# Uralic, Altaic, Ural-Altaic



## Frank06

*Split from **this thread**.*

Hi,

First of all, welcome to this forum.



latinsporean said:


> I don't like everything lecturers tell us lol.


I think only lecturers who don't give or cannot give solid arguments for their statements deserve some sort of distrust. But here, and I am sorry to say, here you are the lecturer...

So, I am quite sure that you will elaborate on a few of your statements.


latinsporean said:


> See Before Turkish influenced anyone, The Mongols influenced Europe, now Turkish is an Altaic language which comes from Altai mountains where the Mongols are from,


Most lecturers will tell us that "Altaic" is a very shaky notion which is not completely accepted in linguistics. Even linguists who do defend the Altaic theory have to admit that. Nevertheless, you don't seem to have a problem with using this term 'Altaic'. On which basis?



> I mean even Hungarian is an Altaic language,


Hungarian is normally classified as an Uralic language. Some linguists claim to have arguments for an Ural-Altaic family, but this is even more speculative than the Altaic language group. Nevertheless, you don't seem to have a problem with classifying Hungarian as 'Altaic'. On which basis?

Groetjes,

Frank


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## Outsider

In defense of Latinsporean, popularization books sometimes mention the Uralo-Altaic grouping without delving into the discussion of its plausibility.


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## sound shift

Frank06 said:


> Hungarian is normally classified as an Uralic language. Some linguists claim to have arguments for an Ural-Altaic family, but this is even more speculative than the Altaic language group. Nevertheless, you don't seem to have a problem with classifying Hungarian as 'Altaic'. On which basis?
> 
> Groetjes,
> 
> Frank



Goedenavond,

I thought Hungarian was normally classified as a Finno-Ugrian language.


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## Outsider

Finno-Ugric is a subset of the Uralic language family.


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## sound shift

Thanks for putting me right.


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## Athaulf

Outsider said:


> In defense of Latinsporean, popularization books sometimes mention the Uralo-Altaic grouping without delving into the discussion of its plausibility.



Not just books. My elementary school geography teacher casually mentioned it alongside Indo-European when she was explaining what makes Hungarian and Finnish peculiar within Europe, without even a hint of controversy. Could be a consequence of the books you mention.


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## Joannes

Athaulf said:


> Not just books. My elementary school geography teacher casually mentioned it alongside Indo-European when she was explaining what makes Hungarian and Finnish peculiar within Europe, without even a hint of controversy. Could be a consequence of the books you mention.


Just for the record, the Uralic language family is little controversial. (Finnish and Hungarian, together with Estonian (Uralic as well) and e.g. Basque (language isolate), _are_ peculiar in mainly Indo-European Europe.) However, the link between the Uralic family and the Altaic family (which, indeed, in itself is controversial in some respects), very much is.


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## Athaulf

Joannes said:


> Just for the record, the Uralic language family is little controversial. (Finnish and Hungarian, together with Estonian (Uralic as well) and e.g. Basque (language isolate), _are_ peculiar in mainly Indo-European Europe.) However, the link between the Uralic family and the Altaic family (which, indeed, in itself is controversial in some respects), very much is.



Yes, this is all true -- what I meant is that my teacher mentioned the specific term "Ural-Altaic" without any hints that the concept is highly controversial.


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## 2x2isnot4

Asgaard said:


> Hi all,
> 
> Coincidence or not a coincidence?
> 
> Hungarian words for _crescent_ and _turk_ are the same* - török*!
> 
> Mongolian:
> _crescent_  -  *хагас тойрог (jagas toirog)*_turk _        -  *тїрэг (Tireg) хїн** (jin)*
> 
> Regaards
> Asgaard


I doubt it is a coincidence:the Uralic-Altaic language group is divided into two: Fino-Ungaric subgroup: Finnish, Estonian, Lap (ian?), Hungarian.  Altaic group:Turkish, Mongolian and others. This last group splits into two: Group "R": Bulgarian and others and Group "Z", which in itself also splits into two subgroups: Group "D" the western group, including Turkish from Turkey and Group "Z" certain Siberian languages, Mongolian and other languages, too unknown to have a proper English name ( at least,  do not know them).  My suggestion is that, though distant Hungarian ( Magyar) and Mongolian might have more words in common. The presence of these particular words in their quasi archaic format, explains most probably the significance of the words within the similar, nomadic, cultural context...


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## sokol

(Mod note/sokol: post moved, this is off-topic in the Turk-thread.)


2x2isnot4 said:


> I doubt it is a coincidence:the Uralic-Altaic language group is divided into two: Fino-Ungaric subgroup: Finnish, Estonian, Lap (ian?), Hungarian.  Altaic group:Turkish, Mongolian and others.


First and foremost, welcome to the forum. 

