The Origin of Altaic languages

"It has been suggested that the Turkish, Mongolian and Tungus languages form such a family, commonly called the Altaic, and that they are all descended from a lost primaeval language called Altaic or Proto-Altaic. For some years now I have been coming more and more to the opinion that this is an error and that the fact that these languages gave a good deal of vocabulary material in common is best explained, not by assuming that they have inherited it from a common ancestor, but by assuming that a prolonged and complicated process of exchanges has taken place between these languages. … I am quite convinced that Turkish is not genetically related to either of them". (CLAUSON GERARD, 200: Studies in Turkic and Mongolic linguistics. London, New York: 36).

One can add to the words of Sir Gerard Clauson that Japanese and Korean are considered to be belonged to the Altaic family. Using the graphical-analytical method, we found the Turkic Urheimat in the Transcaucasia (see The North Caucasian languages) and localized the habitats of Turkic tribes speaking particular dialects originated from the common parent Turkic language in East Europe. (see The uprising of the Turkic Languages) Only to the end of the 3rd mill BC the most part of Turkic tribes crossed the Don and dispersed in the Volga river basin, the Northern Caucasus, and further in the steppes of Kazakhstan. In such way they arrived to Altai. Such assertion contradicts current opinion as the Turkic and Mongolic languages have many common features. But these common features can have other explanation as genetic relationship. At first one has to find the Urheimat of the other Altaic languages using their graphical models.

Comming from Eastern Europe and scattering in Kazakhstan ancsient Turks created the Andronovo culture in this area. After arriving to the forest zone east of the steppes near Altai, the Turkic tribes came into contact with the indigenous population. Archaeological studies resulted that there were two large independent tribe associations on the territory of Mongolia already from the end the 3rd mill BC. One of these associations (the eastern) was related to Mongoloid population, and the second (western) had Europeoid origin. Belonging to the Mongolian anthropological type, the local inhabitants subsisted on fishing, hunting, and food-gathering. Their system of oral communication was not yet enough developed. While adapting to the more advanced economy of new settlers, indigenous groups borrowed many terms and features common to the Turkic languages.

The massive infiltration of the Turkic vocabulary and grammatical forms to the language began to closest neighbors - the Mongols and Tungus, and from them to the more eastern languages of ethnic groups. In this way, the Turkic and Mongolian languages came to acquire some formal similarities which deceive to-day linguists as if Altaic and Turkic language families have the same genetic origin. Meanwhile, commingling between the two populations led to these Turkic peoples’ acquisition of Mongolian physical traits. Later, with the beginning of the Mongolian expansion at the 13th century, the reverse process of borrowing from Mongolian to Turkic languages started quite naturally. Mongolian loan words in Turkic hid the question about relation the Mongolian and Turkic languages still more. Sir Gerard Clauson noted that “the existence of this massive volume of Mongolian intruders seems somehow to have escaped notice, or, if noticed, to have been regarded by those who accept Altaic theory as evidence of a common “Altaic” heritage in both language groups”. Such circumstance give us a chance to construct the graphical model of typological relation of Altaic languages Thus, we can find rhe origin areas of Altaic languages using this model.

According to the map the population of Mongoloid anthropological type which spoke genetically related languages inhabited forest areas in the basin of Amur. The local population sustained themselves by hunting, fishing, and gathering. However, unlike the population of Mongolia and Siberia, the people led more sedentary lifestyles which resulted to formation of distinct particular ethnic groups as large river here limited their distant wandering. Archaeological data indicate that the “agricultural” features in the economy of the Amur region began to appear only in the 3rd – 2nd mill BC that can be connected with arrival of Turkic tribes.

One of the puzzles of the Altaic languages is the nature of the phonetic correspondence r/l - š/s (z). The question about which of these sounds was primary – whistling š(s) or sonorous r(l) remains obscure till now. The majority of scholars believed that r/l were the primary as they have been changed in *š/s (z) almost in all Turkic languages and kept in the peripheral Altaic languages Chuvash, Mongolic and Tungus-Manzhu. Further amount of Altaists come to the opinion that the primary sounds were *š/s (z) that is so-called rhotacism took place. Language facts evidences as about the primacy r/l and about the primacy s/š . This contradiction can be explained by the hypothesis about existence of the special sound sibilant-vibrant rz / rs in languages of the population of Eastern Europe. This sound could transform in different languages either in r/l or in s/š . The possibility of the existence of such sound is confirmed by the Polish and Czech grammar which use the letters rz and ř for the certain phoneme which has replaced Proto-Slavic soft r’ in the Czech and Polish languages. In the Czech language ř corresponds to sounds rž and rš , and Polish rz does to sounds ž and š . As the ancestors of modern-day Czechs occupied the area near to the area of Proto-Bulgars, the replacement of Proto-Slavik r’ to rz could take place under influence of the Bulgarish substratum, and the similar phenomenon in the Polish language has taken place under influence of Czech. The existence of the especial sound similar to r is confirmed also with the Armenian spelling which distinguishes two sounds, r and rr (long). The long rr is being used for the spelling of Armenian antar "wood" which correspondences to Gagauz andyz "a grove, a bush". This fact can confirm the hypothesis of the existing of the sound rz / rs in Turkic language. The Turkis who had moved to Asia, have brought this feature of the phonetics as well there. The ancient ancestors of Mongols and Tungus, having borrowed many Turkic words, articulated this sound from the very beginning as r while Bulgars have simplified the pronunciation of rz / rs to usual r much later. The identical result of replacement of the ancient complex sound by a simpler one gives the grounds to speak now about imaginary Bulgarian-Mongolian connections which actually never had places.