I.

Introduction

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 Tungus. Turkic is by far the largest subfamily. The name Altaic derives from the Altai Mountains of Asia, where linguists believe this language family originated. Many of the Altaic languages are spoken in Central Asia.

II.

Altaic Subfamilies

The most widely spoken of the Turkic languages is Turkish, the official language of Turkey. Turkish is also spoken in nearby areas. Other Turkic languages include Azerbaijani, spoken in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran; Kazakh, Uzbek, Turkmen, and Kyrgyz, languages of the central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan, respectively, and also spoken in neighboring areas; Tatar, spoken in Turkey, the Balkans, the former USSR, and China; Uighur, spoken in the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region of northwestern China; and Yakut, spoken mainly in northeastern Siberia.

Mongolian is the most widely spoken of the Mongolian languages. Standard Mongolian, or the Khalkha dialect, is used in the country of Mongolia. A dialect known as Peripheral Mongolian is used in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of northern China. Closely related languages include Buriat, spoken in Mongolia, China, and Russia; and Kalmyk-Oirat, spoken chiefly in the republic of Kalmykia in southwestern Russia.

Languages in the Tungus group have the fewest speakers. Manchu (called Dongbei in China) was a lingua franca used for communication between China and the outside world for more than 200 years, but today is almost extinct. Other languages of the Tungus group include Evenki, spoken in China and the former USSR, and Even, spoken in Russia near the Sea of Okhotsk.

III.

Characteristics of Altaic languages

Altaic languages are generally characterized by the addition of suffixes that indicate number, tense, and so forth. Another characteristic is vowel harmony—that is, only vowels of the same coloring can occur in the same word. The coloring depends upon the part of the mouth—back or front—in which the vowels are produced. 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.

Many of these features of the Altaic languages are shared by Japanese and Korean. For this reason and others, some linguists believe that Japanese and Korean are distantly related to the Altaic family. However, the exact origins of these two languages remain unknown. Some scholars have placed the Altaic languages together with the Uralic languages in a larger Ural-Altaic grouping. Recent researchers, however, increasingly believe that too little evidence exists to support such a grouping.

Certain Altaic-speaking peoples are important historically. They include 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.