Secondly, as you can read above (posts moved) it is not at all established that Uralic and Altaic really belong to the same group.
The word "Turk" alone also changes nothing here - a single word is not sufficient by far to establish linguistic relations. So thanks for listing the sub-divisions of a _hypothetical _"Uralic-Altaic" group, but let's be aware of the fact that this is only a theory, disputed among linguists.


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## 2x2isnot4

Thank you!

I agree with you that is a highly controversial theory...nevertheless, it had some scientific following. I am not in a position to deny or accept a presumed connection between Uralic and Altaic, neither should you, don't you agree? 

Again, I am not trying to prove any connection, and definitely not on the basis of one word, I am humbly suggesting that it might have some explanatory power within this context, hypothetical or thetical.

In any case, I agree with you that some note should have been added recognizing the fact that it is one theory among many.


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## Zsuzsu

Originally Posted by *Asgaard* 
Hi all,
Coincidence or not a coincidence?
*Hungarian* words for _crescent_ and _turk_ are the same* - török*!
Mongolian:
_crescent_ - *хагас тойрог (jagas toirog)*_turk _- *тїрэг (Tireg) хїн** (jin)* 
Regaards 
Asgaard

Hi Asgaard,

Where did you get this information from? Although "*Turk*" in Hungarian is really "*török*", "*crescent*" is "*félhold*" (a word very different from "török".)
Furthermore, although "*хагас тойрог*" is really crescent (shape) in Mongolian (it is pronounced as "khagas toirog"), "Turk" is "*түрк*" and not "тїрэг (Tireg)" or "хїн (jin)" (why did you write this "ї" letter here, by the way? There is no such letter in Mongolian, and the sound it normally represents exists only very rarely in some dialects of Mongolian.)

If you want to find similarities between Hungarian and Mongolian, you have to look at other words - of Turkish origin. Because there are about 100 words which are almost the same in Hungarian and Mongolian - because both peoples borrowed them from Turkish. It does not mean that Hungarian and Mongolian are language relatives - the first belongs to the Finno-Ugric languages, while the latter is said to be one of the Altaic languages alongside with Turkish and the Manchu-Tungusic languages (note, however, that many linguists do not agree with the grouping of Altaic languages.)


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## 2x2isnot4

I am very glad for your response Zsuzsu, we needed someone with knowledge of Magyar in this discussion.


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## Zsuzsu

Zsuzsu said:


> Originally Posted by *Asgaard*
> "Turk" is "*түрк*" and not "тїрэг (Tireg)" or "хїн (jin)" (why did you write this "ї" letter here, by the way? There is no such letter in Mongolian, and the sound it normally represents exists only very rarely in some dialects of Mongolian.)


 
Now I have been told that some keyboards do not have the letter *ү* and substitute it with *ї*, if this is the case, Asgaard is right, "a Turk" can also be *түрэг хүн* (alongside with *түрк*) in Mongolian, where *түрэг* means "Turkish", and *хүн* means "man".


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## dinji

On groupings I agree with Zsuzsu, Proto-Uralic is OK as a valid node for Uralic languages, although it is based on much scarcer data than Proto-Indo-European. There has been recent ill-argumented but well known attempts (the most notorious being Angela Marcantino's _The Uralic Language Family: Facts, Myths, and Statistics_. Publications of the Philological Society 35. Oxford - Boston 2002) to attack the validity of Uralic, but as the smoke disperses the hypothesis stands firm (see the review of the former by Petri Kallio in: Anthropological Linguistics 46, pp. 486-490. Bloomington, IN 2004. 

On Altaic, my knowledge is unsufficient, but authorities I have learned to trust paints a picture very similar to that of Zsuzsu: the three subgroupings are not controversial but the combination of the three into "Altaic" is very controversial and mainly based on evidence extraneous to the historical-comparative method. The looser the tie, the easier it would be to add a fourth established subgroup, notably Uralic. For such a larger looser family the notion of Uralo-Altaic would be misleading since there would be no "Altaic" node to compare with the Uralic one. And the fact would in any event remain, that evidence for genetic relation among the four groups is unconvincing and not based on the comparative method, this is my understanding. I this case the affinity becomes arbitraryany and any language family could easily be added on as well, such as Yukaghir and other Paleo-Siberian languages.

On a point of methodology: comparing Mongolian and Hungarian takes us nowhere. In order to establish genetic relationship Proto-Uralic should be compared with "Proto-Mongolian" (or with Proto-Altaic if such a reconstructional level/node could be argued, which I doubt as seen above).


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## OBrasilo

Well I have noticed some similar words between Hungarian and Mongolian:
Hungarian _tenger_ vs. Mongolian _tengiz_ (sp.), meaning _sea_;
Hungarian _*orsz*ag_ vs. Mongolian _uls_ (sp.), meaning _country_;
Hungarian _nap_ vs. Mongolian _nar_ (sp.), meaning _day_ and _sun_.

