheses are less widely accepted than the Altaic theory itself". In my ears, this phrase makes it seem as if Altaic is widely accepted while Eurasiatic and Nostratic are less widely accepted. As Altaic is very far from being widely accepted and Eurasiatic and Nostratic are almost universally rejected, this sentence could probably be rephrased.JdeJ (talk) 17:34, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Comments:
 * I wouldn't bother about vagueness in the lead. Yes, at that point, in the lead, all the reader needs to know that there are "some" who believe this or that. Who they are is a question of detail that goes in the main sections. If we were to fill that all in it would again overburden the reader, at that point.
 * Remove the "in the true sense" if you like, no problem.
 * About "The Altaic group is generally considered to consist...": I'd maintain that this is acceptable. The existence of something called "Altaic" is hardly in doubt. As far as I can see, even scholars who do not accept its genetic unity do nevertheless use the term "Altaic" when discussing the relations between these languages. In this, neutral, sense, a statement like "Turkic belongs tothe Altaic languages" is totally uncontroversial. Also, we really shouldn't burden our prose with too many such disclaimers at an excessive cost to simplicity.
 * Insert "even less widely accepted" if you must. (I think there was some even there somewhere.)


 * By the way, why are you guys fighting over such details like this? Coming here from the outside, this feels like the trench warfare editing I'm only familiar with from nationalist or religious disputes elsewhere on Wikipedia. Are there any ideological POV interests at stake here? Why is it important whether we are presenting this issue as a little bit disputed or a little bit more disputed or quite considerably seriously very much disputed? Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:54, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Another thing: about that "in the true sense". I asked myself why I had felt it appropriate to insert that, and I now think: it was as a service to our lay readers. When a lay reader sees "language family", it may not be immediately obvious to them what specific technical claim is implied in that term, in its technical usage. They may understand it in the sense of just "some languages belonging somehow together". So, on our first mention of "language family" as being a disputed issue, we need some kind of warning signal for readers to be aware that this is about a specific technical term. Other solutions might be "... a true language family, i.e. a group descended from a single ancestor language..." (although that would be duplicating the wording in paragraph 3. Fut.Perf. ☼ 18:01, 30 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Hardly answers, so call this more comments :)
 * We should not lengthen the lead or make it unnecessary complicated, but I don't think the changes I proposed would make it longer (bar a few words) or more complicated, quite the opposite.
 * Will do.
 * I wouldn't say it's totally uncontroversial to say that "Turkic languages belong to the Altaic languages". It is uncontroversial to say that if such a thing as Altaic languages exist, there is no doubt that Turkic languages belong to the core of that group.


 * As far as I know, there are few if any ideological interests here. Some Turkish nationalists have at times tried to use this issue to drup up nationalist support but with the religious-nationalistic group in Turkey gaining support at the expense of the secular-nationalistic, this is changing. Virtually all Turkic languages in the proposed Altaic groups are spoken mostly by Muslims while virtually all the other languages are spoken by non-Muslims. So no, I don't think there are any strong ideological reasons here. My experience is that trench warfare depends more on the people involved than the issue. I've had very calm, civil and long discussions on issues I feel very strongly about with civil people with whom I disagree, while I've also experienced wild edit-wars over small and insignificant details. I'll agree that nationalist and religious topic tend to attract the more uncompromising and fanatic contributors, though. JdeJ (talk) 18:08, 30 November 2008 (UTC)
 * OK. I read all your comments, but didn't memorize them. I think I got the general feel for them and then did some editing on the intro.  It's mostly for sentence flow and accuracy.  It's probably still not perfect, though.  What one person considers to be unimportant is very important to another person.  I value scientific accuracy in linguistics.  That's my field, it's important to me :) (Taivo (talk) 19:15, 30 November 2008 (UTC))

Recent revert (14 Dec 08)
I reverted your edit to the intro section because the genetic validity of the branches is not in question and that seemed to be what your edit implied to me. The only question is if these valid genetic units themselves form a single higher-order genetic unit. (Taivo (talk) 21:20, 14 December 2008 (UTC))
 * Yep, the new wording works for me. (Taivo (talk) 22:52, 14 December 2008 (UTC))

Citation style
The style of citing sources used in this article is inconsistent. It needs to be regularized. Otherwise, a "citation style" tag could be placed on this article and sooner or later will be. It looks like this:

(This is of course only an example of the tag. It is not an actual tag placed on an article.)

There are several citation styles accepted on Wikipedia (Citing sources). Wikipedia recommends only that one of the authorized citation styles be followed and that it be used consistently throughout the article.

There are two major citation styles, footnotes and author-date referencing.

Each style has advantages and disadvantages. In some academic fields, author-date referencing is now preferred. Many linguists prefer it (e.g. the late Winfred P. Lehmann, for instance in his Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics).

This article currently has 10 footnote references and about 81 author-date references. (The latter figure could be raised if all mentions of a work and its date are included, but it seems advisable to restrict the category to items that would normally receive a note number if footnoting is used.)

In view of the prevalence of author-date referencing in this article, I propose switching the article from its current mixed status to author-date referencing. With this in mind, I am changing the 10 footnote citations to author-date citations. — Preceding unsigned comment added by VikSol (talk • contribs) 02:19, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Peoples
Since there is no such thing as an "Altaic people", I merged that article here. Cleaned it up a bit, but it needs more. kwami (talk) 00:42, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Micro-Altaic is dead (or at least in hibernation)
I am editing the intro section to bring it in line with the current views of Altaicists, as opposed to those they held fifty years ago. The relevant considerations are enunciated by Stefan Georg and his collaborators in their 1999 article (see especially pages 73-74). This is a particularly important article in that Georg is a major opponent of the Altaic hypothesis, whereas his co-authors (Manaster Ramer, Michalove, Sidwell) are major supporters of it. It can thus be taken as representing a responsible consensus. I quote this passage in full to avert any suspicion I am editing the text:


 * Equally misleading to the non-specialist is the claim (e.g. Comrie 1992, Lyovin 1997) that the traditional Altaic theory connects only the western languages (Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic), and that some combination of Korean, Japanese and Ainu has been marginally associated with the western languages by some scholars. In fact, the status of Korean, Japanese and Ainu differs greatly in Altaic studies. While it is true that the oldest literature on Altaic dealt only with Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic, the fact is that Korean has been an integral part of the Altaic theory for most of the postwar period. Indeed, practically all scholars who have accepted the relationship among the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages since Poppe (1960) have also included Korean in their definition of Altaic (although in practice many Altaicists have not worked with Korean in any depth until recently). On the other hand, the relationship with Japanese was worked out more recently and still, while accepted by many Altaic scholars (such as Miller, Starostin and Vovin) to be Altaic, is not granted by others (e.g. Tekin and Baskakov).

Elsewhere, the authors emphasize that the Altaic hypothesis today concerns "the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean and, in most recent versions, Japanese languages".

Another point: I have used the term "anti-Altaicist" here rather freely. My justification for this is that Stefan Georg likes the term, as you can see from his comment on this talk page above, under "Anti" (last comment in the section).

It is important that both Altaicists and anti-Altaicists feel that their positions are correctly represented, as well as neutrals. This has been my aim in re-writing this section. Regards to all. VikSol 11:07, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I took Ainu out of the info box.


 * The lang fam nav box (at the btm of the page) used to have turk / mong / tung listed separately. We could choose either that or Altaic, as we have now, but there's a third choice: list the individual families (as we do now for japonic) and add Altaic as a 'perhaps also', like Tyrsenian. What'd'ya think? kwami (talk) 11:50, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Honestly, I find the language families template to be a space hog. I think the default should be switched back to "hide" rather than "show", so people can open it up if they want to explore the information it contains, but otherwise be left to concentrate on whatever they're looking into. This said, it is an eye-opener, since it squeezes into a very small space information that is usually too spread out to take in at a glance.

My personal views aside, I don't think there is enough of a consensus at the present time either for or against the Altaic family to either accept or reject it. The problem is to translate this fact into a tabular medium.

I like listing T M MT separately, with "perhaps Altaic" added at the end of the section, providing a convenient link.

By the way, Korean needs to be added to the Eurasian languages. Also, what about Nivkh? I can think of a few other suggestions. Regards, VikSol 13:59, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Language isolates have been left out. They'd double the size of the template. Unless you think Nivkh should be considered a small family? kwami (talk) 19:13, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Taxonomically, it makes no difference whether a language family is represented by one language or many. E.g. the Eskimo-Aleut family is composed of two branches, the Eskimo family and the single Aleut language, but each is an equal branch. Likewise, Eskimo is subdivided into the Yupik language family and the single Inuit language, but Yupik and Inuit have equal status. VikSol 21:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Sure, but it's impractical to double the template, and it's also impractical in many cases to distinguish isolates from unclassified languages. Besides, we'd get into arguments with people who don't understand the concept of a family of one. kwami (talk) 10:48, 30 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I have a copy of Georg's article. It is very good.  But I'm confused by your talk section title "Micro-Altaic is dead" considering that I read nothing in the Georg article that could be construed as implying that "Micro-Altaic is dead". --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 20:33, 29 January 2009 (UTC)

Georg and his co-authors state that nearly everybody who believes in Altaic today assigns Korean to it, which suffices to make it Macro-Altaic, and most of them even include Japanese. On page 75, first paragraph: "practically all scholars who have accepted the relationship among the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic languages since Poppe (1960) have also included Korean in their definition of Altaic". Anti-Altaicists by definition don't believe in Altaic at all. Skeptics do not support either Micro-Altaic or Macro-Altaic; they simply think the arguments for and against Altaic are about equally strong. This leaves nobody who supports Micro-Altaic. In this sense Micro-Altaic is dead. This doesn't mean that Altaicists reject kinship between Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic; it simply means they extend this grouping to Korean and, usually, Japanese (I wish they would start to say Japonic). VikSol 21:46, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That clarifies it better.  It didn't seem clear from the first quote.  I like that you're updating the article using the information from Georg.  It seemed like there was the answers to a number of questions raised in past talk entries sitting right there...  --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 17:12, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

iV ~ æøy
Consonant table footnotes 11 & 12 talk of an /iV/ environment. Should I assume this actually means *æ *ø *y? -- Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 23:08, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

The map in the infobox
The map in the infobox should be reviewed. In European Russia and Ukraina where are the Tatars, Crimean Tatars, Chuvashs, Bashkirs, as well as smaller communities of Turkic speakers in Caucasus ? Where are Turkic speakers of Iran and Turkish speakers of ex Ottoman teritory in mideast and east Europe ? Where are Turkic and Mongolian speakers of Afganistan ? Nedim Ardoğa (talk) 10:06, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Short comment on recent edits
I just looked at the current stage of this page and got the impression that it has noticeably worsened since December 2010. Some unsourced data was rightfully deleted, as was some sourced. But I am not gonna enter into the discussion - I still don't feel inclined to make major contributions to this article. However, I tried to combine the passages on the critique of EDAL of the old and new version. Citing the available discussion as the article used to do was basically the right thing, so I reinstalled that sentence. But focusing on Vovin's claim that EDAL falsified data is not justified - Vovin makes this claim, if I remember correctly, about a particular reading of a phonological reconstruction of a word from the Huayi Yiyu, and shows that the authors of EDAL were inconsistent in reading it, alleging something such as intention. But when I read it, I couldn't help but wonder whether we were talking about wishful thinking on the part of Starostin et al. In any case, Vovin's argument does not sum up to alleging that the authors of EDAL conspired to falsify their data. On the other hand, his pointing out that they ignored data that they must have known is much more prominent in his article and a much more sustained critique that deserves to be cited here. The other point about falsification has not been central to any part of the discussion at all and, if not reinforced by additional evidence, will probably not reflect on the way how anybody might approach this dictionary (which for other reasons is so shaky that only alert expert users who have the necessary knowledge to perceive the innumerable mistakes may dare to have a look at it, as pointed out by Georg). G Purevdorj (talk) 12:07, 21 April 2011 (UTC)

Japonic languages
This article claims that Altaic language family includes Japonic languages. While this is one theory, the Japonic language family generally considered a language isolate. On the wikipedia page for Japonic languages, for example, it is identified as an isolate rather than a member of the Altaic family. While the article does use qualifying language, I don't think it's clear enough.

Korean too. In the description, it says that the Altaic family includes the Korean language isolate. That doesn't make sense. If it's an isolate, it doesn't belong to a language family. I don't think that sentence was well phrased. 119.224.31.199 (talk) 10:40, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Since Altaic is unproven and not widely accepted as a language family, then Korean is still a "language isolate", even when some few linguists want to include it in an unproven and not widely accepted proposed language family. --Taivo (talk) 13:24, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Postulated Urheimat
The section titled "Postulated Urheimat" does not discuss or postulate an Urheimat. It should be re-titled. Furthermore I would be interested if there is a Postulated Urheimat, like the Atlas Mountains maybe? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.146.4.57 (talk) 16:19, 21 September 2011 (UTC)

Lexical comparisons in Altaic
The Comparative Pronouns Table by Blazek should be eliminated.

1) the comparisons between Altaic and Tibeto-Birman or Sino-Tibetan are well beyond the scope of this article, and are nothing more than simple speculation. 2) The comparisons are an original contribution by Václav Blažek and are not yet accepted by the majority of linguists. 3) The table implies that there is an accepted reconstruction of the Altaic pronouns (there is none generally accepted). 4) Wikipedia should provide useful, reliable information, or at least information accepted by the consensus of scientists, not learned guesses. 5) Encyclopedic content must be verifiable (see under). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.76.76.90 (talk) 10:48, 10 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Why eliminate that table and not the rest?
 * I don't know what the ST forms are doing there, but they are a good reminder than many of these correlations could be coincidental. — kwami (talk) 10:58, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Japanese and Korean are NOT Altaic languages !!!
East Asian languages such as Japanese, Korean and Ainu are not related to Altaic languages at all. The closest relative of the Altaic languages are probably Uralic language, and not Japanese/Korean.

