The Altaic Language Family stands distinct from its East Asian linguistic neighbors in several noteworthy aspects. A primary characteristic is the typical absence of honorific language, a feature common in languages like Japanese or Korean. Furthermore, Altaic languages traditionally exhibit minimal differentiation between male and female speech patterns. Grammatical gender, a system classifying nouns into categories like masculine, feminine, or neuter, is also absent. While some languages may feature what appear to be feminine endings, these are infrequent and do not represent a systematic grammatical gender. Notably, distinct pronouns for “he” and “she” are not a feature of these languages either.
Phonological Features of Altaic Languages
The sound systems, or phonology, of the Altaic languages are generally characterized by simplicity. Syllable structures are predominantly open, typically ending in a vowel, most commonly following a consonant-vowel (CV) pattern. Consonant clusters are relatively uncommon, and the number of distinct consonants used is comparatively small. Reconstruction of Proto-Altaic, the hypothetical ancestor language, points to a vowel system that shares similarities with the “cubic” vowel system found in Turkish. This system is symmetrical, comprising eight vowel phonemes, differentiated by three phonological contrasts: back/nonback, high/nonhigh, and round (labial)/nonround (nonlabial), as illustrated in the table below. It’s worth noting that within the Mongolian and Manchu-Tungus branches, the vowels /i/ and /ɯ/ have merged. Additionally, these branches have further simplified the vowel system by merging /y/ and /[B0]/ with /i/ and /u/, respectively. Some Altaic languages further distinguish between long and short vowel phonemes, adding another layer of phonetic complexity.
| Nonback | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Round | Nonround | |
| High | y | i |
| Nonhigh | ø | e |
Reconstructed Proto-Altaic vowel system
A defining feature of Altaic languages is the presence of sound harmony, specifically affecting vowels and velar stops. Palatal vowel harmony dictates that all vowels within a word must be either back vowels or front vowels. This extends to velar consonants: front velar consonants like /k/ and /g/ occur exclusively with front vowels, while back (deep) velars /q/ and /g/ are paired only with back vowels. While exceptions exist, primarily in compound words and loanwords, this harmony is a significant phonological rule. The Manchu-Tungus languages, having merged certain front and back vowel pairs, exhibit a compromised palatal harmony in root words. However, they often retain this distinction in suffixes, demonstrating a partial preservation of the original system.
Palatal vowel harmony has undergone weakening or complete loss in various languages across all three main branches of Altaic. In some instances, such as Uzbek, this is attributed to external influences, particularly Iranian in the case of Uzbek. However, not all instances of harmony loss can be readily explained by external factors. The development of neutral vowels, through the merging of corresponding front and back vowels (e.g., /i/, /ɯ/; /y/, /u/), also contributes to the alteration of vowel harmony systems.
Labial (rounding) vowel harmony represents a later phonological development and manifests differently in the Turkic and Mongolian branches. In Turkic languages, a high vowel typically harmonizes in rounding with the vowel of the preceding syllable. For example, in Turkish, el-in means ‘hand’s’ (hand-genitive), while köy-ün translates to ‘village’s.’ In contrast, Mongolian languages exhibit a different pattern: nonhigh vowels are generally unrounded, except when following a nonhigh rounded vowel in the immediately preceding syllable. An example from Khalkha Mongolian is ger-ees ‘from the house’ (house-ablative), and ötsögdr-öös ‘from yesterday.’
Morphological Structure: Agglutination and Suffixation
Altaic languages are typologically classified as agglutinative in their word structure. Agglutination, in this context, is characterized by several key features: (1) words are constructed by adding affixes, specifically suffixes, to a root morpheme; (2) a considerable number of suffixes can be appended, leading to the formation of lengthy, polysyllabic, and polymorphemic words (although typically, words contain three to four morphemes); (3) each morpheme within a word carries a distinct meaning or grammatical function; and (4) the phonological form of each morpheme is generally maintained, with minimal alteration due to neighboring morphemes. A classic example is the Turkish word in-dir-il-emi-y-ebil-ecek-ler, which translates to ‘it may be that they will not be able to be brought down.’ This single word can be dissected into: root – causative – passive – impotential – potential – future – third person plural. Similarly, the Mongolian phrase eke-yin-iyen meaning ‘of one’s own mother’ is composed of root – genitive case – reflexive-possessive suffixes. This agglutinative, exclusively suffixal morphology results in Altaic words exhibiting a characteristically left-branching structure in terms of morphological derivation.