However I do agree that this isn't enough to establish relatedness.


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## francisgranada

OBrasilo said:


> Well I have noticed some similar words between Hungarian and Mongolian:
> Hungarian _tenger_ vs. Mongolian _tengiz_ (sp.), meaning _sea_;
> Hungarian _*orsz*ag_ vs. Mongolian _uls_ (sp.), meaning _country_;
> Hungarian _nap_ vs. Mongolian _nar_ (sp.), meaning _day_ and _sun_.
> 
> However I do agree that this isn't enough to establish relatedness.



Tenger in Hungarian is a Turkic loanword.

Ország derives from "úr" (lord) of Finno-Ugric origin and "-szág" is a suffix. The documented old Hungarian form is "uru" for lord and "uruszág"  (spelled "uruzag" in the 12th century) for country or land (ruled by a lord, e.g. a king). So we have "uru" and "uls", two different words with different meaning.

I don't know the etymology of "nap", but the old Hungarian form is "nopu" so only the initial "n" is common with "nar" which is not too much ...


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## Hulalessar

Athaulf said:


> Yes, this is all true -- what I meant is that my teacher mentioned the specific term "Ural-Altaic" without any hints that the concept is highly controversial.



I think that at one time it was not controversial. What at one time seemed patently obvious on closer examination has become less clear as linguists began to formulate concepts such as sprachbunds. The books I read in the 1960s not only insisted on the Ural-Altaic family but also on including the Tai-Kadai languages in Sino-Tibetan family. Conversely, the number of language families in Africa has been reduced as relationships not previously perceived were demonstrated. We cannot blame non-linguists for not keeping up. It all depends on what questions are asked at what level. No one is going to deny that Spanish and Portuguese are related, but precisely how is something else. As we go up the levels we can see the similarities between the Italic and Celtic languages, but there is doubt as to whether Proto-Italo-Celtic ever existed.


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## Pablo Hijodehoy

francisgranada said:


> Tenger in Hungarian is a Turkic loanword.
> 
> Ország derives from "úr" (lord) of Finno-Ugric origin and "-szág" is a suffix. The documented old Hungarian form is "uru" for lord and "uruszág"  (spelled "uruzag" in the 12th century) for country or land (ruled by a lord, e.g. a king). So we have "uru" and "uls", two different words with different meaning.
> 
> I don't know the etymology of "nap", but the old Hungarian form is "nopu" so only the initial "n" is common with "nar" which is not too much ...



Just a few things you must know the Hungarian word úr (lord) is an unknown origin word, it was compared with Finnish and Lapp but no connection was proven.
The Hungarian word nap (sun) is also of unknown origin, the stem word was most probably na or naa. this was comperd with other Uralic languages for instance Khanty, however this attempt has failed.
If you open the Hungarian Ethimological Dictionary then you shall find the same.

I wonder how you came up with uru and nopu when its urr and naa in reality???


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## francisgranada

Pablo Hijodehoy said:


> I wonder how you came up with uru and nopu when its urr and naa in reality???



I speak about the _old Hungarian_ forms, e.g. 1192-1195, Halotti beszéd:

... yſa ki _*nopu*n_ emdul oz gimilſtwl halalnec halalaal holz ... 
... eſ oggun neki munhi _*uru*_zagbele utot ...

See also http://www.szokincshalo.hu/szotar/ the word _ország:  "... Az úr szó régebbi *uru *alakjának származéka ..."

_


> The Hungarian word nap (sun) is also of unknown origin, the stem word was most probably na or naa.


In case of unknown origin we can hardly speak about a prae-Hungarian supposed stem.


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## Phosphorus

francisgranada said:


> Tenger in Hungarian is a Turkic loanword.
> 
> Ország derives from "úr" (lord) of Finno-Ugric origin and "-szág" is a suffix. The documented old Hungarian form is "uru" for lord and "uruszág"  (spelled "uruzag" in the 12th century) for country or land (ruled by a lord, e.g. a king). *So we have "uru" and "uls", two different words with different meaning*.
> 
> I don't know the etymology of "nap", but the old Hungarian form is "nopu" so only the initial "n" is common with "nar" which is not too much ...



You are right Francisgranada. Mongolian "uls?" is actually a Turkic loan from "ulush" which originally means "country".

And for the case of "tenger", there are some other direct borrowings from the Turkic proper in Hungarian (which are not shared by Finnish), such "alma" ~ "apple".


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## ancalimon

According to Ord. Prof. Dr. Reha Oğuz Türkkan, the origin of Turkic culture is Urals and Proto-Turkic language existed before Proto-Turks reached Urals from Alp Mountains. (not surprisingly, alps (a form between ethereal and meat&bone) are mythological advanced-beings from Turkic mythology that are supposedly ancestors of human beings capable of stopping time and using tunnels to travel between dimensions (branches of the Cosmic Tree)


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