East Asian languages :

native Japanese 	hitotsu 	futatsu 	mittsu 	yottsu 	itsutsu 	muttsu 	nanatsu 	yattsu 	kokonotsu 	to:
 * Korean
 * Korean 	hana 	tul 	set 	net 	tasôt 	yôsôt 	ilgop 	yôdôl 	ahop 	yôl
 * Sino-Korean 	il 	i 	sam 	sa 	o 	yuk 	ch'il 	p'al 	ku 	sip
 * Ainu
 * Proto-Ainu+ 	sine- 	tu:- 	de- 	i:ne- 	aski 	i:hdan- 	adehdan- 	tupedhdan- 	sinepehdan- 	hdan-
 * Ainu+ 	shine 	tu 	re 	ine 	ashikne 	iwan 	arawan 	tupesan 	shinepe-san 	wan
 * Kuril 	shiné 	do:bechi 	re:-bichi 	ine-p 	ash'kine-p 	iwam-pe 	aruwam-pe 	dobisam-pe 	shinibesam-pe 	wam-pe
 * Sakhalin 	sine-h 	tu-h 	re-h 	i:ne-h 	asne-h 	iwan-pe 	arawan-pe 	tupesan-pe 	sinepisan-pe 	wan-pe
 * Japanese
 * Old+ 	pitö 	puta 	mi 	yö 	itu 	mu 	nana 	ya 	könönö 	töwo
 * Sino-Japanese 	ichi 	ni 	san 	shi 	go 	roku 	shichi 	hachi 	ku 	juu
 * Okinawan 	tichi 	ta:chi 	mi:chi 	yu:chi 	ichichi 	mu:chi 	nanachi 	ya:chi 	kukunuchi 	tu:

VS Altaic languages :


 * Turkish 	bir 	iki 	üç 	dört 	bes, 	alti 	yedi 	sekiz 	dokuz 	on
 * Tatar 	ber 	ike 	öch 	dürt 	bish 	alti 	jide 	sigez 	tugiz 	un
 * Mongolian (Khalkha) 	nig 	xoyor 	guraB 	döröB 	taB 	dzorghaa 	doloo 	naym 	yös 	araB
 * Manchu 	emu 	zhuwe 	ilan 	duin 	sunzha 	ninggun 	nadan 	zhakûn 	uyun 	zhuwan

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.218.217.204 (talk) 18:10, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Basically, as this theory has not been generally accepted (yet) you are correct, but the fact is that this article talks about the theory. My knowledge? NOTHING. Hill Crest&#39;s WikiLaser (Boom). (talk) 00:13, 26 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Given the more thorough non-existence of all of Altaic, the whereabouts of Korean and Japonic within this theory should be not much to worry about :-). G Purevdorj (talk) 06:50, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

The opening lead needs strong "not widely accepted" type of statement
Reading it, I could get the impression that this is a strong contender as far as language-science goes. An expert linguistic source should be cited that makes it clear this is - while perhaps not a fringe theory - at the least a borderline one. 01:38, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

History repeats itself
I see that the same "talking past one another" arguments seem to occur in pro vs. anti-Altaic as everywhere else between lumpers and splitters:
 * According to Roy Andrew Miller (1996: 98-99), the Clauson–Doerfer critique of Altaic relies exclusively on lexicon, whereas the fundamental evidence for Altaic consists in verbal morphology. Lars Johanson (2010: 15-17) suggests that a resolution of the Altaic dispute may yet come from the examination of verbal morphology and calls for a muting of the polemic. In his view, "The dark age of pro and contra slogans, unfair polemics, and humiliations is not yet completely over and done with, but there seems to be some hope for a more constructive discussion" (ib. 17).

When considering distant relationships, splitters habitually seem to view only lexicon as worthy of consideration while lumpers seem to habitually look more at morphology. Not surprising then that mutual hostility results -- the most heated polemics always seem to arise in cases where there's no scientific way to settle a dispute. Exact same stuff being marshalled on the two sides of Dene-Yeniseian, etc. Benwing (talk) 04:39, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Altaicists and critics of Altaic
Those lists are a bit confusing. For example Lars Johanson is listed among the Altaicists, however he seems to be agnostic to the problem or at most a proponent of an alternative hypothesis. Judging from his works he simply proposed a method to evaluate pros and cons of the theory (cognates and copy in altaic verb derivation 1999), remaining neutral. He wrote the Altaic part of the "Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World" by Elsevier and he seems to be at most neutral, though he is quite critical to a genetic relation between Turkic-Mongol-Tungusic languages, where he seems to favour contact processes. In fact the work cited as an evidence of his support to the Altaic theory (Transeurasian verbal morphology in a comparative perspective: genealogy, contact, chance 2010) clearly states: "defining “Transeurasian” as a group of geographically adjacent languages that share a significant amount of linguistic properties, we do not need to presuppose genealogical relationship. Most of the authors contributing to this volume would not unequivocally subscribe to the hypothesis that the Transeurasian languages are genealogically related." Moreover, four of those Altaicists belong to the same group, Dybo, Mudrak, Sarostin x2, is that adequate? 84.222.239.177 (talk) 05:28, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I may add that KM Lee is a mild proponent of Macro-Altaic: he believes that an Altaic family exists, he is a proponent of a genetic link between Korean and Tungusic, he is fairly sure about a link between Korean and Japanese, however he acknowledges (2011) that:
 * "common linguistic features does not in any way constitute proof of genetic affinity, but they are suggestive" (about Altaic, Korean and Japanese)
 * "there is no general agreement on the genetic relationships of either Japanese or Korean" (citing Samuel Martin 1991).
 * "In our view, the prospects for comparative work between Korean and Tungusic appear to be somewhat better" [than Korean and Japanese] and "there are, to be sure, matches between Korean and Japanese for which correspondences are not to be found in Altaic or everywhere else."
 * so he concludes "it is more likely than not that Korean is related to Japanese, though at the present stage of our knowledge it is impossible to say just how distant such relationship, if it exists, might be. What we do know is that the task of proving the relationship remains as yet very much incomplete."
 * So it seems better to me to list him as a proponent of a "Turkic–Mongolic–Tungusic–Korean and possibly Japanese" family rather than simply a Macro-Altaic family, since for Macro-Altaic proponents the inclusion of Japanese is central, more so than Korean.
 * Also, why is Street listed among Altaicists, while Greenberg and Patrie are among the alternative ones? Are not their ideas somewhat similar? 84.222.239.177 (talk) 17:01, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * S. Robert Ramsey, co-author of KM Lee 2011, is really unsure about a genetic Korean-Japanese relation: "if we the knew for a fact that they were not [genetically related], then we would interpret the findings above as corroborative. If we knew for a fact that they were related, then we would be more impressed by the slimness of the foregoing evidence than by the seeming minimal contrast"(2004). This is the same point of view of Lee, listed among the "Altaicists". 84.222.239.177 (talk) 22:34, 26 September 2012 (UTC)


 * I agree. In the academic world, Korean and Japonic are generally NOT included in this language family. The article is misleading. --Lysozym (talk) 05:48, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

What evidence and objections are there to Altaic as a family?
The article repeatedly states that Altaic is controversial and that it is not widely accepted and so on. At the same time, it lists a number of languages that are commonly held to belong to the family, and lists regular sound correspondences and cognates. But what it doesn't say is why. Why are those correspondences valid? How many words adhere to them? Which words do not? Which objections have been raised? Is it a lack of conclusive evidence, a sparsity of undisputable cognates, lack of regular sound correspondences? What evidence is there for a relationship? Is there a lack of evidence? CodeCat (talk) 02:43, 15 March 2013 (UTC)

Correcting Article to Reflect Leading View of Korean and Japanese as Only Hypothetically Part of Altaic
Of course within any comparative linguistics specialty, the experts there who believe their own work will conclude that this is the proven standard. The question is, what does the broader comparative linguistic community think of their work?

And the answer is quite clear that Japanese and Korean are almost universally not accepted as well-established members of Altaic.

Oxford Dictionary of English: "Altaic - denoting or belonging to a phylum or superfamily of languages which includes the Turkic, Mongolian, Tungusic, and Manchu languages."

Ethnologue —

Altaic: http://www.ethnologue.com/family/17-15

Japonic: http://www.ethnologue.com/family/17-1710

Korean: http://www.ethnologue.com/language/kor

I am making a few minor changes to the article to make this reality clear to readers, while leaving the Korean/Japanese columns of the "reconstructions" untouched in context of "greater Altaic" claims. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.5.232 (talk) 01:52, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Those are not reliable sources. We've been over this several times, and this was the last consensus. Should be discussed if you wish to change it. — kwami (talk) 01:59, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia articles must report first not what one or more Wikipedia editors consider "correct", but what the most standard, mainstream academic treatment of a subject is. Then alternate academic views should definitely also be presented. There are believers in UFOs who will be telling me in another article that the New York Times saying there are no UFOs is "not a reliable source" while their favorite new book by a UFO-ologist is. And they've all discussed that and it's the truth. The linguists writing books on Nostratic are convinced they have proven that Nostratic exists -- and they have in some ways more evidence than for Japanese being part of Altaic. Linguistics is famously argumentative, and Ethnologue, which has no agenda whatsoever to support or not support any particular language family theory, is the most authoritative neutral source today.


 * I am making no attempt to alter the charts of "reconstructions of proto-Altaic" (or perhaps areal feature comparisons) in the article, only to make sure that readers who knew nothing of this subject, leave the article knowing that most sources not written by Altaicists deem Japanese and Korean to be isolates, which is a verifiable statement of fact.


 * Do you have any higher-level language reference source, dealing with all language families — not a work by partisan Altaicisist specialists — which recognizes "Macro-Altaic" as standard and accepted by the broader comparative linguistics field?


 * You need to discuss this first. Please read WP:BOLD. If you don't, you can be blocked for edit warring.
 * BTW, *all* of Altaic is hypothetical, not just Korean and Japanese. That was part of the last discussion. — kwami (talk) 03:37, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I've just discussed it. Where's your general reference source?


 * You have no "consensus" of even Wikipedia editors, just look above: "I agree. In the academic world, Korean and Japonic are generally NOT included in this language family. The article is misleading. --Lysozym (talk) 05:48, 27 December 2012 (UTC)"


 * That's the whole problem, misleading the readers to believe that something is broadly accepted which is not broadly accepted (whether it's true or not). You have references to support the claim "Altaicists are convinced they are right". Do you have a reference to support the claim that anybody else believes them? Post it, now, or it is you who are trying to vandalize the article with personal opinions and personal agendas. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.5.232 (talk) 03:49, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * If you don't like the existing consensus, you can try to change it, but personal attacks are not a good way of doing that. And in case a conspiracy theory is next, that doesn't have a good track record either. Present a rational argument and try to convince people. You might want to invite some of the people who participated in this the last time. — kwami (talk) 04:02, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I apologize for any exasperation. But the "consensus" of the broad comparative linguistics field today is against "Macro-Altaic". And this is such plain fact, supported by the verifiable references that WIkipedia demands, that it's frustrating to have to keep mentioning it. And the "consensus" in this Talk section, is of you refusing to listen to everybody pointing that fact out to you.

You cannot personally own a Wikipedia article. You've gotten it into a distorted state that you like, and now you are hiding behind "not changing things" without "consensus" — meaning your permission. Start a blog on Macro-Altaic to convey your personal views.

I have found a WIkipedia article presenting clearly misleading information to the public. I must correct this. You have the opportunity again now to demonstrate to me that I am wrong on the facts — not wrong on "consensus", not wrong according to your vague assurances — by giving authoritative general linguistics reference sources which present "Macro-Altaic" as the standard view today. Links please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.5.232 (talk) 04:20, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * You might want to read the past discussions so you know what you're talking about. It's not for me to convince you, but for you to convince us: You're the one trying to change consensus. — kwami (talk) 04:28, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Ethnologue is the consensus of linguistics today, which you, and a few other partisan Altaicists editing this article, are trying to replace with a distortion of reality. You and your pals are claiming the sky isn't blue. You say the article can't change unless I convince the people claiming that the sky isn't blue, that it's blue.


 * I have never once said that Korean and Japanese "are not part of Altaic". I have never said I want the article not to mention anything about them being part of Altaic. I want both sides reported to readers clearly: Altaicists strongly believe they have proven a connection and here's their evidence. The broader linguistic community is not convinced. You're trying to silence and erase the mainstream view in linguistics today. You're trying to own an article and prevent another editor from presenting an important and referenced true fact about the subject, because you (and maybe a few other biased editors) personally don't believe it. I'm going to try to undo your undo. And again until the article gets locked. And if it gets locked in the state blatantly lying to readers, then I will have to file a case with Wikipedia's dispute resolution process. They will see the authoritative status that Ethnologue holds in linguistics today. They will see dictionary definitions. They will see your refusal and inability to present contrary evidence.


