Editing Altaic languages (section)

===Uralo-Altaic hypothesis===
{{see also |Ural-Altaic languages}}
In 1844, the Finnish [[Philology|philologist]] [[Matthias Castrén]] proposed a broader grouping which later came to be called the [[Ural–Altaic languages|Ural–Altaic family]], which included Turkic, Mongolian, and Manchu-Tungus (=Tungusic) as an "Altaic" branch, and also the [[Finno-Ugric languages|Finno-Ugric]] and [[Samoyedic languages]] as the "Uralic" branch (though Castrén himself used the terms "Tataric" and "Chudic").<ref name=poppe65/>{{rp|126–127}} The name "Altaic" referred to the [[Altai Mountains]] in East-Central Asia, which are approximately the center of the geographic range of the three main families. The name "Uralic" referred to the [[Ural Mountains]].

While the Ural-Altaic family hypothesis can still be found in some encyclopedias, atlases, and similar general references, since the 1960s it has been heavily criticized. Even linguists who accept the basic Altaic family, such as [[Sergei Starostin]], completely discard the inclusion of the "Uralic" branch.<ref name=staro2003/>{{rp|8–9}}

The term continues to be used for the central Eurasian typological, grammatical and lexical convergence zone.<ref>BROWN, Keith and OGILVIE, Sarah eds.:Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. 2009. p. 722.</ref> Indeed, "Ural-Altaic" may be preferable to "Altaic" in this sense. For example, [[Juha Janhunen]] states that "speaking of 'Altaic' instead of 'Ural-Altaic' is a misconception, for there are no areal or typological features that are specific to 'Altaic' without Uralic."<ref name="Georg">{{Cite journal |last=Georg |first=Stefan |date=2017-05-19 |title=The Role of Paradigmatic Morphology in Historical, Areal and Genealogical Linguistics: Thoughts and Observations in the Margin of Paradigm Change. In the Transeurasian languages and Beyond |url=https://brill.com/view/journals/jlc/10/2/article-p353_5.xml |journal=Journal of Language Contact |language=en |volume=10 |issue=2 |pages=353–381 |doi=10.1163/19552629-01002005 |issn=1877-4091|doi-access=free }}</ref>