black man

May 4 2006, 10:31 AM

Jhangora

May 4 2006, 09:37 AM

I admire the Mongols and have met a few.They seem to think they gave birth to this language family and it originated from Mongolian language.I must clarify the Mongols I met weren't very aware about linguistics.

The Mongols are an ethnicity which can be traced back to the late Middle Ages. Mongolic languages were probably first spoken at the easternmost end of the Eurasian steppe zone. But nothing is known about the age of proto-Mongolic.

A relationship with Tungusic is probable. Turkic could also be related to Mongolic, but that is less sure.

Jhangora

May 11 2006, 04:15 PM

What's your view on this issue Ren.

Jhangora

May 12 2006, 04:02 AM

Quote:

 

The best classifications are by linguists themselves: http://www.ethnologue.com.

I have been to this website a few times Ren.It is very comprehensive but the confusion on this issue remains.For example,that website says that Altaic is a language family.

Jhangora

May 6 2006, 07:41 AM

Herez some information I could gather on the "Uralic" and "Altaic" language families.

Quote:

 

The Uralic language family, to which Finnish belongs, consists of over 30 languages, which are spoken by approximately 23 million people. These language areas extend from Northern Norway across Northern Europe and Siberia to the Taymyr Peninsula. The Uralic language areas are clustered on the north-east Baltic seaboard, and around rivers Ob, Yenisei, Pechora and Volga in Russia. Curiously, Hungarian in Eastern Europe is isolated from the Uralic clusters.

A lot of research has been dedicated towards reconstruction of the parent language of the Uralic languages and identification of its habitat. Nobody seems to know where exactly the the parent language was spoken. According to Campbell (1995), studies of word roots for deciduous trees and terms of apiculture suggest the place of origin to the west, rather than east of the Urals. Absences of common roots suggest that the western limit may be around the Baltic-Black Sea line. According to Crystal (1997), Proto-Uralic was spoken in the region of the north Ural Mountains in Russia 7,000 years ago.

Two main branches of the family are Finno-Ugric languages and Samoyedic languages. The Finno-Ugric languages are spoken in Finland, Northern Scandinavia, Estonia, certain parts of Russia and in Hungary and adjacent areas. Samoyedic languages are spoken by a small number of Samoyeds
http://www.ddg.com/LIS/InfoDesignF97/paivi...ish/uralic.html


The Altaic language family derives its name from the Altai Mountain region from whence it is believed these languages had originated. It includes 65 languages spoken by about 250 million people. Speakers of Altaic languages stretch from northeastern Siberia to the Persian Gulf, and from the Baltic Sea to China, with the bulk clustering around central Asia. The relationships among these languages remain a matter of debate among historical linguists, and the existence of the Altaic language family continues to be a matter of controversy.
Proponents of the Altaic theory claim that these languages have descended from a common ancestor, called Proto-Altaic. Opponents reject the theory of common origin and argue that the similarities among these languages are a result of borrowing.

Altaic languages are usually divided into three major groups. As you can see, many of them are becoming endangered or are nearly extinct.

http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/march/Alta...uageFamily.html

It seems scholars arn't sure about the origins of either the Uralic or the Altaic language families.

Some scholars suggest that there wasn't any proto-Uralic or proto-Altaic language and the similarities are a result of interaction among different languages spoken in these language families.

There seems to be a difference of opinion.

What do the scholars have to say on the relationship between the UA language families and Korean/Japanses languages.I have read in some places that Japanese and Korean langauges are considered language isolates.Some scholars say Japanese and Korean language are related to each other.

Some go a step further and claim that Korean and Japanese are part of the Ural-Altaic language family.

The situation overall seems to be very confusing.What do the learned members have to say.

Jhangora

May 6 2006, 03:10 PM

What's your view on the confusion regarding existence of :

1}A proto-Uralic language.

2}A proto-Altaic language, and

3}Japanese and Korean being part of the Ural-Altaic language family.

black man

May 7 2006, 05:01 PM

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2}A proto-Altaic language

A proto-Altaic language is less likely. There are no direct Tungusic-Turkic cognates. And since Mongolic peoples are geographically between Turkic and Tungusic speakers, it can be said that Mongolic has a hybrid character. Also, it can be imagined that proto-Turks absorbed peoples from several extinct language families. The data rather speaks for a recent date of expansion, AFAIK. That is also not a good sign for studies on proto-Turkic.

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This has been taken as one of the main indicators that we are
dealing with lexical borrowing rather than with genealogical
affinity. This is mostly based on geographical distribution and
thus on the assumption that there used to be no direct
Turkic-Tungusic contacts.

An impressive number of direct Turkic-Tungusic cognates have been
identified especially in recent years. Regrettably, most of these
have only been presented to small audiences or to
institute-internal readers so far. Extensive distribution of
this information is urgently needed. In the light of such
research data, maintaining the lexical borrowing argument (e.g.,
by arguing that in all such cases the corresponding words
were lost in all Mongolic languages) would be going way over the
anti-Altaist edge.

ren

Jul 26 2006, 08:51 AM

Anyway, I've looked into the matter of whether Altaic is likely a language family. It seems that the protests anti-Altaicists is a bit sentimental and that infact Altaic is more likely than not, far more likely infact, to be a single family of related languages, but it's just not as provable as Indo-European, but no family is as provable as IE. As with the reaffirmation of Ethnologue (which approximates a consensus of linguits), so I think for now this forum should stand by the term Altaic (What do you think black man, as someone who knows more on this than me?)