 * Look again in the History versions at the changes I made to this article. All I do is let readers know the reality of what non-Altaicists think about Macro-Altaic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.5.232 (talk) 04:56, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * OK, well no response from you. I'm sorry to be confrontational but need to do this in pursuit of Truth, Justice, and the Wikipedia Way. I've also now noticed that you minimized an entire Altaic conference (Stanford 1990) which supported Unger's alternate definition of Altaic as being Japanese-Korean-Tungusic. Strange nomenclature indeed, but not something to be hidden from public knowledge to advance a competing opinion. And you only mention the long-standing Uralic-Altaic hypothesis as a passing error. I'll put that more clearly and prominently in the intro. I'll also be adding a few other additional references.


 * If I am successful in making all these edit without them being reversed, I will then monitor the article over the long term, and file a dispute case if any attempt to dictatorially suppress non-Macro-Altaic points of view is made again. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.5.232 (talk) 06:16, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Wow. You're not going to last long in a social environment like WP if you're this antisocial. — kwami (talk) 07:24, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I couldn't easily revert just your edit warring, so I reverted everything, as it's not worth my time to baby-sit your edits. You'll end up being blocked if you think this is the way to promote WP:TRUTH. — kwami (talk) 07:26, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Kwami, can you not see that this is not about your social environment. It's about you trying to impose a blatantly unreal non-fact on a Wikipedia article. Korean and Japanese are simply not generally accepted as members of Altaic by the field of linguistics at large. You're trying to insist that the article say that they are generally accepted.

I keep asking you for some evidence of your claim, but you have none. Because there is none. You keep coming back with "community" issues and threatening me with ostracism. Wikipedia articles are not about serving "you", they are about serving the reading public, with objective reporting on the state of affairs of a given subject. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.180.31.49 (talk) 02:31, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You keep talking about the "truth" but that does not count: WP:VNT. Saying I don't own the article seems a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, doesn't it? You still haven't provided reliable sources that back up your edits. Ethnologue is not a reliable source on this subject, as Kwami has already noted. If the original version has unsourced material, you are free to remove it, but any new material that you add must be sourced. Reverting unsourced edits does not require a source, because neither Kwami nor me have added new material, we have just removed yours and reinstated what was already there. Please provide a reliable source for your material or you will continue to be reverted and eventually blocked. CodeCat (talk) 03:15, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Reverting back to the last stable version before the current editing. Altaic is not "widely accepted" in any sense.  Altaicists constitute a minority of historical linguists and have for decades.  Any attempt to try to imply that some version of Altaic is widely accepted or anything more than a minority view is contrary to linguistic fact.  If you can build a consensus for some other wording that doesn't imply that Altaic is more than a minority hypothesis then it can be added, but rather than editing on the article and being constantly reverted, I suggest you propose changes here first.  --Taivo (talk) 04:06, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Britannica doesn't include Japanese and Korean. The Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World states that the inclusion of those languages in the group is controversial.  The article seems to be giving undue weight to that controversial point of view.  For example, the infobox states that Japonic and Koreanic are "generally included".  If those languages appear in the infobox, it should say that they are generally not included. Warden (talk) 09:01, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * You don't understand the point. It may very well be that including Japonic and Korean is more controversial than Altaic as a whole, but the way you are editing the article makes the Altaic hypothesis seem to be widely accepted and only adding Japonic and Korean makes it controversial.  That's the issue that you are ignoring.  You have to make the entire proposal, whether including Japonic/Korean or not, clearly controversial and not widely accepted.  --Taivo (talk) 09:43, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I have not edited the article. The issue here is the status of Japanese and Korean, as indicated by the section title.  If you have some other point to make please start a separate section for it.  Warden (talk) 10:46, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If I remember correctly, it was already mentioned by Georg et al. that encyclopedias are more on the traditional side when reflecting the Altaic controversy by not including Korean and Japonic. The active supporters of Altaic (Moscow school, Robbeets) are all Macro-Altaists, and both somewhat historically informed (SIAC, PIAC) and utterly clueless (WAFL) Altaistic conferences are open to contributions on Japonic and Korean. For the anti-Altaicists, the scope doesn't matter too much as contacts between all of these adjacent languages are certainly worth close investigation. So what's the fuss about? G Purevdorj (talk) 11:12, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I agree that this is much ado about nothing, as there are no grounds to stake a definitive claim to either inclusion or exclusion, so all relevant POV in RS should be presented in accordance with WP:DUE.

Wikipedia definitely needs to clearly distinguish for readers between academic theories that are "standard", "less accepted", "controversial", etc. And this is also the basis for the order and prominence given to the different theories in the article.

Obviously some kind of references are needed to establish this. Not just editors' opinions. If this Macro-Altaic is now widely accept as the "standard", is there some citation that can be given? The only reference currently is "Georg et al. 1999" -- but this is just a journal article by a researcher proposing this, not a higher-level "peer review" of what language families are broadly accepted today in comparative linguistics.
 * "Macro-Altaic" is not the "standard" since all versions are Altaic are widely rejected by the majority of historical linguists. That's the point here.  --Taivo (talk) 04:59, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

Describing the controversy, among other things
I'm not a linguist (my knowledge of the subject mainly comes from popular science articles, and Wikipedia), so I'm in no position to judge what the current scholarly consensus is. However, I might be able to suggest a better wording that gives a more balanced description of the range of theories. Would something like this be reasonable?
 * Altaic is a proposed language family that includes some or all of the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic, and Japonic languages. Several versions of the theory exist, which include or exclude different sub-families.  In its original form (also known as "micro-Altaic"), the Altaic family comprises the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic language families.  An alternative version of the theory, known as "macro-Altaic" includes all the sub-families (Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic, and Japonic).  Unger (1990) proposes another grouping, consisting only of Japonic, Korean and Tungusic.  The existance of an Altaic family (in whatever form) is itself controversial, and is not accepted by the majority of linguists, who argue that the similarities between the subfamilies are a result of areal interaction between the language groups concerned rather than common descent.

I think that looks reasonably balanced (once proper references are added). A few points that may need considering, though:
 * Regardles of how we rewrite it, the current first line of the lede probably needs to be changed, as it oversimplifies the cited source. (Current text: Altaic ... includes the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Koreanic, and Japonic languages.  Cited paper: Altaic ... comprising the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean and, in most recent versions, Japanese languages).
 * I'm not sure the best way to describe the non-acceptance of the theory by the majority of linguists. Is this a fringe theory, or is it more like "35% accept it, 55% reject it, 10% haven't made up their mind)?  Is it rejected just due to lack of evidence, or is there positive evidence against it?  We will have to be careful about how we word it, to avoid sounding unduly accepting/dismissive of one side or the other.  (In any case, this needs a better discussion in the main body of the article, including perhaps a brief description of any alternative theories.  At the moment there is nothing really explaning why the majority reject it).
 * If Unger is the sole person to support a "Japonic, Korean and Tungusic" grouping, is it giving him undue weight to mention this in the lede?
 * Ideally, we should state whether current concensus favours the micro or macro version of the theory (or neither), but given the previous arguments, it this may be too complex an issue for the lede.

Iapetus (talk) 21:23, 9 July 2013 (UTC)


 * That all seems reasonable. No, it's not fringe; the debate is over whether the numerous lexical and grammatical commonalities are genetic or areal.  That's often a very difficult question to answer.  Starostin, for example, accepts Altaic, but using the same kind of analysis has recently come to the conclusion that Khoisan is bogus.
 * I've never heard of Altaic as Tungusic–Koreanic–Japonic; perhaps that could be relegated to 'other' or a footnote.
 * From previous discussions, it seems that those who accept Altaic today accept the macro version. — kwami (talk) 21:51, 9 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Majority, minority ... many linguists is simply careful not to support a theory that is controversial and that they don't know enough about. Most of the folks at WAFL take the opposite stance and accept Altaic without knowing the least about the discussion. A similar stance is taken in Mongolia where wishful thinking dictates that Poppe must have been right, with no regard for Starostin's considerable contributions or any evidence to the contrary. The discussion is not there to be decided, but to be closed. Then there are areal or language family specialists such as Johanson or myself who just sit around and wait to see some more evidence, usually with a somewhat pessimistic stance, or the subset of typologists that really care about whether language families exist before deciding on their sample. And ultimately there’s the small set of experts that actually take part in the discussion. Unger is an oddity: I’ve read the tiny summary article quoted in the article and listened to a much more recent paper of his in 2011, but he never bothered to present any evidence. Now I don’t know whether he made any other contributions, but if that is not the case, Unger’s position is as good as the personal opinion of any Wikipedian and should probably be erased from the article entirely. At any rate, I deleted it from the lead. G Purevdorj (talk) 02:37, 10 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm going to add some general comments here. Kwami, Taivo and CodeCat are all editors who are knowledgeable about historical linguistics and have contributed to a wide variety of articles. I would add myself to this category although obviously this is not an unbiased opinion. I don't recognize G Purevdorj but he/she seems to have a good deal of specialist knowledge about this area. User Wardog aka Iapetus appears to be a careful editor who (in his own view) is not a linguistics scholar but from my perspective has a good understanding of the way that scholarly controversies work in general and the proper way to write a Wikipedia article to convey these controversies.


 * There is a general problem with languages, dialects and language families in that many people have popular opinions and *think* they are competent to judge the scholarly reality when they're not. Unfortunately these popular viewpoints are often held very passionately because they underlie strongly-held views on ethnic identity, political legitimacy, etc. etc., and this passion means that many Wikipedia editors are more than willing to edit-war to get their way. In my opinion it's a minor miracle that articles on certain languages (e.g. Serbo-Croatian) have actually managed, for the most part, to stay in a state that does correctly reflect the scholarly consensus despite the enormous opposing ethnopolitical pressures. Kudos to Kwami and Taivo for their willingness to continue engaging these battles month after month, year after year, long after I would have thrown up my hands in disgust. (As an example, a few months ago I was engaged in a frustrating and demoralizing battle with a Silesian nationalist WP editor who fiercely insisted that Silesian is a separate language, rather than a Polish dialect with strong Czech influence, despite the almost total lack of scholarly sources favoring this position. This and a couple of other likeminded editors had managed to distort all the relevant articles (e.g. Slavic languages, Polish language, the misnamed Silesian language, Dialects of Polish, etc.) in favor of their viewpoint; in some cases these distortions had persisted for years. I eventually gave up monitoring these articles, and I see that some of the Silesian nationalist viewpoint has crept back in.)


 * In the case of this article, I haven't read through the relevant sources enough to be able to comment definitively, but it seems clear that (a) "micro-Altaic", and likewise "Ural-Altaic", are old ideas that have been sanctified through repetition in the popular sources but aren't accepted any more (to the extent that they ever were); "macro-Altaic" does have significant, but clearly minority, scholarly support.


 * Overall, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the idea, but it's very hard to evaluate how well-supported the grouping actually is given the "evidence" currently presented in the article. Tables like the vowel table in section 4.2.2 make me feel somewhat skeptical when I see e.g. that the outcome of Proto-Altaic (CaC)u (fifth line) is given as /a/, /o/, /u/ in Proto-Mongolic and /a/, /ə/, /o/, /u/ in Middle Korean. Either the context in which these putative outcomes occur needs to be identified (or at the very least, the dominant outcome(s) should be specially indicated), or the table should be deleted. Likewise for tables of vocabulary; e.g. in table 4.4.2, where /boːjn/, /moŋa-n/, /mje-k/ and /nəmpV/ ("neck", third line) are all claimed to be cognate, and to descend from a putative proto-form /móːjno/, what is the evidence for this? Are there solid rules that can be demonstrated showing how all these forms can be derived? And if so, how well-supported are these rules? As an example of what I'd like to see, take a look at a couple of tables I've created: "Possible derivation of some verbal forms" in Old Irish, and the big table of the derivation of English "one" ... "seven" and "mother", "heart", "hear" in Old English. The latter table clearly shows, for example, how the PIE forms *kʷetwó:r, *pénkʷe, *septḿ, *h₂ḱousyónom yield the extremely different-looking modern words "four", "five", "seven", "hear". Other tables of varying sizes that I've created, which might be useful for reference, can be found e.g. in Old English phonology, Middle English phonology, Phonological history of French and History of the Slavic languages. Granted, some of these tables may be hard to read or overly large, but they show the sort of information that needs to be presented in order to properly demonstrate cognacy in languages like English, Irish and French, which all have notably complex sound changes, especially in their vowels -- and if macro-Altaic is correct, similarly complex changes must be involved in order to link the sets of words given in section 4.4.


 * There are also lots of other things that need to be documented -- e.g. why are reconstructed Old Chinese and Proto-Tibeto-Burman pronouns given in section 4.4.1, when Sino-Tibetan is a completely different family from any of the macro-Altaic families, and I don't know of any even remotely scholarly claims linking them?


