Altaic Languages

Altaic Languages, family of languages spoken in a vast area of Eurasia, extending from Turkey in the west to the Sea of Okhotsk in the east. Most linguists describe the Altaic family of languages as consisting of three main subfamilies or groups: Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungusic. Some linguists also include in the Altaic family the Korean language, the Japanese language, and occasionally the Ainu language, spoken by a small number of people in northern Japan.

The Turkic languages have five branches: Oghuz, also known as Southern or Southwestern Turkic; Kipchak, or Western Turkic; Eastern Turkic, or Karluk; Northern Turkic, also known as Eastern Hunnic; and the single-language branch consisting of the Chuvash language, spoken along the middle Volga River. Southern Turkic includes the Turkish language, or Osmanli, the most widely used Turkic language, spoken in Turkey and the Balkan Peninsula; Azeri, spoken in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran; and Turkmen, spoken in Turkmenistan and other parts of Central Asia. Kipchak includes the Kazakh and Kyrgyz languages, spoken in Central Asia; and Tatar, spoken around the middle Volga, and in Turkey, the Balkans, Central Asia, and China. Eastern Turkic includes Uzbek, spoken in Uzbekistan and other parts of Central Asia; and Uygur, spoken in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China, and parts of Central Asia. Northern Turkic consists of a number of languages spoken in Siberia, such as Yakut and Altay (also spelled Altai).

The Mongolian languages include Buryat, spoken in eastern Siberia; Kalmyk, spoken chiefly in Russia along the Caspian Sea; and the most widely used language of the group, Mongolian, spoken in Mongolia. Of the Tungusic subfamily of languages, the Manchu language was once the most prominent and was widely spoken in China. Today, however, Manchu is virtually extinct. The modern Tungusic languages include Evenki, also known as Tungus, spoken in central Siberia and Mongolia; Even, also known as Lamut, spoken in eastern Siberia; Nanai, spoken in eastern Siberia; and Udehe, spoken in southeastern Siberia.

Altaic languages are generally characterized by an agglutinative type of suffixation and by vowel harmony—that is, only vowels of the same coloring can occur in the same word. The vowels of the suffixes are altered so that they agree with the color of the root vowel. Altaic languages lack grammatical gender. They have a rich variety of vowels but a relatively meager selection of consonants. In the past, some linguists grouped the Altaic languages together with the Uralic languages in a larger Ural-Altaic grouping, but scholars now believe that too little evidence exists to support such a grouping.

Certain Altaic-speaking peoples are important historically—for example, the nomadic Huns and Mongols, who invaded Europe between the 4th and 13th centuries ad, and the Manchus of the Qing dynasty, who ruled China from 1644 to 1911. Turkish has been written with various scripts since the 8th century. The Mongolian script was in use by the 12th century.