From the 1990s, interest in a relationship between the Uralic and Altaic families has been revived in the context of the Eurasiatic hypothesis.

While the Eurasiatic hypothesis has been well received by Nostraticists and some Indo-Europeanists, it remains very controversial.

Part of the reason for this is that the Eurasiatic hypothesis rests on mass comparison of lexemes, grammatical formatives, and vowel systems ( see Greenberg 2000 – 2002 ) rather than on the prevailing view that regular sound correspondences, linked to a wide array of lexemes and grammatical formatives, are the only valid means to establish genetic relationship ( see for instance Baldi 2002: 2 – 19 ).

Other proposals, further back in time ( and proportionately less accepted ), link Indo-European and Uralic with Altaic and the other language families of northern Eurasia, namely Yukaghir, Korean, Japanese, Chukotko-Kamchatkan, Nivkh, Ainu, and Eskimo – Aleut, but excluding Yeniseian ( the most comprehensive such proposal is Joseph Greenberg's Eurasiatic ), or link Indo-European, Uralic, and Altaic to Afro-Asiatic and Dravidian ( the traditional form of the Nostratic hypothesis ), and ultimately to a single Proto-Human family.

Murray Gell-Mann, Ilia Peiros, and Georgiy Starostin maintain that the Austric hypothesis is less well supported than several other linguistic macrofamilies, including Sino-Caucasian, Eurasiatic, and Afroasiatic since " no detailed proto-Austric glossaries or equally detailed tables of correspondences between the various daughter branches of Austric have been produced.

Eurasiatic, a similar but not identical grouping, was proposed by Joseph Greenberg ( 2000 ) and endorsed by Merritt Ruhlen: it is taken as a subfamily of Nostratic by Bomhard ( 2008 ).

According to Greenberg, Eurasiatic and Amerind form a genetic node, being more closely related to each other than either is to " the other families of the Old World ".

Some linguists maintain that Uralic and Altaic are related through a larger family, such as Eurasiatic or Nostratic, within which Uralic and Altaic are no more closely related to each other than either is to any other member of the proposed family, for instance than Uralic or Altaic is to Indo-European ( e. g. Greenberg 2000: 17 ).

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 )).

Eurasiatic is a language macrofamily proposed by Joseph Greenberg that includes many language families historically spoken in northern Eurasia.

Merritt Ruhlen writes that Eurasiatic is supported by the existence of a grammatical pattern " whereby plurals of nouns are formed by suffixing-t to the noun root ... whereas duals of nouns are formed by suffixing-k ." Rasmus Rask noted this grammatical pattern in the groups now called Uralic and Eskimo – Aleut as early as 1818, but it can also be found in Altaic, Ainu, Gilyak, and Chukchi – Kamchatkan, all of which Greenberg placed in Eurasiatic.

According to Ruhlen, this pattern is not found in language families or languages outside Eurasiatic.

According to Greenberg, the language family that Eurasiatic is most closely connected to is Amerind.

Like Eurasiatic, Amerind is not a generally accepted proposal.

Dené – Caucasian is the older of the two groups, with the emergence of Eurasiatic being more recent.

Ruhlen argues that Eurasiatic is supported by stronger and clearer evidence than Dené – Caucasian, and that this also indicates that the spread of Dené – Caucasian occurred before that of Eurasiatic.

While it is perfectly true that the Uralic words for these things could be derived from the Indo-European ones ( or vice versa ), the Uralic words have apparent equivalents among other languages variously identified as " Uralo-Siberian " or " Eurasiatic ".

The Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic and Korean-Japanese-Ainu groupings were also posited by Joseph Greenberg ( 2000 – 2002 ) who, however, treated them as independent members of a larger family, which he termed Eurasiatic.

The Eurasiatic grouping resembles the older Nostratic groupings of Holger Pedersen and Vladislav Illich-Svitych by including Indo-European, Uralic, and Altaic.

Some proposals would group Eurasiatic with even larger macrofamilies such as Nostratic or Borean, but neither they nor Eurasiatic itself have been widely accepted, since they are not seen by the linguistic profession as being based on valid methodologies.