 * Benwing (talk) 02:38, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

Proto-Altaic peoples didn't live in Eastern Europe
it's a Pan-Turkist propaganda. Identifying reliable sources,, Talk:Paleolithic_Continuity_Theory Cantspans (talk) 09:58, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

(stirring the pot, but ..) Summary section?
Shouldn't there be a brief summary section at the end of this article that states that this proposed theory is pretty much discarded now (generally) by the majority of linguists? I think it would help for anyone investigating the subject, just so they walk away with the academic opinion that this is more or less a dead end. HammerFilmFan (talk) 05:58, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Comment from ANI discussion

 * Dictionaries and encyclopedias are not RS for this unsettled question. Comparative linguistics is highly speculative, being largely based on statistical comparisons as opposed to historical data. Even where similarities characterized as "typological" (i.e., syntactic) are recognized, lending credibility to a possible connection, if phonological and semantic correlaries are scant, some will discount any connection outright.
 * Oftentimes positions on this are politically motivated. Nationalists in various countries see any drawing of a connection as a dilution of their pedigree or a threat to their independence, for example.
 * In the future this topic will become more interdisciplinary. For example, I believe that there is little debate among archaeologists and anthropologists regarding the influx of Tungusic peoples into the northern part of the Korean peninsula. That would seem to provide ample room for a linguistic connection on some level.-- Ubikwit   連絡見学/迷惑 18:57, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Actually linguistic reconstruction and linguistic relationships are not, and never will be, interdisciplinary. Linguistic knowledge is not genetic, it is not archeological, it is not cultural.  Altaic is a dying hypothesis, whether you include Japonic and Korean or not.  --Taivo (talk) 23:29, 6 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Linguistic knowledge itself is not, but if a historical linguist concludes that there must have been contacts between two languages before a certain time and archeologists, historians etc. can provide evidence to the contrary, it does matter, especially if the linguistic evidence in question is based on a rather small number of lexical items. G Purevdorj (talk) 03:41, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, linking archeological evidence to linguistic evidence is itself a somewhat controversial practice. CodeCat (talk) 13:13, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Cultures evolve through interaction and cross-fertilization. The existence of loan words adopted in conjunction with some practice or product of material culture and the like are a simple demonstration of that, and one doesn't have to go to prehistoric periods to observe the phenomenon. Of course, that would be simple lexical evidence, of which there is little, I gather.
 * I would also imagine that population genetics will shed a little light on ancient migrations. For example, there is a substantial presence of the haplotype prevalent in Tibet in Japan. What we know about the history of people(s) that speak potentially related languages can help assess whether there is an association, the degree of association, etc.-- Ubikwit   連絡見学/迷惑 13:44, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Haplotype, shamaplotype. There is no direct connection between language and DNA.  Languages are learned behaviors, not inherited behaviors and always have been.  Genetic data can be no more than secondary, circumstantial, minor support for a linguistic relationship argument.  If the argument cannot be made entirely with linguistic data, then genetics is worthless.  Same with archeological/cultural data--there is no direct connection between learned linguistic behavior and learned cultural behavior.  The Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona practice nearly identical cultural behaviors yet speak languages in four unrelated language families.  --Taivo (talk) 19:00, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

People carry more than their DNA with them when they migrate, they carry their language and cultural practices. This is a question related to transmission, adaptation, transformation, etc. If there is archaeological evidence of cultural transmission, then there is a higher probability of the presence of correlary confluences in linguistic factors as well. Hypothetically speaking, of course. You made an analogy about the Pueblos, but did not address the point with regard to whether or not there is any evidence of cultural transmission between those peoples, or if they were isolated, self-sustaining communities. I'm not familiar with their languages and cultures, so this is not simply a rhetorical point. Maybe they did manage to cross-fertilize culturally and maintain linguistic distinction. That is not necessarily the case in general, and would probably be a statistical anomaly.-- Ubikwit   連絡見学/迷惑 19:24, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Look at the Pygmies of Africa as well as the Pueblos. They are so genetically distinct from their neighbors that they constitute one of the four earliest genetic lines of humans.  Yet when the Bantus invaded central Africa a couple of millennia ago, the Pygmies completely abandoned whatever languages they originally spoke and learned the languages of their "conquerors".  There is no trace of any "Pygmy" language, they all speak either Bantu or Ubangi languages closely related to or identical with the languages of their genetically distinct Bantu neighbors.  Of course, the Pueblos borrowed culture from each other, that's the point--that culture is no more tied to DNA than language is.  Their languages are in unrelated families while their cultures are nearly identical, meaning that culture was easily transferred across language boundaries.  The languages spoken by the Pygmies were easily transferred across genetic boundaries.  When looking at cultural and linguistic spread, even in preliterate times, it is almost never the case that underlying populations ceased to exist--they simply merged into the incoming population, learned the new language, and adopted the new culture.  Therefore any attempt to tie genetic evidence with linguistic evidence is doomed to failure.  It is marginally circumstantial at best.  --Taivo (talk) 19:52, 7 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Just to add a couple more examples of genetically distinct, but linguistically uniform, groups--the Negrito groups of the Philippines, who all speak Austronesian languages related to their neighbors, and the Aslian groups of the Malay Peninsula, who all speak Austro-Asiatic languages related to their neighbors. --Taivo (talk) 02:22, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Granted, that it is undoubtedly the case that there are examples of both models, especially in pre-literate societies.
 * However, a very modern example is illustrative of the dynamic. That example being Japan after the introduction of Western technology. There are two distinct modes of lexical representation related to the adaptation of Western technology:
 * Neologisms rendered in Sino-Japanese compounds
 * Loan words rendered in an approximation of their pronunciation in the language of the country from which the concept/object was introduced
 * In the first mode, they have deployed resources in the native lexicon to render the imported concept/object as a neologism. In the second mode, they have adopted words from a foreign language in conjunction with adopting the corresponding cultural practice/object.
 * Of course, modern examples are illustrative only with respect to the lexical aspect. The adaptation of syntactical elements would seem to be the crux of the matter, and that is something that will likely remain somewhat obscure.-- Ubikwit   連絡見学/迷惑 10:47, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Your example has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with linguistic reconstruction and the issue of Altaic. Are you actually a linguist?  If you were, then you would know that your example means nothing for determining linguistic relationships between language families.  --Taivo (talk) 15:33, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I have studied some linguistics, but am not in academia at present, though I work as a translator. A recent focus of mine has been on the development of the Japanese writing system, so I am familiar with the full scope of current scholarship on that topic, which is, albeit, only peripherally related to the present article.
 * The issue at hand, however, seems not exclusively related to "reconstruction" or "relationships between language families", but whether specific languages are associated with a specific language family.
 * As mention by another editor above, there are Korean linguists that support a "genetic" connection between Tungusic and Korean, and given what I know about the history of the region, I would definitely support that stance.-- Ubikwit   連絡見学/迷惑 16:40, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * If you are not a linguist, and don't have a focus on the science of historical linguistics, then how can you support any stance that relies on linguistic data? This issue is 100% about linguistic reconstruction and relationships between language families.  There is no other issue here whatsoever.  If you don't understand the science that we're talking about, then I'm sorry but your point-of-view, in your own words, is "only peripherally related".  But even using "peripherally" is to give more credit to "writing systems" than they are due.  All the history we are talking about here is pre-literate and Japanese writing has absolutely nothing to contribute.  --Taivo (talk) 18:17, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I suppose it depends on your definition of linguist, if you are challenging my competence to address this issue at all. I have studied linguistics at the undergraduate level and have experience translating two of the languages at issue.
 * From your comment above, it seems to me that there are two parallel and interrelated issues, the first being whether there is such a language family called Altaic (which it appears you oppose), and second whether Korean and Japanese are included in that language family.
 * The issue of the origin of writing (both Korean and Japanese) is that it relates to the emergence from pre-literate to literate.
 * I have briefly looked at the sources, and am highly skeptical of the attempts to refute the existence of the Altaic language family, and to exclude Korean and Japanese from that language family. Perhaps the parameters for this article--until there is a definite consensus in academia--should be defined with a little more leeway.-- Ubikwit   連絡見学/迷惑 18:34, 8 April 2013 (UTC)
 * "Translating languages" is irrelevant for a discussion of historical linguistics and determining the possible interrelationships between languages, as is a history of writing in those languages, since the period of time when all this occurred was thousands of years before the adoption of writing in any of these languages. The majority of historical linguists do not accept Altaic as a valid linguistic family whether Korean and Japonic are included or not.  Of course most of the references listed in the article are the minority which support Altaic.  Listing all the sources which oppose such a grouping would be impractical.  --Taivo (talk) 20:01, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

'''This is a forum-like discussion of editors' personal linguistic theories, which is not supposed to occur in Talk pages. If any of this is relevant to specific published sources that an editor proposes using for the article, please give those sources. Otherwise this section "Comment from ANI discussion" should be deleted.'''
 * No, this discussion is/was on-topic and useful, and to the point. Altaic is dying fast as a theory, even its original inventors have abandoned it for the most part, and we need to make sure that it is not given much credence any more in the language articles. HammerFilmFan (talk) 16:20, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Removing Altaic as the highest-level genetic link
There is an RfC concerning whether to eliminate the automatic inclusion of "Altaic ?" as the highest classificatory node in the language infobox. --Taivo (talk) 19:32, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

The RfC has been moved to here. --Taivo (talk) 17:41, 7 February 2015 (UTC)

Korean or Koreanic
Why User:Kwamikagami wants to use the term 'Koreanic'? The Koreanic languages are just a proposal languages family. Majority of linguists regard Korean as a language isolate. --117.53.77.84 (talk) 05:36, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Because the extinct relatives of Korean are necessarily included in any language-family proposal. "Korean" excluded those extinct relatives, but "Koreanic" includes them. --JorisvS (talk) 09:27, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Relationship between ancient languages which were spoken in Korea and 'contemporary' Korean is unconfirmed. It's still researching by linguistic and the Korean studies scholars. --117.53.77.84 (talk) 11:36, 6 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Koreanic. Even if the ancient languages are excluded, some linguists are starting to recognize Jegu as a separate (but obviously closely related) language to Korean.  Two languages make a language family, thus "Koreanic".  --Taivo (talk) 15:20, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Our article on Koreanic explains what JorisvS and Taivo said. It is therefore the more useful link. — kwami (talk) 17:00, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Korean. Only Some linguists starting to recognise Jeju as a separate language. Others still recongnise jeju as a Korean dialect, especially South Korean linguists. --117.53.77.84 (talk) 18:59, 6 February 2015 (UTC)


 * You're missing the point. Regardless of who recognizes what, our article on Koreanic languages covers the putative branch of Altaic that includes Korean.  — kwami (talk) 20:02, 6 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Use "Language isolate" in infobox, cover the controversial classification in article text, as per normal.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:49, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Citation Style section 2
I want to comment on the revision made by Taivolinguist on 1 June 2013 (at 11:16). I mention this to you because you seem to be active in writing for the article, and in maintaining your stance, to the letter. If you, sir or madam, think it is proper citation style to use German (the original language), you ought to put the Title in the bibliography, in German. That is the right place when you have a sequence of Latin that is (as I believe) cluttered. Really, proper citation style is not so clearly agreed upon on Wikipedia that it does not require application of the principles from the editors. I don't believe you read the section the editors wrote on citation, at the beginning of the talk page. Or, perhaps you did. In any case, they are right.

I really believe that my "edit" would make the article clearer, and that the German words of the title are quite translatable. The article is in English, right? You can translate that title without losing any subtleties of the German. Einführung doesn't have a particular connotation of German dictatorship, nor is there any other reason for multiplying words in the article. Let the bibliography be in German, and the article in English, then. Let us follow the course that the editors outlined across the whole of the article; and put original titles in a separate bibliography. That way, people who are interested in learning about Altaic can read and understand the main article, and those who want to check the learned sources of that article can read it, and then check it. That is the reason I think we should follow this course of action. I do not blame you for wanting to show what you know, but knowledge of Latin and German is hardly essential to expressing yourself, or the consensus of editors, on the subject of Altaic. Dsnow75 &#91;&#91;User Talk: Dsnow75&#124;Talk&#93;&#93; (talk) 21:10, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

I now have noticed that the citation style that the editors advocated has generally already been made uniform. So I do not mean to edit for the sake of editing; it's already been done. I have still continued to straighten out the article, though, as I wish you will have noticed. Dsnow75 &#91;&#91;User Talk: Dsnow75&#124;Talk&#93;&#93; (talk) 19:06, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I don't know what the hell you are going on and on about. Perhaps you should add a link to the edit (from two years ago) that you object to.  Do you actually think that I remember every one of thousands of edits that I make every year?  --Taivo (talk) 19:19, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I have read your note. Notice the date of June 1, 2013 at 11:16 AM, look up the history of the main article, and you will find what I am talking about. Yours sincerely, Dsnow75 &#91;&#91;User Talk: Dsnow75&#124;Talk&#93;&#93; (talk) 05:11, 25 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Place a link to the edit here. Asking other editors to scroll back through the history means that no one is going to look at it and they will ignore you.  --Taivo (talk) 06:38, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Lead
I have problems with the way the article's lead is written. The first line reads, "Altaic /ælˈteɪɨk/ is a proposed, but widely discredited, language family of central Eurasia." Yet we then are told, "The Altaic language families share numerous characteristics. The debate is over the origin of their similarities. One camp, often called the "Altaicists", views these similarities as arising from common descent from a proto-Altaic language spoken several thousand years ago. The other camp, often called the "anti-Altaicists", views these similarities as arising from areal interaction between the language groups concerned." See the problem? It presents the two "camps" as though they were about equally credible and avoids taking sides, thus contradicting the article's opening. It seems that adding the words "but widely discredited" was intended as an easy way to change the lead to make it clear that Altaic is now regarded as discredited, but more extensive changes will have to be made if conveying accurately that Altaic is now seen that way is the objective. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 05:28, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Good point. Altaic is, indeed, widely discredited as a genetic unit and its support is withering away.  So the "balance" of the older lead needs to be adjusted to reflect the contemporary state of affairs.  --Taivo (talk) 05:54, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * You added the phrase "widely discredited" in a recent revision of this page. Can you provide any reliable third-party sources to support these claims? Jarble (talk) 03:48, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Here --Taivo (talk) 07:10, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