The morphology of Altaic languages is generally straightforward, marked by a scarcity of irregularities. For instance, Turkish has only one irregular verb, ‘to be.’ Suppletion, the phenomenon where a word form is replaced by an unrelated form (like English went as the past tense of go), is also largely absent. Furthermore, there are no distinct noun or verb stem classes (“declensions” and “conjugations”) necessitating unique sets of endings, further simplifying the morphological landscape.
Nouns and verbs are heavily inflected, meaning they take on numerous suffixes to indicate grammatical function, whereas adjectives remain uninflected and do not agree grammatically with the nouns they modify. Nouns typically have a plural affix, but numerals are used with the singular form (e.g., ‘two man’ instead of ‘two men’), and the plural marker is often omitted when a general sense is intended (e.g., ‘read books’ can be expressed as ‘read book’).
Altaic languages are rich in case systems. Manchu features five cases, Turkish six, and Classical Mongolian seven. The Manchu-Tungus languages can exhibit an even more extensive case system, with languages like Evenk having as many as 14 cases. A unique characteristic of Mongolian languages is the potential for double case marking, as seen in Classical Mongolian ger-t-eče ‘from [at] the house’ (house-dative-locative-ablative) and eke-yin-dür ‘to/at mother’s’ (mother-genitive-dative-locative).
In Mongolian languages, reflexive-possessive affixes and enclitic possessive markers can be attached to case endings, adding layers of grammatical nuance. Examples include Khalkha Mongolian mori-d-oos-min’ ‘from my horses’ (horse-plural-ablative-my) and Classical Mongolian baγsi-tai-ban ‘with his own teacher’ (teacher-comitative-reflexive-possessive).
Pronoun systems in Altaic languages exhibit some distinctive features. The nominative singular first-person pronoun (‘I’) in Mongolian and Manchu-Tungus languages uses a special stem (e.g., Classical Mongolian bi ‘I,’ genitive minu ‘my’). These language families also differentiate between exclusive ‘we’ (excluding the addressee) and inclusive ‘we’ (including the addressee). The use of the plural second-person pronoun (‘you’) as a polite singular form is a common feature across Altaic. For third-person pronouns, Altaic languages often utilize demonstrative pronouns; ‘they’ is often expressed literally as ‘these’ or ‘those.’ Possessive forms of pronouns are frequently used in place of definite articles.
Verbal morphology is particularly complex in Altaic languages, although many lack personal endings that indicate agreement in person and number with the verb’s subject. The grammatical category of mood is also typically absent. Etymologically, most verb forms can be traced back to nominal origins.
Beyond finite verb forms, which function as the main verbs in independent clauses, Altaic languages employ participles or verbal nouns. These can function as nouns or adjectives and are used to construct phrases that translate relative clauses in other languages. Converbs or gerunds act as adverbs or verb complements, or they can function as main verbs in subordinate clauses. So-called imperative or vocative forms serve specialized functions and typically form clauses with highly restricted structural types. In Turkic languages, verbal nouns that function solely as derived nouns coexist alongside participles. The precise semantic roles of tense, grammatical aspect, and mood, as expressed through various affixes, remain a focus of ongoing linguistic research, particularly in the Manchu-Tungus branch.
The Turkic verb system is built upon a set of stems—present, future, aorist, necessitative, conditional, subjunctive, and two past tenses. These stems can be further modified by adding affixes that mark tense or mood distinctions, forming finite verb forms. An example is gel-iyor-du-ysa-m, the evidential past conditional form derived from the present stem of the verb gel- ‘to come.’ Affixes also create participles and verbal nouns, and numerous gerund forms exist. Turkic languages distinguish between an evidential past tense, used when the speaker has witnessed the events or they are common knowledge, and an inferential past tense, used when events have been reported to or inferred by the speaker.
Mongolian and Manchu-Tungus languages also possess rich verb morphologies, despite lacking a stem-based system like Turkic. Classical Mongolian has five finite verb forms (three present and two past tenses, the precise meanings of which are still under investigation), ten converbs, and six verbal nouns, differentiated by relative tense or grammatical aspect, as well as seven or eight “imperative” forms. The Manchu verb can incorporate one or more auxiliary verbs, as in afa-m-bi-he-bi ‘had been attacking,’ analyzed as ‘to attack-imperfect converb-to be-perfect participle-to be.’
Syntactic Stability and Word Order
The syntax of Altaic languages demonstrates remarkable stability and resilience to external linguistic influence. Lexical categories in Altaic languages are often less rigidly defined compared to other language families. For instance, the Classical Mongolian word dumda can function as a noun (‘middle’), adjective (‘central’), adverb (‘centrally’), and postposition (‘among’). Altaic languages utilize postpositions, which precede the noun they modify, rather than prepositions, which follow the noun. Articles, as in definite or indefinite articles in English, are absent. Demonstrative adjectives (‘this,’ ‘that’) or possessive pronouns (‘its’) often serve as definite articles, while the numeral ‘one(s)’ can function as an indefinite article.