As laid out by Greenberg ( 2000: 279-81 ), the branches of Eurasiatic are:

The Eurasiatic expansion overwhelmed Dené – Caucasian, leaving speakers of the latter restricted mainly to isolated pockets ( the Basques in the Pyrenees mountains, Caucasian peoples in the Caucasus mountains, and the Burushaski in the Hindu Kush mountains ) surrounded by Eurasiatic speakers.

The points raised concerning the words for ' name ’, ' water ', and ' give ' require a glance at the possible relations of Indo-European and Uralic with other language families, in particular the languages hypothetically grouped as Uralo-Siberian by Fortescue, Eurasiatic by Greenberg, and Nostratic by Holger Pedersen and various successors of his.

Eurasiatic and Nostratic include many of the same language families.

Various linguists have seen these North Eurasian languages as part of: < ul >< li > a Ural – Altaic language family ( popular until 1960s )</ li >< li > a Uralic and an Altaic family ( Anna V. Dybo | Dybo, Roy Andrew Miller | Miller, Nicholas Poppe | Poppe )</ li >< li > separate Uralic, Turkic languages | Turkic and Mongolian language | Mongolian families ( Gerard Clauson | Clauson, Gerhard Doerfer | Doerfer, Stefan Georg | Georg )</ li >< li > a Eurasiatic or Nostratic macrofamily ( Joseph Greenberg | Greenberg, Sergei Starostin | Starostin, Allan Bomhard | Bomhard )</ li ></ ul >

Bomhard ( 2008 ) treats Uralic, Altaic and Indo-European as Eurasiatic daughter groups on equal footing.

Later in his life, Greenberg proposed that nearly all of the language families of northern Eurasia belong to a single higher-order family, which he called Eurasiatic.

Greenberg basically agreed with the Nostratic concept, though he stressed a deep internal division between its northern ' tier ' ( his Eurasiatic ) and a southern ' tier ' ( principally Afroasiatic and Dravidian ).

In 1987 Joseph Greenberg proposed a similar macrofamily which he called Eurasiatic.

Greenberg basically agreed with the Nostratic concept, though he stressed a deep internal division between its northern ' tier ' ( his Eurasiatic ) and a southern ' tier ' ( principally Afroasiatic and Dravidian ).

Joseph Greenberg proposed a link between Ket and other Yeniseian languages and the Na-Dene language group of North America in his final study of Eurasiatic languages.

More recently Joseph Greenberg ( 2000 – 2002 ) suggested grouping Eskimo – Aleut with all of the language families of northern Eurasia, with the exception of Yeniseian, in a proposed language family called Eurasiatic.

Joseph Greenberg identifies Chukotko-Kamchatkan ( which he names Chukotian ) as a member of Eurasiatic, a proposed macrofamily that includes Indo-European, Altaic, and Eskimo – Aleut, among others.

Greenberg also assigns Gilyak ( Nivkh ) and Yukaghir, sometimes classed as " Paleosiberian " languages, to the Eurasiatic family.

" From mass comparison to mess comparison: Greenberg's ' Eurasiatic ' theory ", Diachronica 20. 2, 331 – 362.

Using the method of Mass comparison, the IE languages are sometimes considered to be part of super-families such as Nostratic or Eurasiatic.

He has studied the controversial hypotheses about the underlying unity among the proposed Nostratic and Eurasiatic language families.

Turkic – Mongolic – Tungusic and Korean – Japanese – Ainu, grouped in Eurasiatic.

The American Nostraticist Allan Bomhard considers Eurasiatic a branch of Nostratic, alongside other branches: Afroasiatic, Elamo-Dravidian, and Kartvelian.

They reserve the term Eurasiatic to designate the narrower subgrouping, which comprises the rest of the macrofamily.

His colleague and former student Merritt Ruhlen ensured the publication of the final volume of his Eurasiatic work ( 2002 ) after his death.

The American Nostraticist Allan Bomhard considers Eurasiatic a branch of Nostratic alongside other branches: Afroasiatic, Elamo-Dravidian, and Kartvelian.

Sergei Starostin's school has now re-included Afroasiatic in a broadly defined Nostratic, while reserving the term Eurasiatic to designate the narrower subgrouping which comprises the rest of the macrofamily.

He posits that this ancestral language, together with Indo-European and Kartvelian, descends from a " Eurasiatic " protolanguage some 12, 000 years ago, which in turn would be descended from a " Borean " protolanguage via Nostratic.

Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 1: Grammar.

Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family.

Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family.