"The majority of scholars today consider a genetic relationship between these languages to have been proved and hence regard the Altaic group as a language family, basing this conclusion not only on similarities in vocabulary and language structure but on well-established systematic sound correspondences as well. Nonetheless, some scholars continue to regard the relationship as a hypothesis yet to be proved, while yet others believe genetic relationship to be indemonstrable, given the available evidence. A small number of scholars reject the hypothesis, attributing similarities rather to borrowings and areal convergence."
 * The status of Altaic theory is mentioned in the article on Britannica. Quoting the relevant section:

I think that the widely discredited part needs to be toned down a bit in accordance with the latest research. (Britannica article is from 2013). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:42, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Britannica is not a reliable source for such information--it is a tertiary source. A linguistics source, such as the Campbell and Mixco one, is a secondary source and thus far more reliable.  Britannica's comment that "the majority of scholars today consider a genetic relationship...to have been proved" is so far from the truth as to be ludicrous.  The majority of linguists think the exact opposite.  I don't know who they got to write the Britannica article, but it is either 1) someone who isn't a linguist, or 2) one of the tiny number of historical linguists who are trying to push Altaic.  Either way, that statement is utterly false.  The Britannica article is not "the latest research".  It is a tertiary source of dubious origin.
 * "While 'Altaic' is repeated in encyclopedias and handbooks most specialists in these languages no longer believe that the three traditional supposed Altaic groups, Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic, are related." Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco, A Glossary of Historical Linguistics (2007, University of Utah Press), pg. 7.
 * "Although apparently genetically separate from each other, Turkic and Mongolic are entities so intimately interconnected that it will never be possible to understand the one with the other." Claus Schönig, "Turko-Mongolic Relations," The Mongolic Languages (2003, Routledge), pg. 418.
 * András Róna-Tas ("The Reconstruction of Proto-Turkic and the Genetic Question," The Turkic Languages [1998, Routledge], pp. 67-80) is less definitive in his comments, but in no sense does he support Britannica's appraisal of a "majority".
 * Tore Janson, The History of Languages, An Introduction (2012, Oxford) doesn't even mention Altaic in the chapter on "The large language groups", although every firmly established large group is mentioned. (Implying, of course, against Britannica, that Altaic is not firmly established.)
 * P.H. Matthews, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics (2007, second edition, Oxford) calls Altaic a "proposed family of languages", not an established one (such as Indo-European, which he calls simply "[A] family of languages").
 * "When cognates proved not to be valid, Altaic was abandoned, and the received view now is that Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic are unrelated." Johanna Nichols, Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time (1992, Chicago), pg. 4.
 * "Careful examination indicates that the established families, Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic, form a linguistic area (called Altaic)...Sufficient criteria have not been given that would justify talking of a genetic relationship here." R.M.W. Dixon, The Rise and Fall of Languages (1997, Cambridge), pg. 32.
 * Asya Pereltsvaig, Languages of the World, An Introduction (2012, Cambridge) has a good discussion of the Altaic hypothesis (pp. 211-216) and concludes "this selection of features does not provide good evidence for common descent" and "we can observe convergence rather than divergence between Turkic and Mongolic languages--a pattern than is easily explainable by borrowing and diffusion rather than common descent".
 * The ease with which I have found these comments and sources plainly demonstrates that Britannica is simply wrong on this point. (And to historical linguists, the names Campbell, Dixon, and Nichols carry a great deal of weight.)  Britannica is never a reliable source for linguistics when it is contradicted by secondary linguistic sources (which are preferred by Wikipedia's reliable source standards).  This isn't the first time that I've had to argue against Britannica's bad linguistics.  --Taivo (talk) 14:10, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

The problems with your citations:
 * They are obsolete (Nichols 1992)
 * They do not explicitly support or refute Altaic (Schönig 2003, Janson 2002)
 * They do not describe the general status of acceptance of Altaic theory (as opposed to the personal opinion of the author). The Britannica article does just that. The Britannica article author is a scholar which you can easily check if you click on his name which is linked in the article. Tertiary source are OK to provide a bird's eye view on the status of a topic. Quoting from No_original_research:
 * "Policy: Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other."

The problem with the wording widely disredited is that it's a stronger statement that your sources indicate. Many provide a safe margin (Schönig 2003: "apparently genetically separate"), and none indicate that it has been abandoned altogether. At best it remains proposed and "unproven", in a sense that there is a significant group of historical linguists that don't accept it. Anyways, I did a bit more research: To sum it up: while it is not established, it is far from discredited. I suggest that the qualifier widely discredited be removed and replaced with something less strong, e.g. proposed or hypothetical. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 15:49, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Altaic is a widely, though not universally, accepted language family.. - Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World, E. K. Brown, Sarah Ogilvie, Elsevier, 2009
 * The article on Altaic languages in Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics 2006 (a top-notch reference work I'm sure you agree) authored by L Johanson simply calls it: A common designation for the typologically related languages of the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic families is ‘Altaic languages’; according to some scholars, this designation also includes Korean and Japanese. It then goes on to describe pros and cons of the theory. As for its status it says: There is no consensus as to whether the relatedness is proven, still unproven, or impossible.. Nowhere does it call it discredited or long-abandoned.
 * Sorry, Ivan, but you are wrong and have mischaracterized my sources. Nichols is far from obsolete since there has been no widely accepted work done on Altaic since then.  And even one of your sources, the Encyclopedia of Language of Linguistics, calls Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic "typologically related" and not genetically related.  The fact is simply clear--other than a single overblown comment in Britannica that is not based on any actual fact, Altaic is overwhelmingly rejected as a genetic unit in the sources.  At best, the sources state that there are a few specialists who accept it.  And, yes, the facts of the matter are that Altaic has been "widely discredited".  There have been no major supportive works published in decades.  --Taivo (talk) 21:38, 1 March 2015 (UTC)
 * And I looked up Binnick's resume. He's not a historical linguist, he's a theoretical syntactician.  He wrote a theoretical grammar of Mongolian.  That is apparently why he was chosen to write about Altaic.  Nichols, Dixon, and Campbell are historical linguists.  All of them state explicitly that Altaic is not a genetic entity.  All of the most reliable historical linguists state that Altaic does not exist.  Binnick's statement in Britannica, that a majority of scholars consider Altaic to have been proved is utterly false.  Statements by actual historical linguists prove otherwise.  --Taivo (talk) 03:53, 2 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Just as a general issue, Taivo is correct that linguistic sources are preferable to general works of reference such as encyclopedias. FreeKnowledgeCreator (talk) 07:22, 2 March 2015 (UTC)

I was browsing Wikipedia and came across this discussion. Perhaps Altaic could be called a typological grouping in the lead, with clarification that this does not mean it's a genetic grouping, and description of how so-called Altaic languages came to share typological features (language contact, Sprachbund, whatever) — similar to the concept of Standard Average European, which is a typological grouping, not a genetic classification, since it contains Indo-European languages from several branches (Romance, Germanic, Slavic) that do not share a unique common ancestor. Just a thought, from an uninformed bystander. — Eru·tuon 17:42, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

I have problems also "widely discredited" is a very strong statement, and we usually avoid such statements in the lede. The lede is supposed to summarize the article, and the article, appropriately, gives the various views. They cannot be condensed into a single phrase with the necessary qualification. Some less wording can be used "often questioned" or "of disputable status" etc.  DGG ( talk ) 19:12, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
 * The truth, DGG, is that Altaic has been widely discredited among historical linguists. It's not really debated anymore at all.  It is, as Erutuon states above, almost universally considered to be a typological grouping among historical linguists.  But viewing Altaic as a genetic unit is virtually a fringe position at this time.  Erutuon's wording "a typological grouping" could be used rather than "widely discredited", but to imply that there is any creditable debate among specialists as to its genetic status is to misinform the reader.  --Taivo (talk) 20:20, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
 * Yeah, Altaic's considered a dead fish now in most Historian circles, based on the dearth of support for it in the wider majority of linguistic scholars.98.67.182.208 (talk) 20:48, 13 March 2015 (UTC)

A few comments:
 * The Britannia article makes a distinction between Micro-Altaic (Turkic, Tungusic, Mongolic) and Macro-Altaic (Turkic, Tungusic, Mongolic, Koreanic, Japonic, and others), even though it doesn't explicitly use those terms, and states that the former is 'accepted by a majority of scholars' while the latter is still 'speculative.'
 * The Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World makes the exact same distinction, and again states that the former is widely accepted while the latter not so much.
 * Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics does not make a stand either way.
 * Against the above sources, Micro-Altaic, as described in this very talk section, is *not* the default Altaicist position. The Altaicists listed under the pro-Altaic section, especially the ones that are still in the field, are practically all proponents of Macro-Altaic, not Micro-Altaic (Georg 1999), which has been rebranded by a subset of them as Transeurasian (Robbeets 2014).
 * Where, then, did the idea come re:Britannia and CELW that Micro-Altaic is widely accepted, but Macro-Altaic not? And who exactly is an authority with regards to "the majority of linguists?"
 * As with divisive topics in general, both sides are prone to writing as though their own views are correct, and to marginalize those who disagree. This is especially the case for this issue, where scholars are prone to declaring the premature death of theories and to "decide" for everyone else (Johanson 2010).
 * The standard WP policy with respect to such divisive topics is to not take a stand, but to instead present both sides. To this end, I do agree that "widely rejected" is too strong of a description, as it gives off the impression that only fringe scholars support Altaic/Transeurasian. I do not think that is a fair description of the situation today, and further, those who reject Altaic/Transeurasian as a *genetic* family still recognize its value as an areal-typological family. The header, which emphasizes that Altaic is a "proposed, but widely discredited, language family" ignores this second usage.
 * To this end, my personal opinion is that instead of making the article about a "widely discredited language family" as though we are talking about the history of a fringe theory instead of an area that is still producing a great deal of research in the form of Transeurasian studies, etc., greater emphasis ought to be given to the areal-typological connections. That is to say, rework the header such that it presents the viability of Altaic as an areal-typological family and then comment briefly about the controversy surrounding whether it is a genetic one. That is of greater value to the reader than a firm stand on whether Altaic is rejected as a genetic language family. Wikipedia is not the place to fight that battle.

Lathdrinor (talk) 23:19, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Altaic is a dead issue in historical linguistic circles except as a typological construct, not as a genetic unit. Encyclopedias are often late to the party and don't reflect the most up-to-date opinions on the issue.  Today, Altaic, whether Micro or Macro, is a dead issue as a genetic construct and is, indeed, now fringe.  That's not to say that it didn't used to be more popular, especially when it was first proposed back in the '50s and expanded in the '60s.  But just because you can find older sources that support it as a genetic unit doesn't make it currently the scientific consensus by the vast majority of specialists.  Sure you can find references, but all your references are from general works that are not up-to-date.  I've provided multiple sources from specialists in the field.  Those are far more reliable than Encyclopedia Britannica (and always have been).  The author of the Britannica article isn't even a historical linguist, he's a theoretical syntactician who wrote a theoretical syntax of Mongolian.  Typical Britannica--find a non-specialist to write the article.  That's not a reliable opinion from a historical linguist.  Altaic is, indeed, "widely discredited" by specialists in the field.  And each of their "votes" counts for ten of those of general linguists who are behind the times.  --Taivo (talk) 03:04, 5 May 2015 (UTC)

I am aware that the theory is controversial, and I am familiar with the arguments against it. There are plenty of linguists supporting the Altaic theory, and there is a lot of ongoing research (Robbeets, the "Moscow school", Seoul National University). The article already says that it is a proposed theory. It has been proposed and supported, and for that reason it is relevant. No need to shoot it down in the first paragraph in my opinion.

I do not believe that consensus has been reached on the talk page for adding this bit at all. It's just you dismissing different users opposing inclusion of this in the lede. So I don't understand why the starting point should be to include a controversial statement, and when more than 6 users including myself oppose adding it, we are accused of "edit warring", whatever that means. 77.58.120.53 (talk) 10:37, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Altaic is not "controversial" as a genetic unit and only a tiny minority of contemporary linguists deny its rejected state. There is not "plenty of research" being conducted on the genetic unity of Altaic.  There are only a tiny number of marginal linguists fighting against the tide in Moscow and Seoul.  That does not constitute "plenty of research".  All the major and most influential linguists in the fields of Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and historical linguistics in general have rejected it.  It's not controversial at all among the leading specialists in the field.  That makes it "widely rejected" and the references I provided above demonstrate that completely.  Some linguists even make the equivalent of that assertion concerning a summary of the field.  For example, Nichols, as far back as 1992 (ref above) stated:  "Altaic was abandoned, and the received view now is that Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic are unrelated".  That's not a statement of "controversy".  That's a statement of received fact.  It is not against Wikipedia policy to state the simple fact that Altaic is, indeed, "widely discredited" when the most reliable sources themselves make that statement.  "Altaic was abandoned" is pretty clear.  On another page I likened the tiny number of linguists who are still trying to demonstrate Altaic as a genetic unit to the last passengers on the Titanic clinging to deck chairs.  There is no reason whatsoever to change that metaphor.  Sadly, many editors are unable to distinguish between plentiful research on the typological relationship between these languages (which is almost universally accepted) and the "widely discredited" genetic relationship that has virtually no historical research being conducted.  --Taivo (talk) 14:07, 1 October 2015 (UTC)