Altaic languages possess a wide array of auxiliary verbs, which can be strung together to create complex verb phrases. An example is Khalkha Mongolian ter orǰ irǰ bayna ‘he is on his way in,’ literally ‘that entering coming is.’
The fundamental word order in Altaic languages is subject–object–verb (SOV). Modifiers, such as adjectives and adverbs, typically precede the elements they modify, whereas specifiers, like quantifiers and auxiliary verbs, follow the specified element (e.g., ‘book many’ = ‘many books’ for ‘many books’). Similar to morphology, syntactic structure is predominantly left-branching.
Relative clauses as they exist in many Indo-European languages are absent in Altaic. Instead, participial constructions are used. For example, Turkish yemeğe gelen adam ‘the man (who is) coming to dinner’ is literally ‘dinner-to coming man.’ Hypotactic (subordinate) constructions, such as subordinate clauses, are favored over paratactic (coordinate) constructions, like independent clauses. The construction ‘having gotten up, she left’ is much more common than ‘she got up and left.’
Transformations of basic syntactic structures are minimal. Word order inversion, for example in questions, does not occur. Questions are typically formed using question particles (in yes-or-no questions) or question words, as in Turkish Fatma kim-dir? ‘Who is Fatma?’ (literally ‘Fatma who-is?’). Passive and causative verb forms are marked by verb affixes and can be combined into passive-causative or causative-passive forms. Word order variation is permissible to emphasize certain elements or to manage information flow in discourse. Old, presupposed information tends to precede new, asserted information.
Grammatical agreement is infrequent. Quantifying words do not agree with nouns (‘two man’), and there is no agreement between adjectives and nouns in gender, case, or number.
Vocabulary: Borrowing and Core Retention
Compared to other language families, the Altaic languages exhibit relatively few cognate words that are shared across all three branches. This can be observed in numeral vocabulary; for example, the word for ‘two’ is qoyar in Classical Mongolian, iki in Turkish, and juwe in Manchu. Some linguists have proposed that Mongolian and Turkic share a greater number of cognates compared to either of them and Manchu-Tungus, suggesting a closer relationship and a possible subgroup within Altaic. However, this hypothesis has not achieved universal acceptance.
Altaic languages have historically been highly receptive to borrowing vocabulary from other languages, both within and outside the Altaic family. Despite extensive borrowing, the core vocabulary and grammatical markers have remained largely native. Geographic proximity throughout the eastern Altaic-speaking world and structural similarities have facilitated mutual borrowing across the three branches in various historical periods. For example, Ancient Mongolian adopted numerous agricultural terms from Turkic, while Sakha (Yakut) contains loanwords from both Mongolian and Manchu-Tungus. Extensive borrowing has also occurred within each branch, particularly among Turkic languages.
While Altaic peoples had early contact with speakers of Semitic, Indo-European, and Uralic languages, prehistoric borrowings are scarce. Major foreign influences emerged later, often associated with conquest or religious conversion. The translation of religious texts, particularly Buddhist texts in Mongolian and Islamic texts (Arabic and Persian) in Turkic languages, significantly contributed to the influx of foreign vocabulary into Altaic languages. Arabic and Persian also impacted the grammars of some Altaic languages, such as Iranian influence on the sound system of Uzbek and numerous syntactic structures in Turkish.
From early periods, languages in contact with Chinese adopted a substantial number of administrative, political, cultural, and scientific terms, either directly or indirectly (as loanwords or calques/loan translations). Manchu vocabulary is particularly heavily Sinicized in these areas, with Mongolian being less so. Mutual borrowing between Manchu and Mongolian also occurred, especially Manchu borrowing from Mongolian.
In the modern era, numerous international scientific, political, and cultural terms of English, French, German, and Classical origin have entered Altaic languages of Central Asia through Russian. These terms are often written as in Russian but pronounced according to the phonology of the borrowing language. Calques from Russian and Chinese have also been incorporated, and Russian has had minor influence on syntactic structures.
The contribution of Altaic languages to other language families has been relatively limited, primarily consisting of words related to Altaic culture, such as bey, kumiss, and yurt. However, words like cossack, dalai (as in Dalai Lama), horde, khan, mogul, shaman, and yogurt have become part of the international vocabulary, reflecting the broader cultural impact of Altaic-speaking peoples throughout history.
