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Concept
Altaic languages
Summary
Altaic (ælˈteɪ.ᵻk) is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. The hypothetical language family has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, although it continues to be supported by a small but stable scholarly minority. Speakers of the constituent languages are currently scattered over most of Asia north of 35° N and in some eastern parts of Europe, extending in longitude from Turkey to Japan. The group is named after the Altai mountain range in the center of Asia.
The Altaic family was first proposed in the 18th century. It was widely accepted until the 1960s and is still listed in many encyclopedias and handbooks, and references to Altaic as a language family continue to percolate to modern sources through these older sources. Since the 1950s, most comparative linguists have rejected the proposal, after supposed cognates were found not to be valid, hypothesized sound shifts were not found, and Turkic and Mongolic languages were found to be converging rather than diverging over the centuries. The relationship between the Altaic languages is now generally accepted to be the result of a sprachbund rather than common ancestry, with the languages showing influence from prolonged contact.
The continued use of the term "Altaic" to refer to the various iterations of an Altaic theory, the "Altaic sprachbund" and infrequently as a general term for the region has resulted in confusion around the status of the Altaic hypothesis, with the end result being many Altaicists adopting the name "Transeurasian" for modifications of the family proposal to avoid confusion. This confusion is compounded by literature which refers to Altaic as an accepted hypothesis, which historically was the case.
Altaic has maintained a limited degree of scholarly support, in contrast to some other early macrofamily proposals. Continued research on Altaic is still being undertaken by a core group of academic linguists, but their research has not found wider support.
Official source
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