Editing Altaic languages (section)

==Earliest attestations<span class="anchor" id="Earliest attestations of the languages"></span>==
The earliest attested expressions in Proto-Turkic are recorded in various Chinese sources. Anna Dybo identifies in [[Shizi (book)|Shizi]] (330 BC) and the [[Book of Han]] (AD 111) several dozen Proto-Turkic exotisms in Chinese Han transcriptions.<ref>Anna Dybo (2012) ''Early contacts of Turks and problems of Proto-Turkic reconstruction.''</ref> Lanhai Wei and Hui Li reconstruct the name of the Xiōngnú ruling house as
[[Proto-Turkic language|PT]] *[[Luandi|Alayundluğ]] /alajuntˈluγ/ 'piebald horse clan.'<ref>Lanhai Wei and Hui Li (2018) ''About the names of Chanyu family and branch tribes of Xiongnu.''</ref>

The earliest known texts in a Turkic language are the [[Orkhon inscriptions]], 720–735 AD.<ref name=miller71/>{{rp|3}} They were deciphered in 1893 by the Danish linguist [[Vilhelm Thomsen]] in a scholarly race with his rival, the German–Russian linguist [[Vasily Radlov|Wilhelm Radloff]]. However, Radloff was the first to publish the inscriptions.

The first Tungusic language to be attested is [[Jurchen language|Jurchen]], the language of the ancestors of the [[Manchu people|Manchus]]. A writing system for it was devised in 1119 AD and an inscription using this system is known from 1185 (see [[List of Jurchen inscriptions]]).

The earliest [[Mongolic languages|Mongolic]] language of which we have written evidence is known as [[Middle Mongol language|Middle Mongol]]. It is first attested by an inscription dated to 1224 or 1225 AD, the [[Stele of Yisüngge]], and by the ''[[Secret History of the Mongols]]'', written in 1228 (see [[Mongolic languages]]). The earliest Para-Mongolic text is the [[Memorial for Yelü Yanning]], written in the [[Khitan large script]] and dated to 986 AD. However, the [[Inscription of Hüis Tolgoi]], discovered in 1975 and analysed as being in an early form of Mongolic, has been dated to 604–620 AD. The [[Bugut inscription]] dates back to 584 AD.

Japanese is first attested in the form of names contained in a few short inscriptions in [[Classical Chinese]] from the 5th century AD, such as found on the [[Inariyama Sword]]. The first substantial text in Japanese, however, is the ''[[Kojiki]]'', which dates from 712 AD. It is followed by the ''[[Nihon Shoki|Nihon shoki]]'', completed in 720, and then by the ''[[Man'yōshū]]'', which dates from [[wikt:circa|c.]] 771–785, but includes material that is from about 400 years earlier.<ref name=miller71/>{{rp|4}}

The most important text for the study of early Korean is the [[Hyangga]], a collection of 25 poems, of which some go back to the [[Three Kingdoms of Korea|Three Kingdoms]] period (57 BC–668 AD), but are preserved in an [[orthography]] that only goes back to the 9th century AD.<ref name=miller96/>{{rp|60}} Korean is copiously attested from the mid-15th century on in the phonetically precise [[Hangul]] system of writing.<ref name=miller96/>{{rp|61}}