Talk:Altaic languages

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)

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

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)