Taivo, I'm sorry but there still is a mismatch between your assertion and the actual sources of the article though. The lead sentence, including its "widely discredited" judgment, is ostensibly sourced to the Georg et al (1999) paper. This paper, however, explicitly argues that Altaic "continues to be a viable proposal, despite various published claims that it is no longer accepted". The present state of the article is thus a case of blatant source falsification and needs to be fixed, pronto, one way or another. If you wish to have something along the lines of that "discredited" verdict included there, you need a reliable source demonstrating explicitly that the situation of the field has changed decisively in the anti-Altaic direction after Georg et al's state-of-the-art report was published. So far, I'm afraid that what we have here is only your loudly and frequently repeated assertions of your personal conviction that the Altaic position has a fringe status in current research, against several high quality sources that explicitly say that it does not. Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:19, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I have added appropriate references (most postdate George) to the "widely discredited" statement. Your point that the (previously) only reference to the sentence seemed to contradict the comment was a valid one.  The added references should correct that contradiction.  The Georg article, however, is hardly the state of the art in Turkic and Mongolic studies, where the scholarship continues to virtually unanimously discredit Altaic.  If the specialists in two of the three core "Altaic" groups discount Altaic, then scholars in peripheral areas can hardly be given more weight.  That would be like trying to "build" Indo-European without the support of Latin, Greek, Sanskrit, Germanic, and Slavic scholars in support.  --Taivo (talk) 21:53, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Taivo, the sources you have presented do not, in fact, support the phrasing "widely discredited." I don't think anyone here has been suggesting that Altaic is actually a widely accepted language group, or that the article should say anything of the sort. The sources you've presented show, I think, that most scholars do not accept Altaic as a valid genetic group. But "widely discredited" seems to me much stronger than that, especially the use of "discredited." Perhaps there is another wording that could satisfy everybody? "proposed, but now mostly rejected," perhaps? john k (talk) 23:16, 1 October 2015 (UTC)
 * "Proposed" is unnecessary. The fact that we have an article on a discredited idea automatically means that it was "proposed" at one time.  I would accept "mostly rejected", since that means, in essence, the same thing as "widely discredited".  The sources, while not using the very words "widely discredited" are crystal clear that modern historical linguists, as well as specialists in both Turkic and Mongolic languages, have largely rejected Altaic as a genetic concept.  So I'd be happy with "mostly rejected".  --Taivo (talk) 01:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I am also fine with "mostly rejected". To the pedant in me, it's not quite the same as "widely discredited", but is an acceptable compromise that maintains an accurate representation of the (modern, per Taivo) sources fitting for the lede.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 03:00, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * "Mostly rejected" is fine with me as well.--Ymblanter (talk) 07:32, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Neither is fine with me. The status of the theory is not "conclusively disproved". Rather, it could not be conclusively proved so far, and the research is ongoing. This is similar to the status of other proposed language families, Na-Dene-Yeniseian, Na-Dene itself (whether it includes Haida or not), Afro-Asiatic in its broadest sense (whether it includes Omotic or not), and so on. This is sufficiently summed up by saying "proposed" in the first sentence. "Widely discredited" is a loaded statement, clearly being pushed by someone with an agenda, not reflecting a "neutral point of view". 77.58.120.53 (talk) 07:49, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

"Telling General Linguists about Altaic" (1999), written i.a. by one of the staunches critics of the Altaic theory, Georg, sums up the status of it pretty well, and certainly more objectively. 77.58.120.53 (talk) 07:56, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * You obviously didn't even look at the article. Georg is only one of four authors and the other three authors are either staunch supporters of Altaic or are "lumpers" in general while specializing in other language families.  It is impossible to tell which parts were written by Georg and which parts were written by the three other authors.  --Taivo (talk) 19:17, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Taivo, the combined authorship of that paper makes it all the more valuable for our purposes here. The sentence I cited above ("continues to be a viable proposal") is right at the top of the article's summary, so it is obviously jointly representative of the opinions of all co-authors. (Disclaimer: I remember reading the whole article years ago, but don't have access to the full content right now.) The very fact that authors from both sides of the debate wrote such an article together proves one thing: that all of them are still taking each other's positions seriously. That is the very opposite of "discredited". Something similar goes for the Johanson article you wanted to discount by saying that Johanson himself starts off by calling Altaic merely a typological grouping. The very fact that this article was written by somebody who doesn't subscribe to genetic unity gives all the more weight to the fact that he then goes on to present the genetic question as entirely open. What he says is that there is no consensus either way, which is dramatically different from your claim that one position is the near-universal consensus and the other fringe. As for the Nichols book, it may be worth noting that the book is not otherwise centrally concerned with the Altaic question and that the remark about Altaic in the introduction references only one previous authority, a conference report by Unger (1990). That author himself later noted that he felt Nichols was misrepresenting his position and that the panel he was reporting on did not express any opinion along the lines claimed by Nichols, that "the received view now is that Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic are unrelated". Fut.Perf. ☼ 06:44, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

As an uninvolved noncombatant, I recommend that someone propose two alternative wordings and ask for votes on each. From a skim of the commentary, one possibility is something like "Altaic is a typologically related group of languages that some linguists claim are also genetically related." In any event, please stop the edit warring. It's gross. Lfstevens (talk) 18:56, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

I have read the article, and it is out of order for you to suggest I "didn't even look at it". The first three pages sum up the status of Altaic in a way that both sides of the argument could agree on, which is very much the opposite of what you are doing. You have defaced a decent enough article with a controversial and biased statement in the first sentence. Multiple users objected to it, or tried to revert it, or both, you can't be bothered to listen. I'm directing this at Taivo BTW, not Lfstevens. Your efforts at mediation are noble, but do not address the real problem of someone pushing a biased view, and blocking anyone with a different view with determination worth of a better cause. Is this really what Wikipedia has become? 77.58.120.53 (talk) 21:58, 2 October 2015 (UTC)
 * While claiming that "multiple users" objected to the wording, you conveniently ignored the fact that multiple user supported the wording (and still do). You also claim that my edit was "defacing".  I warn you to observe WP:AGF.  And the fact that you didn't even know the authorship of the article you were referencing is usually pretty good evidence that you haven't actually looked at it.  Since you did apparently look at it, you seem to have failed to notice its actual authorship.  I also point out to you that the article was published 16 years ago (and written 18 years ago) while the majority of my sources are from after that date.  While Georg et al. may have been "state of the art" in 1999, it can hardly be considered such when there are multiple reliable sources after that date that have rejected Altaic.  --Taivo (talk) 00:07, 3 October 2015 (UTC)


 * It is absolutely inapproppriate for 77.58.120.53 to say that only one user supports the current wording whereas their own edits were reverted by three different users. In fact, since they claimed yesterday they are new to Wikipedia, and today they started wiki-advocacy, they are most likely a sock of a blocked user (no idea which one).--Ymblanter (talk) 02:44, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

You don't have any idea about much at all. Wiki-advocacy? If anything I've expressed how utterly unimpressed I am by all this, and certainly not "advocated" anything. "[T]hey are most likely a sock of a blocked user" - is that your take on "assumption of good faith"? 77.58.120.53 (talk) 10:47, 3 October 2015 (UTC)


 * This is all quite bizarre. "Widely discredited" doesn't even make sense, it's like saying something is widely disproven or a couple is widely married.  Second Taivo selectively quotes Nichols, Dixon, and Campbell who are well known for their skepticism of historical linguistics in general, with Dixon being excoriated in Bowern and Koch for his rejection of genetic linguistics as it applies to the Australian languages; Campbell, who is notorious for advocating that all long range classifications be "shouted down"; and Nichols who proposes replacing genetic linguistics on a long-range basis with a sort of typological numerology.


 * The b-/m- suppletion pattern alone in the nominative and oblique first person pronouns is a unique shared innovation of the group. Plenty of historical linguists recent and current support the theory.  The lead should indeed point out that a vocal minority questions or challenges the validity of the family.  But under no circumstances should we be calling the theory "widely discredited". μηδείς (talk) 01:41, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
 * Medeis, a single pronominal pattern is not convincing evidence for genetic relationship unless you're willing to accept Greenberg's "Amerind" as a valid genetic unit as well. Pronominal patterns can be borrowed in a Sprachbund just as phonological patterns and lexicon can be borrowed.  And your claim that skeptics are a "minority" is simply laughable.  Even the Georg et al. article doesn't make that unsubstantiated claim.  At best, at the very best, Altaic has some support that is more than fringe, but it is hardly proven and as long as a significant body of reliable scholars (whether "noteworthy" skeptics or not) discount it as a genetic unit (its typological validity is not in question), then it should not be treated as a valid node.  Ethnologue, Glottolog, and Linguasphere have all abandoned it as a top-level node.  And while I'm willing to compromise on the "widely discredited" wording, it is still technically true--a wide range of reliable scholars have discredited the genetic unity of Altaic.  --Taivo (talk) 08:19, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

@Taivo: "I warn you to observe WP:AGF" - do you want to warn yourself as well while you're at it? "You didn't even know the authorship of the article you were referencing" - that's hardly "assumption of good faith", is it? My point exactly was that it was written by both proponents and opponents of Altaic, and at least attempts to present a view that is acceptable to both. Which is the exact opposite of what you are doing here. You are pushing one view over and over again, with arguments like "my sources are better than yours". I don't think they are, and there clearly is no consensus on this page for inclusion of this phrase. Anyone apart from you can see this.
 * I have already expressed a willingness to compromise. You, however, don't seem to understand that reliable sources that were written after your only source contradict that source's assertions.  Yes, my sources are, indeed, better than yours in this respect.  And the influence of the Altaic camp is declining in general linguistics as evidenced by the most modern classifications of the world's languages in Glottolog (2015), which has never used Altaic as a top-level genetic grouping; Ethnologue (18th ed, 2015), which used to use Altaic, but has dropped it in the most recent editions; and Linguasphere (1999/2000), which never used it.  --Taivo (talk) 11:30, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

I agree that the case against Altaic is strong, and supported by a formidable number of sources old and new (Doerfer, Georg, Vovin). Altaicists clearly still have an awful lot of work ahead of them (hence "proposed", and "not being widely accepted as a greater language family" already in the lede). But as Fut.Perf. has pointed out, "my only source" is a good basis for a consensus solution to this debate, for the simple reason that it was written by both proponents and opponents of the theory, and the summary attempts to present its status in a way that is acceptable to both sides. Which is exactly what we are trying to do here, right?

Setting aside the debate on whether I've read it or not, or whether I know who's written it, would you care to look at the first three pages and see if you would be willing to take it into consideration when we try to work out a consensus here? The article can be accessed here:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4176504?&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

77.58.120.53 (talk) 12:08, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The problem with relying solely upon a 20-year-old appraisal primarily written by proponents of Altaic is that it ignores the fact that support for Altaic during the subsequent 20 years has not increased. (I would argue that it has shrunk, although I'm sure you would not agree with that appraisal.)  I have read the entire article and not just the first three pages.  While it attempts to paint a neutral picture, and comes closer to succeeding than most that attempt the same synthesis, there are still clear hints of personal attacks on skeptics that dismiss their entire body of work rather than describing the legitimate methodological reasons why they are skeptics in the first place.  The arguments of major scholars are thereby summarized with the throwaway line "they are always skeptics" without saying why Altaic does not meet their high standards for evidence.  It's certainly not a perfect article although it at least tries to be neutral.  Propose a lead sentence.  I'm sure that it won't be acceptable on first draft, but we can see if it's got enough to work into shape.  --Taivo (talk) 15:18, 3 October 2015 (UTC)

"I'm sure that it won't be acceptable on first draft, but we can see if it's got enough to work into shape." - I hope you don't mind me asking, who the fuck do you think you are? Is that you making an effort to come to an agreement, by patronising someone? That was a rhetorical question BTW, I think I'm done with this. I do appreciate the insight this sorry experience gave me into how WP is written, at least now I know to stay away from it. Over and out. 77.58.120.53 (talk) 16:15, 4 October 2015 (UTC)


 * The wording "widely seen as discredited" is too strong and inappropriate for an encyclopedia.--Jack Upland (talk) 03:48, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It's not "too strong" when it's accurate. "While 'Altaic' is repeated in encyclopedias and handbooks most specialists in these languages no longer believe that the three traditional supposed Altaic groups, Turkic, Mongolian and Tungusic, are related." Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco, A Glossary of Historical Linguistics (2007, University of Utah Press), pg. 7.  --Taivo (talk) 04:00, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Dixon, Nichols and Campbell?
Is that the best we can do? The widely discredited claim in the lead is synthesis, based on a combination of those cherry-picked sources. Greenberg, Starostin, and numerous other noted linguists, including Poppe hold Altaic as well demonstrated, simply by looking at the unique suppletive 1st person singualr paradigm. Dixon and Nichols are known for their hostility to the comparative method and claims that it just doesn't work except among Indo-Europeans. In his old field of Australian linguistics, he's widely excoriated. Campbell is notorious for calling upon any long-range theories to be shouted down. Vovin is the one to look to for a respected scholar who switched to the anti-altaicist camp, after Starostin's flawed dictionary was published. But there are plenty of others who hold to macroaltaic as uncontroversial. μηδείς (talk) 05:17, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * I return your question right back at you: "Is that the best you can do?"  Greenberg, Starostin, and Poppe are all dead.  Almost all of my sources debunking Altaic (above) are still alive.  That alone should demonstrate the problem you have with trying to claim that Altaic as a genetic unit is a living hypothesis.  If not 100% dead, it is on its dying legs.  It is, indeed, "widely discredited" by living specialists in current work.  --Taivo (talk) 08:03, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * When I listed the above bibliography, I included just those works on my shelf. But there are things which I don't own, of course:
 * Alexander Vovin, "Northeastern and Central Asia: “Altaic” linguistic history," The Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration, Ed. Immanuel Ness (2013, Blackwell Publishing Ltd.). Pages 1-7.
 * Alexander Vovin. (2005) "The end of the Altaic controversy," Central Asiatic Journal 49(1), 71–132.
 * --Taivo (talk) 15:15, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
 * The biological death of leading Altaic proponents is not equivalent to the death of their supporters and students. The Transeurasian school of Martine Robbeets and Lars Johanson is still quite alive, as is Anna Dybo, albeit I do agree that they have much less "clout" than the aforementioned dead Altaicists. Also, they appear to now include works from sub-theorists such as James M. Unger, who continues to argue for his thesis of Tungusic-Japonic-Koreanic in "Shared Grammaticalization: With Special Focus on the Transeurasian Languages" (2013), and John Whitman, who to my knowledge has never retracted his support. These are all new works, so can hardly be disregarded as the writings of dead Altaicists. Lathdrinor (talk) 03:27, 9 December 2015 (UTC)
 * But Tungusic-Japonic-Koreanic is not Altaic. And, as you have said, the influence of the "living generation" has declined to the point of near non-existence. The great majority of historical linguists, and all the influential ones, have placed it in the dustbin of failed theories. This is not to disparage the linguists who proposed it in the beginning. Many highly respected linguists in the 50s and 60s were lumping things together left and right. But today's historical linguists are far more cautious and demand a more substantial level of evidence. And just because there are still people struggling to prove something that has been rejected by the majority of historical linguists doesn't change the truth of "widely discredited". And a great many of the "new works" may use the term "Transeurasian" or "Altaic", but if you read the abstracts closely enough you will see that "areal" is a prominent term alongside "genetic".  --Taivo (talk) 03:49, 9 December 2015 (UTC)

