Angela Marcantonio ( 2002 ) argues that the Finno-Permic and Ugric languages are no more closely related to each other than either is to Turkic, thereby positing a grouping very similar to Ural – Altaic or indeed to Castrén's original Altaic proposal.

The city council's reaction to the committees presentation was largely apathetic, with several council members stating to the press they didn't understand anything about Castrén's presentation.

Despite the lacklustre reception, Castrén's committee was asked to continue its work, now as the metro committee, although very little funding was provided.

* M. Alexander Castrén's extensive book on the Samoyed grammar, including Kamassian ( in German )

Altaic is a proposed language family that includes the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Japonic language families and the Korean language.

The assumption that Altaic is a valid family, but only consists of Japonic, Korean and Tungusic, appears to be restricted to Unger ( 1990 ).

Altogether, Starostin concluded that the Altaic grouping was substantiated, though " older than most other language families in Eurasia, such as Indo-European or Finno-Ugric, and this is the reason why the modern Altaic languages preserve few common elements ".

However Juhanen ( 1992 ) is skeptical about an affiliation of Japanese to Altaic languages, while Róna-Tas ( 1998: 77 ) remarked that a relationship between Altaic and Japanese, if it ever existed, must be more remote than the relationship of any two of the Indo-European languages.

Note: This list is limited to linguists who have worked specifically on the Altaic problem since the publication of the first volume of Ramstedt's Einführung in 1952.

For Altaicists, the version of Altaic they favor is given at the end of the entry, if other than the prevailing one of Turkic – Mongolic – Tungusic – Korean – Japanese.

The accusative case existed in Proto-Indo-European and is present in some Indo-European languages ( including Latin, Sanskrit, Greek, German, Polish, Swedish, Romanian, Russian, Ukrainian ), in the Uralic languages, in Altaic languages, and in Semitic languages ( such as Classical Arabic ).

Some researchers have proposed a link to languages like Tungusic and Turkic, which are often included alongside Mongolic in a group called Altaic languages, though this is controversial.

Nostratic is a hypothetical language family ( sometimes called a macrofamily or a superfamily ) that includes many of the indigenous language families of Eurasia, including the Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic as well as Kartvelian languages.

The three groups universally accepted among Nostraticists are Indo-European, Uralic, and Altaic ; the validity of the Altaic family, while itself controversial, is taken for granted by Nostraticists.

Ural – Altaic or Uralo-Altaic is a language-family proposal uniting the Uralic and Altaic languages.

The Altaic language family was generally accepted by linguists from the late 19th century up to the 1960s, but since then has been in dispute, and the dispute is not yet resolved.

For simplicity's sake, the following discussion assumes the validity of the Altaic language family, although for linguists who do not accept Altaic a relation of Altaic to Uralic is obviously a non-starter, though some part of " Altaic " ( e. g. Turkic ) might be related to Uralic, in theory.

It is important to distinguish two senses in which Uralic and Altaic might be related.

Swadesh's Basque-Dennean thus differed from Dené-Caucasian in including ( 1 ) Uralic, Altaic, Japanese, Chukotian, and Eskimo-Aleut ( languages which are classed as Eurasiatic by the followers of Sergei Starostin and those of Joseph Greenberg ), ( 2 ) Dravidian, which is classed as Nostratic by Starostin's school, and ( 3 ) Austronesian ( which according to Starostin is indeed related to Dené-Caucasian, but only at the next stage up, which he termed Dené-Daic, and only via Austric ( see Borean languages )).

In 1960, Nicholas Poppe presented what was in effect a heavily revised version of Ramstedt ’ s volume on phonology that has since set the standard in Altaic studies.

There were multiple languages spoken in Manchuria and the Korean Peninsula prior to Korea's unification, and there is dispute over which of those languages gave rise to modern Korean sometime in the first millennium CE, and what relationship that proto-language may have had to the proposed family of Altaic languages.

However, as has been pointed out by Alexis Manaster Ramer and Paul Sidwell ( 1997 ), Strahlenberg actually opposed the idea of a closer relationship between the languages which later became known as " Altaic "..

Finno-Ugric and Samoyed are not included in later formulations of Altaic.

He later broadened his scope by linking Korean both to Japanese and Altaic, most notably in Languages and History: Japanese, Korean, and Altaic ( 1996 ).

More precisely, Ural – Altaic came to subgroup Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic as " Uralic " and Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic as " Altaic ", with Korean sometimes added to Altaic, and less often Japanese.

Beginning in the 1960s, the hypothesis came to be seen as controversial, largely due to the Altaic family itself not being universally accepted.

While the Ural – Altaic hypothesis can still be found in encyclopedias, atlases, and similar general references, it has not had any adherents in the linguistics community for decades.

Whereas for certain other language families, such as the speakers of Indo-European, Uralic, and Austronesian, we are able to frame substantial hypotheses, in the case of the proposed Altaic family everything remains to be done.

All of these methods remain to be applied to the languages attributed to Altaic with the same degree of focus and intensity they have been applied to the Indo-European family ( e. g. Mallory 1989, Anthony 2007 ).

Some linguists believe the Turkic languages to be a part of a larger Altaic language family.

The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty-five languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.

All of these distinguishing characteristics are shared with the Mongolic, Tungusic, and Korean language families, as well as ( with the exception of vowel harmony ) with Japonic, which are considered by some linguists to be genetically linked with the Turkic languages in an Altaic language family.

Such words would be found in all branches of the Uralic and Altaic trees and should follow regular sound changes from the proto-language to known modern languages.

In addition, regular sound changes from Proto-Ural – Altaic to give Proto-Uralic and Proto-Altaic words should be found to demonstrate the existence of a Ural – Altaic vocabulary.

However, this is an even more tentative hypothesis than Nostratic, which attempts to relate Indo-European, Uralic, Kartvelian, Altaic, etc., and which is widely considered to be undemonstrated.

The Japanese language is a Japonic language that is sometimes treated as a language isolate ; it is also related to the Ryukyuan languages, and both are suggested to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.

Traditionally, linguists considered Tungusic to be part of the Altaic language family along with the Turkic and Mongolic language families ; more recent proposals are that it belongs to Macro-Altaic, the latter including Japanese and Korean as well, or, on the other hand, that Altaic is not a genetic group, but a Sprachbund.

A number of historians and linguists including Peter Heather and Karl Heinrich Menges felt that the evidence only allowed the Hunnic language to be positioned in the broad group of Altaic languages.

The Altaic hypothesis, as mentioned by Finnish linguist and explorer Matthias Castrén by 1844, included Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic, collectively known as " Chudic ", and Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic, collectively known as " Tataric ".

The Altai Mountains are known as the original locus of the speakers of Turkic as well as other members of the proposed Altaic language group.

Sergei Anatolyevich Starostin ( Cyrillic: Серге ́ й Анато ́ льевич Ста ́ ростин, March 24, 1953 – September 30, 2005 ) was a Russian historical linguist, perhaps best known for his reconstructions of hypothetical proto-languages, including his work on the controversial Altaic theory, the formulation of the Dené – Caucasian hypothesis, and the proposal of a Borean language of still earlier date.