Some arguments from the pro-Altaic from the Linguist List which does seem to be more reasonable than the arguments from the anti-Altaic camp:
http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/5/5-908.html
http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/linguist/issues/5/5-911.html

http://www.linguistlist.org/issues/5/5-908.html

Quote:

 

An impressive number of direct Turkic-Tungusic cognates have been
identified especially in recent years. Regrettably, most of these
have only been presented to small audiences or to
institute-internal readers so far. Extensive distribution of
this information is urgently needed. In the light of such
research data, maintaining the lexical borrowing argument (e.g.,
by arguing that in all such cases the corresponding words
were lost in all Mongolic languages) would be going way over the
anti-Altaist edge.

Quote:

 

The main arguments used by the critics of the AH (in recent years
particularly Gerhard Doerfer and a number of European Turcologists and
Mongolists) to discredit the hypothesis are mostly based upon criteria
used in Indo-European research, criteria they seem to assume to be
universally applicable. Evidence for this is found in two of the main
weaknesses of the AH as alleged by the anti-Altaists:

Quote:

 

Absence or scarcity of cognates among numeral.

This poses questions regarding the universal validity of
numerals as mandatory indicators of genealogical affinity. The
fact that numerals seem to supply evidence for the
Indo-European hypothesis ought not lead us to assume that this
applies universally. In this regard it would be interesting to
hear from those who specialize in numeral systems development
as well as from those who deal with genealogical groups in
which numeral systems are relatively less developed (e.g., among
Australian languages).

Quote:

 

Reinhard (Ron) F. Hahn <[log in to unmask]> lists as among the
perhaps inappropriate arguments that have been raised against the
Altaic hypothesis the "Absence or scarcity of cognates among numeral",
and notes:

>           This poses questions regarding the universal validity of
>           numerals as mandatory indicators of genealogical affinity.  The
>           fact that numerals seem to supply evidence for the
>           Indo-European hypothesis ought not lead us to assume that this
>           applies universally.

This an important point.  It simply is not true that numerals are
particularly stable vocabulary items around the globe.  In North
America, for example, they seem to be readily subject to both replacement
and borrowing.

Quote:

 

Scarcity of cognates among terms for parts of the body.

This appears to be a weak argument. Quite a large number of
cognates have been identified among Altaic terms for parts of
the body. Many of these have undergone considerable semantic
shifts among the main branches, which is why they were not
immediately apparent to earlier investigators.

Quote:

 

Turkic-Mongolic and Mongolic-Tungusic "pseudo-cognates" but no
direct Turkic-Tungusic ones.

This has been taken as one of the main indicators that we are
dealing with lexical borrowing rather than with genealogical
affinity. This is mostly based on geographical distribution and
thus on the assumption that there used to be no direct
Turkic-Tungusic contacts.

Quote:

 

The Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic pronominal systems bear astonishing
resemblance, which enables us to reconstruct a proto-Altaic system.
This has been dismissed as irrelevant, since this proto-Altaic system
bears great resemblance not only to the proto-Uralic one but also to
the Indo-European one. (Obviously, the anti-Altaists are among those
least likely to accept the possibility of even earlier genealogical
affinity, "Nostratic" or otherwise.)

Quote:

 

Moreover, the specific  claim that Nichols makes about why these
languages are supposedly now perceived to be unrelated,namely
that there are "very few good potential cognates", aside from
the pronouns, is also factually incorrect.  Even Doerfer and Rona-
Tas admit that there are many potential cognates, running into
the hundreds, but what they question is whether these are
cognates or borrowings.  Moreover, Rona-Tas at least has
often said that he is by no means sure whether the oldest
layer of this "shared vocabulary" is due to borrowing or to
inheritance!

On the other hand, of course, while there have been four or
so major critics of Altaic, who keep propounding the borrowing
thesis, there are many more experts who have argued cogently
(whether we agree with them or not, an issue I want to leave
to another time!) that these must be cognates, in part because
of the formal and semantic properties of the forms of question
and in partbecause, while one can conceive of massive borrowing
from Turkic into Mongolian, it is less easy to see how these
alleged loan words would have ended up in Japanese, and in
part because it is difficult to see how such basic vocabulary
AND morphology would have been borrowed (unless the sense of the
word "borrowed" is watered down so that it subsumes "cognate").