The inclusion of Turkic, Mongolic and Tungus should be reinstated.
I think doubt of the family came about with the inclusion of Korean and Japanese, but Turkic, Mongolic and Tungus are established relatives based on their morphology and syntax. We should look through more recent sources establishing their relationships. There are also some sources out there (at least one book) arguing the Uralic language family does not exist, but I think most sources affirm it.-NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 04:22, 26 August 2016 (UTC)
 * The doubt about the existence of Altaic is based on more than just the inclusion of Japonic and Korean. It is not widely accepted even when it's just Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic.  --Taivo (talk) 05:32, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

POV-pushing and original research in the first sentence
The first sentence seems to violate the neutrality rule and contain original research in stating that the family is "now widely seen as discredited". First, the purpose of this article is to present the views with all available arguments in an impartial way and therefore explicitly favouring any of the views in the first sentence is POV-pushing. Second, the referencing of the claim does not point to any reliable source confirming that the grouping is "now widely seen as discredited" and consists of synthesis of sources indicating to specific drawbacks from the examination of its validity. It is evident that the author of the claim has compiled sources debunking the grouping to build a strong argument against it and eventually draw a conclusion on his/her own. Thereby, my opinion is that this part should be removed unless the author provides sources that literally claim what is stated there. Because of the apparent affinity towards research in the field of comparative linguistics shown in the editing of this article, I would like to invite the author to write a research paper about the claim that will be published in a journal with high impact factor, thus contributing to the sum of reliable sources that can be used as references. Wikipedia is not a place for experimenting! Thanks.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 09:12, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * You are rather mistaken about this, your rather subtle personal attack notwithstanding. First, there are quite sufficient references that say virtually those very words (the Campbell and Mixco dictionary of historical linguistics, for example).  Perhaps you missed reading the first four footnotes (especially the first two, which are precisely paraphrased in "widely discredited").  They all say that very thing.  You don't understand WP:OR if you think that summarizing a scientific community's opinion is "original research".  --Taivo (talk) 16:02, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Second, it is not the position of Wikipedia to be neutral when a theory has been discredited by the relevant scientific community. There are serious people who subscribe to the notion of a flat earth.  Yet Wikipedia does not need to be "neutral" about that and can simply state, "The earth is round."  --Taivo (talk) 16:27, 5 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I have checked the Campbell and Mixco dictionary of historical linguistics and the text in the first reference seems to be copy-edited from there. I do not deny the strong opposition to the validity of this family, but it is a way overkill to state that the problem was solved and that there is nothing more to do about it. It is also very unclear for me why the article begins in past tense when there are still linguists supporting the family. Usually, we do not return proposals or hypotheses in the past tense no matter how controversial they are and so should it be here (for example, Dené–Caucasian languages is more controversial proposal but begins in a present tense). As for the Flat Earth, it is ridiculous to discuss about serious people who support it, because the concept of Spherical Earth is accepted as an axiomatic truth with practically no room to contest it. And yes, it is not OR to summarise the scientific community's opinion, but, in this case, there seems to be still divide among linguists about this question.--Kiril Simeonovski (talk) 15:51, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The first sentence does not state that the hypothesis has been universally discredited, but widely discredited. And the majority of references to the issue express it as a fait accompli.  Yes, there is a tiny minority of historical linguists who still cling desperately to the Altaic hypothesis, but they are no longer taken seriously within the community of historical linguists as a whole as evidenced by the majority of reliable sources and their overt statements.  The article discusses some of the individuals, but the conclusion is that this has been decided by the world of linguistics in general.  It is a past tense and the majority of linguists have moved on to look at Altaic as a Sprachbund and not a genetic entity.  --Taivo (talk) 16:16, 6 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I must agree with Taivo. This hypothesis was losing ground for many decades and is now completely dismissed by the consensus of mainstream linguists. You may call Taivo's "flat earth" analogy "ridiculous", but as Taivo points out (and as is borne out in the many references provided), it is a quite apt comparison. Just as you scoff at the idea that anybody could support a "flat earth", so do mainstream linguists scoff at those hangers-on who still cling to this dead hypothesis. NPOV doesn't mean that we treat all existing views as equal (see the section of NPOV at WP:FALSEBALANCE); it means we treat significant views according to the WP:WEIGHT given them in reliable sources. In this case the preponderance of reliable sources clearly indicate that this hypothesis is "widely discredited" and supports the current wording of the article.--William Thweatt TalkContribs 20:00, 6 April 2017 (UTC)

Request for map change
It would be logically to change the language map to the second version that only show turkic, mongolic and tungusic. As stated in the infobox, is the altaic areal family only including these three language families.

The current map creates a wrong view and is outdated.

As for the current linguistic census it is nessecary to update the map to the second version of 2017.

Please write about your opinions, if no response happen or all agree, i will update the map to the actuall version of 2017. ㅡ213.162.72.222 (talk) 07:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
 * No. The map should show the range of languages that have been included in Altaic, and Japonic and Koreanic are very often included by those who support (and have supported) Altaic as a genetic unit.  --Taivo (talk) 07:58, 19 May 2017 (UTC)


 * But that is not correct. Korean is sometimes included and less often Japanese. Also many of the former supporters now denie a connection with korean/japanese. We can not hold on a classification that is over 50 years ago and is now seen as discredited by mostly all modern linguists. As mentioned: turkic, mongolic and tungusic are in an areal family called "altaic". Korean and Japanese have neither a geographical nor a genetically relation. If we do not change the map, than wikipedia is against the current census. The inclusion of korean is not accepted and less japanese. The current map is inaccurate. Mostly all linguists classify korean and Japanese as isolated family. Korean since 2011 sometimes as Dravido-korean and Japanese as para-austronesian. The map let people think that this is still accepted. Many turkish nationalist use this to promote their insane "turanian" propaganda and claim korean history. Wikipedia must be actuall and accurate. This map is wrong. The altaic theory is debunked. The areal family only includes turkic, mongolic and tungusic. This is the official and actuall view of mostly all linguists worldwide. We also do not promote the debunked christian worldview that said earth is the centre of the universe. I know that in past this map was accepted but time change. Now it is time to update this map. ㅡ213.162.72.222 (talk) 08:50, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
 * Where did you get the idea that the Earth being the center of the universe was a "Christian worldview"? Do not speak for us. If you have any beef against Christians, let it go. 69.117.252.54 (talk) 04:18, 14 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Your comments are contradictory. If Altaic doesn't exist as a unit, then there is no "correct and up-to-date" map of it.  The map here shows the most common units that were associated with Altaic by more than a fringe number of linguists during the proposals heyday.  Nothing more, nothing less.  It's a historical map.  There can be no "current" map because it isn't current as a genetic unit.  And areal units are always fuzzy around the edges.  --Taivo (talk) 17:01, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Propose to add a mention of ASJP results on Altaic
There's a mention here :

Similarly, languages across northern Eurasia are related in this tree. The so-called Altaic family emerges, comprising Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic. Interestingly, Japanese and Korean are not present, despite sometimes being placed with them in the so-called 'Transeurasian' family.

Maybe would be worth putting this on the article text as well.

--62mkv (talk) 03:58, 3 November 2017 (UTC)


 * One of the comments in that blog posting says it best: "...we have here, once more, a non-specialist publishing in a non-specialist medium a paper purporting to 'revolutionize' historical linguistics using methods disavowed by most experts in the field. Seriously, do you need any more red flags?"--William Thweatt TalkContribs 05:44, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

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Unclear sentence in the introduction
"This view was widespread prior to the 1960s but has almost no supporters among specialists today." at the beginning of the second paragraph. Which view is that? The preceding sentences contain several ideas and quite a few simple facts. Please clarify to something like "The view that ________[?] was widespread . . . ." Linguistatlunch (talk) 13:16, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Horribly Biased Map
Who made the ridiculous map that colored in Southwest Turkey, Northern and Eastern Iran, Southeastern Azerbaijan, and half of Afghanistan as "Turkic"? Going to change that exaggerated map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Qahramani44 (talk • contribs) 22:45, 18 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The new map is way less accurate and for example does not show any Turkic groups in Europe, no Crimean Tatars foe example. If you continue pushing it through administrative attention will be in order.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:00, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
 * The map could be improved to distinguish between areas where Turkic languages are predominant (e.g., western Turkey) and where Turkic languages are widely spoken (e.g., southeastern Turkey), even if other languages (Kurdish) are spoken as well. --Macrakis (talk) 19:53, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Locative and instrumental are close cases
The member AsadalEditor deleted my correction and didn't get my arguments about intimacy of locative and instrumentative cases, although I gave several examples of this.In russian (my native language) instrumental case - ночью, means at the night, i.e. locative meaning (ref - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D0%BD%D0%BE%D1%87%D1%8C%D1%8E). The same situation in latin - nocte means at the night, without preposition -in (ref-https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nocte#Latin). And in Japanese marker of instrumental case -de could used for express locative meaning, for example 箱を家で作ります - hako-o ie-de tsukurimasu - I make the box at home, i.e. locative meaning. So these arguments are enough to show that the statement about big difference of these cases are false — Preceding unsigned comment added by Femedelius (talk • contribs) 13:42, 26 March 2019 (UTC)
 * I saw this only now. I reverted your edit as you deleted sourced material out of the article without a new source supporting your claim. Please provide a source. Please also see WP:OR and WP:RS. Thank you.--AsadalEditor (talk) 13:48, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

Transeurasian
Many of the proponents of Macro-Altaic have recently turned to calling the family Transeurasian, eg https://books.google.com/books?id=sQSWBAAAQBAJ, so as to disassociate it with the Altai mountains, which the family was initially believed to have come from, but is now no longer popularly believed to have come from. Should this be included in the article? Lathdrinor (talk) 00:44, 9 October 2015 (UTC)
 * I agree on this. There are several references about "Transeurasian". I will try to find some and include a subsection or possibly a new article about this.--AsadalEditor (talk) 19:04, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Transeurasian (2)
A one-off IP user, user:213.162.80.228, has recently changed the tone quite clearly from presenting Altaic as a largely debunked theory to a theory that is alive but disputed, adding a series of references to new literature using the designation Transeurasian instead (and excluding Ainu). Thoughts, anyone?--Nø (talk) 08:12, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Despite the new designation, the theory seems to be basically the same. I am not competent to judge the new references, or the channels through which they are published. Is this solid?
 * If so, it seems like we should have an article named Transeurasian languages, either splitting the material between the to, or as a rename (redirecting Altaic languages to the new title).
 * Hi Good that you brought it to the Talk page, I already was about to revert, but only got to a PC now. My reasons for rv: the edits give too much weight (WP:WEIGHT) to the "Transeurasian" hypothesis which is essentially linked to only one researcher (Robbeets). Don't get me wrong, Rpbbeets is a great scholar, but she is already listed in 2.7.1 among the "major supporters", and this should suffice. Specific mention in the lead and a section of its own are undue. The IP-editor further created a heap of redlinks with names of Robbeets and her co-authors. References are sloppily inserted URLs, and not proper citations. Last but not least: I have good reasons to believe that the IP-edit is a block evasion. I you don't object, I'll revert the edit. –Austronesier (talk) 09:13, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
 * I see now that there is an earlier talk section on Transeurasian (so I've renamed the present section, adding "(2)"). My gut feeling is that you are completely right and a revert is appropriate - but as I said, I'm not competent to judge about this.--Nø (talk) 10:05, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
 * The editor who replied in Talk:Altaic languages is a blocked sock with a known history of POV-pushing and most probably reponsible for the last edit. Although I am not an expert of East and Central Asian languages, I feel confident enough to evaluate the edit, and will revert. I'll subsequently check if one or two of the references cited by the IP-editor can be integrated into the stable version without overblowing it. – Austronesier (talk) 11:05, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Macro-Tungusic
The article Macro-Tungusic makes it look like Vovin and Johanson are supporters of the Macro-Tungusic hypothesis. However, judging from this article, Vovin doesn't believe in Altaic anymore (and Vovin 2001 is still from his pro-Altaic period), and Johanson doesn't necessarily consider the similarities genetic. So the article seems to be misleading and Macro-Tungusic is more fringe than it admits, resting entirely on the authority of Unger. That the article would be misleading is no surprise given that the original German article (that the English article started as a translation of) was created by a sockpuppet of a notorious far-right ultra-nationalist Pan-Turkic vandal, and the English article might be best off merged into this one. Can you have a look at that article? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:23, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

Also, the sentence "The genetic relation between Korean and Japanese is somewhat accepted" in Macro-Tungusic can only be described as either clueless or a shameless lie in view of. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:32, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * That Macro-Tungusic article is utterly misleading and a propaganda piece. It should be nothing more than a paragraph in this article.  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 18:56, 28 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The article Macro-Tungusic is a typical brainchild of the sockmaster WorldCreaterFighter (not quite sure whether WorldCreaterFighter and Tirgil34 are the same, as we assume in de.WP, or two Hydrae, as we treat them here). Full of false claims. Unger deserves better. Agree with Taivo, we should scrap the article and redirect it here, first to "Advocates of alternative hypotheses", until we have a more explicit section about genuinely alternative hypotheses (not just renames like "Transeurasian"). –Austronesier (talk) 11:56, 29 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's the solution I had I mind, but I wanted to consult you people first before taking action. ✅ --Florian Blaschke (talk) 12:32, 29 November 2019 (UTC)

IP edit
Dear IP, please explain your changes here...Thank You(KIENGIR (talk) 18:19, 16 January 2020 (UTC))
 * If you don't list what the IP of the editor was, it's rubbish to expect an answer.50.111.14.1 (talk) 20:30, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, I referred in the dit log to the talk page, so the IP editor may be easily located.(KIENGIR (talk) 20:46, 27 April 2020 (UTC))

Turkic is an iranian-turkic creole language and oghuz turkic is an iranized turkico-iranian.
Turkic is an iranian-turkic creole language and oghuz turkic is an iranized turkico-iranian.

In the site nostratica.ru

http://www.nostratic.ru/books/(250)Clauson_against.pdf

http://www.nostratic.ru/books/(206)Greenberg%20-%20Altaic%20Exists.pdf

http://www.nostratic.ru/books/(203)Nostratic%20and%20altaic.pdf

http://www.nostratic.ru/books/(251)Vovin%20Controversy.pdf

they give iranian etymologies to turkic numbers. gi=>eki tse=>uthse tshorts=>tört pandj=>bish atshish=>alti and so on

Non oghuz turkic languages have rather an irano-altaic conjugation endings. kor-gen-men=see-past suffixe-first person(likely borrowed from iranic)ending.

But in oghuz turkic it became gor-d-um=see-iranian past suffixe d-iranian first person ending.

if you look to these maps below,you could easily see that central asia was inhabitated by iranian speaking populations(saka,chorasmians,dahae,margians,bactrians,soghds..)and of course these tribes did not disappear but merged with turkic newcomers as proven by genetic tests and also by the presence of a caucasoid phenotype and caucasoid phenotype influences amongst central asian turks.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/East-Hem_323bc.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/East-Hem_200bc.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/East-Hem_600ad.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/East-Hem_700ad.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/East-Hem_800ad.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/49/East-Hem_900ad.jpg

john L.Drake —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.188.81.84 (talk) 17:19, 20 November 2009 (UTC)


 * NO, YOU'RE WRONG ABOUT NON-OGHUZ TURKIC DIALECTS. In non-Oghuz Turkic, The word "körgenmen" means "I have seen" NOT "I saw". Modern Oghuz dialects have no Present Perfect Tense but old Oghuz had; the word "göryenben" means "I have seen" in old Anatolian Turkish. If you want to say "I saw" in non-Oghuz Turkic, you must say "kördüm" instead of "körgenmen".


 * Some Examples;

NON-OGHUZ TURKIC => ENGLISH => OGHUZ TURKIC kel-gen-men => i've come => gel-yen-min (Old Oghuz) yığla-gan-sın => you've cried => ağla-yan-sın (O.O.) tut-gan => he/she/it has held => tut-yan (O.O.) bas-gan-mız => we've stepped/pressed => bas-yan-ız (O.O.) tab-gan-sız => you(plural) have found => tap-yan-sız (O.O.) ket-gen-der => they've gone = git-yen-ler (O.O.) ................................................................. tüshün-dü-m => i understood = düshün-dü-m söyle-di-n => you said => söyle-di-n bashta-dı => he/she/it began = bashla-dı böl-dü-k => we divided => böl-dü-k al-dı-nız => you(plural) took/got => al-dı-nız ur-du-lar => they struck/hitted => ur-du-lar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.10.134.118 (talk) 17:55, 1 March 2011 (UTC)


 * There's been a lot of mutual influence between Turkic and Iranian. But AFAIK Oghuz has never been claimed to be a creole; in most respects, it is clearly Turkic. kwami (talk) 19:47, 20 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. There's plenty of influence, but the Oghuz languages are clearly Turkic.  (Taivo (talk) 19:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC))

I have for a long time asked my self, how correct is really this altaic language group that is mostly hypotatical and that the altaic language group is including the turkic language group. I am looking at some facts; the geograpgy the turkic peoples live today is the same geography the scythian peoples lived. The scythian language was an iranian language. Since it was covering such a large place it is very open for influences from others, which make them change more than the southern iranians, the parthians. The area that is called central asia today was called Turan by the Persian long time ago and this is where the Turks/Turkics get their name from. The Turanian ideology that was created in the beginning of the 20th century was going a little too far by trying to include the Uralic and the Darian groups as well. And now this Altaic theory that doesn't convince me when I compare grammar or vocabulary from the different languages that it is supposed to group together. I think the correct way to look and the correct hypotetis to trying out is this; the Turkic or it could be renamed to the Turanian language group should be part of the Indo-European language group, with Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmenish, Uzbeki, Kirghizi and Kazakhistani as undergroups. I think the Turkic/Turani is closer to IE than belonging together with Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Uralic or Darian. The Turkic/Turani language group is closer to Iranian than any of the others mentioned above. BUt since it has been open for influence and change for such a long time, it could be included in IE as a own group instead of becoming an undergroup of the Indo-Iranian. Conclusion; the Turkic should not be part of Altaic, but of instead become part of Indo-European as Turkic or Turanian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.102.227.95 (talk) 23:47, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Just one minor note, please "AVOID" using any term that sounds, smells, or looks like the non-existence term "Turani language". Xashaiar (talk) 01:26, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Chinese is sino-tibetan not altaic.

Of course kipchak Turkic and at a lesser extent oghuz turkic are agglutinative altaic languages(with mongolic and tunguzic)but with a strong iranic superstratum(or substratum)especially for oghuz turkic.

Kipchak turkic for "I see" is körgenmen(kör+gen+men)with kör=see,gen=past suffixe,men=I. But oghuz turkic for "I see" is gördüm(gör+d+üm) with:

gör=see

d=past suffixe(along with "t" due to consonant harmony rule)=same as with persian which have either "d" or "t" as past suffixe

üm=1.person ending(along with "im,ım" due to the vowel harmony rule)=same with persian which have "aem" as 1.person ending.

also pir/bir 1 could be connected with indo-european per meaning lone as in english first.

sekiz could have be connected to hekiz>hekt indoeuropean 8.

Perhaps original Turkic numbers are the ones that express decades nowadays.

1=on 2=yirm 3=ot 4=kirk 5=el(one hand or 5 fingers) 6=alt(under) 7=yet(indo-european/indo-iranian borrowing) 8=hek(indo-european/indo-iranian borrowing) 9=tok 10=yiz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.188.65.151 (talk) 11:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Not sure why I bother responding. It is clear that the above poster knows nothing of Turkic languages otherwise they'd not confuse readers by claiming that there's only one past tense and then make comparisons with the Turkic languages' two past tenses. --Stacey Doljack Borsody (talk) 06:15, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

im from Turkey. I am a Turkish person. You do not know Turkish language. Your informations are wrong. Your grammer is broken, words are wrongs bla bla.. You dont know Turkish. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.242.126.195 (talk) 13:20, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Turkish Numbers: 1=Bir 2=İki 3=Üç 4=Dört 5=Beş 6=Altı 7=Yedi 8=Sekiz 9=Dokuz 10=On Nothing to do with Indo European languages. Gördüm = Gör+dü+m. Gör=See -dı/-di/-du/-dü= Past Suffixe My name has eaten (talk) 18:12, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

"Sprachbund"
The word "Sprachbund" appears in the lede without explanation. I have made two attempts to provide a translation for this word that is probaby not familiar to many readers. Both of my edits were reverted. Perhaps someone can explain why WP readers should be expected to know what "Sprachbund" means?! Arrivisto (talk) 08:41, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Sprachbund neither means "federation of languages" (that's the literal translation of the German word, and btw a bad one), nor "proposed language family". I have added an explanation, but I am not sure if this will suffice to spare the interested reader a click on Sprachbund. –Austronesier (talk) 09:47, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * There is no simple way (two or three words) to define a Sprachbund and there is no clear English term to replace it. Linguists use the word "Sprachbund" with the same frequency and facility as they use the term "language family", so if a reader doesn't know what it is, they need to click on the link.  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 09:58, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Linguists may use the word "Sprachbund"with "frequency and facility, but not every WP reader does. I'm not convinced that it is satisfactory to require a reader to click elsewhere to discover the meaning of a word in the lede; but I note that an explanation (of sorts!) has been added. Thanks! Arrivisto (talk) 14:54, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with the view that "sprachbund" is too complicated a concept to be explained satisfactorily in the lead, so if it must be used there, readers unfamiliar with it must click to learn more (which is not such a bad thing, really).
 * And I am inclined to think that it must, in fact, be used in the lead of this article - which reveals that although the concept "Altaic languages" has a certain popular appeal, it is itself a complicated concept, or at least one that it requires complicated linguistic concepts to put in its proper place.
 * A rudimentary explanation of sprachbund in the lead may (or may not) be a good idea.--Nø (talk) 15:52, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * (ec)The reason we have blue links in Wikipedia is so that every article doesn't turn into an introduction to the field of linguistics which drowns out the basic information that we wish to convey about the article's topic. We could easily turn this demand of yours into defining "Bilabial", "cognate", "Asia", "language family", etc. in every single article about every single one of these languages.  No, we have blue links just for that purpose.  Readers sometimes have to click another article.  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 15:54, 17 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Either "Sprachbund" or "language family". Altaic cannot be both at the same time because one excludes the other. See also the short relevant section in the article.
 * Otherwise, the English equivalent for the linguistic term Sprachbund is Linguistic area. Rießler (talk) 08:11, 2 November 2020 (UTC)
 * These concepts are not mutually exclusive. Martine Robbeets tries to salvage Altaic on the very grounds that it can be both, i.e. superficially a sprachbund and yet also a language family at the deepest time level. –Austronesier (talk) 12:13, 10 April 2021 (UTC)

Altaic / Transeurasian
Copied from my talk page (User talk:Austronesier):

Why did you revert my edit ? My goal is not to create a war edition, I just added a sentence which is better to illustrate the current situation in the scientific community. Onche de Bougnadée (talk) 19:32, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * One researcher does not represent the "scientific community". Martine Robbeets is a notable linguist, and it is great that she continues to defend her hypothesis in new publications. But adding cherry-picked reviews (why do you omit Georg's review?) does not alter the fact that the final verdict is still out. I suggest to engage in a visible discussion in the talk page of Altaic languages. –Austronesier (talk) 19:51, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * You are right about Martine Robbeets and Georg's review, but the acceptation of the theory is not limited to Martine Robbeets. And →"Although this theory has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, it is better accepted nowadays." is different from →"Although this theory has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, it is very accepted nowadays." or → "Although this theory has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, it is totally accepted nowadays.". I am not claiming that there is a scientific consensus and I agree with that. Onche de Bougnadée (talk) 20:03, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * The theory is no more accepted now than it was thirty years ago. There are new linguists who support it to replace the retired and deceased linguists who used to support it, but the percentage of support does not rise because of it.  Support for Altaic is still only a tiny minority of historical linguists despite half a century of research.  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 02:01, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I have to correct myself, the reviews weren't cherry-picked, but actually none of them expresses support for the Altaic / Transeurasian hypothesis. I have removed them as citations for the claim that Altaic "still has some supporters", since Robbeets work stands for itself (no need to corroborate her notability by peer citations). They could be useful for a statement that Altaic is still considered unproven (thus neither proven nor discredited) by some. –Austronesier (talk) 14:10, 13 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I just received a copy of "The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages" (2020) from Amazon and the first sentence of the first page of the Introduction (page 1, by Robbeets & Savelyev) is "The Transeurasian languages are among the most fervently debated language families in modern linguistics". Not "were", but "are".  That pretty much puts to bed any verbiage here that tries to claim that the situation is resolved in any way.  --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 20:54, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

Duplicates in table
In the table of proposed cognates, *pata and *muda/*muta appear twice, with the only difference being that PJK-level reconstructions are included in the second instance. Couldn't those be merged? --Macrakis (talk) 20:18, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

Incorrect map
Why didn't you include the Uralic nations in this map, such as Estonia, Hungary, Finland, Udmurtia, Mordovia, Lapland (Sápmi)? Special:Contributions/Qarılğaç (talk) 14:13, 17 December 2022 (UTC)
 * Because the Uralic languages are not part of the Altaic languages, even in its wi(l)dest scope (not counting Castrén). Maybe you're referring to the long-abandoned Uralo-Altaic proposal? –Austronesier (talk) 18:57, 17 December 2022 (UTC)