It should also perhaps be pointed out that the arguments for
borrowing and against a genealogical relationship by Clauson,
Doerfer, and Rona-Tas, whether we accept them or not, are
(as has been pointed out many times, e.g., by Hamp, Miller, and
others) based on very unusual methodological premises, which
are NOT (pace Ron Hahn) shared by comparative linguists working
in any other field, esp. not Indo-European (Hamp I think made
this very clear in the 1970's).  Thus, we find the assumption
that in order to be related two language (group)s HAVE to
share numerals.  Now, this is certainly NOT something assumdd
by Indo-Europeanists, although it happens tobe true of the
Indo-European languages!  Also, Clauson, who started the
whole attack on Altaic, took the very unusual tack of trying
to "prove" that these languages are unrelated (which, as again
noted by Hamp and many others) is not something that can be
done by any standard method of comparative linguistixs, and
as part of his "proof" made the further assumption (which
other anti-Altaicists appear to share) that in related languages
cognate forms should have THE SAME meanings, not merely related
ones (so that if a Turkic word's Mongolian counterpart has a
differetn  meaning, then Clauson, Doerfer et al., will accept
that there was a semantic shift but it has to be borrowing
rather than a cognate).  Clauson et al. make the further
assumption that in related languages certain terms other
than numerals, specifically body part terms, have to be
shared WITH SEMMLA(that is, with complete semantic) identity, so that Turkic
and Mongolian would have to have related forms for 'head'
or 'hand' to be related.  Now, as has often been pointed out,
such an assumption is not made in any other field of comprative
linguistics.  The fact that French tete and main are unrelated
to English head and hand is nOT taken as an argument against
these being related languages!

Quote:

 

I would also like to establish once and for all that, whether
Altaic is a valid language or not, it is NOT true that as Nichols
claims "the received view now is that Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic
are unrelated (UNger 1990)" (Nichols 1992, p. 4).  Even  Unger does
not say this, and even his little panel did not conclude this, as
noted. And even if they had, they would not in anybody's estimation
represent the received view on a topic on which, among others,
we have the published works of people like Hamp, Menges, Miller,
Starostin, Vovin, Tsintsius, and many many others.

Quote:

 

All recent research done here suggests that Japanese and Korean are
on the same level of relationship to Mongolian, Turkic and Manchu-Tungus, as
those have between themselves. Also, it seems that Manchu-Tungus, Japanese
and Korean may be an interdmediate node as opposed to Mongolian, and, especially Turkic.

Quote:

 

Both Comrie and Janhunen accuse Starostin of easily dismissing "competing"
etymologies, such as Austronesian for Japanese. Obviously, it was not in Staros
tin's mind to provide detailed criticism of Benedict's or Kawamoto's opuses --
his book has quite different goals. Anyone reading Benedict or Kawamoto can
easily detect that there is no REGULARITY in the correspondences they propose
between Japanese and Austronesian (for detailed analysis please see my two
review articles in Diachronica XI-1, 1994 and forthcoming in December issue of
"Oceanic linguistics"), and, therefore, Austronesian hypothesis cannot even re-
motely stand a chance in competing with Altaic theory, where all correspondence
s are regular. Moreover, different Altaicists may disagree one with another
on certain number of etymologies, but agree on the main bulk which constitutes
at least 80%. The case of  Benedict and Kawamoto is quite different: they more
often propose completely different Austronesian etymologies for one and the
same Japanese word than they don't.

Quote:

 

I was very impressed with Prof. Unger's posting, especially
after I had been so very critical of his published work.  This
posting does make crystal clear that there is NO NEW basis
for doubting or rejecting Altaic, and that all there is the
(I think discredited) objections of Doerfer,
Rona-Tas, Clauson, Shcherbak (and I guess I forgot to add
Sinor to the list).  These have in any case been responded to
in print by various people, so those who are interested can
judge for themselves.  I myself intend, in the aftermath of
this discussion, to write up (if anybody will publish it!)
a response to Nichols and Unger, so that there is something
in print that can be cited.

Quote:

 

Finally, at present, it seems to me that politics has much to
do with attitudes towards Altaic as well.  In particular,
it seems that Altaic sometimes gets knocked by people who are
really gunning after Nostratic (and after Greenberg).  It is
also a political fact (or a social one, or whatever) that
there is no forum in our field (except perhaps for LINGUIST)
where such a discussion as we have just had is possible.  Thus,
it is perfectly easy to disseminate harsh criticism and mis-
information about a theory like Altaic so that many linguists
who do not work in comparative ling or on these languages will
hear of and assume the worst, but there is no journal which
reaches such an audience which would be a forum for a discussion
in which the issues can be aired and both sides can be heard.
There should be (much as our friends in anthropology have one)
but there isn't.  That's too bad, but at least we have LINGUIST.

Quote:

 

Having said this, I think that there is little more to
say about the Altaic hypothesis.  While much remains
to be done, I was pleased that no one (on LINGUIST anyway)
seems to want to defend the tired old pseudo-arguments
against it, so the discussion would seem to be over.  I
do believe, as I pointed out some time ago and as John Koonts
(sorry, Koontz) also seems to suggest, that there is a
connection with Nostratic in the sense that the same
people tend to object to both theories, and I of course
would be open to a discussion of Nostratic--about which
even stranger tales are told than about Altaic.

Odin

Sep 21 2006, 06:08 AM

IMO Altaic (including Korean and Japanese) is not a "genetic" language family (that is, decended from a single language like the IE languages), but a sprachbund, a interation zone where languages acquire common features by borrowing.

Uralic, IMO groups with IE in a Indo-Uralic family.