Editing Altaic languages (section)

===Korean and Japanese languages===
In 1857, the Austrian scholar Anton Boller suggested adding [[Japanese language|Japanese]] to the Ural–Altaic family.<ref name=miller86>Roy Andrew Miller (1986): ''Nihongo: In Defence of Japanese.'' {{ISBN|0-485-11251-5}}.</ref>{{rp|34}}

In the 1920s, [[Gustaf John Ramstedt|G.J. Ramstedt]] and [[Yevgeny Polivanov|E.D. Polivanov]] advocated the inclusion of Korean. Decades later, in his 1952 book, Ramstedt rejected the Ural–Altaic hypothesis but again included Korean in Altaic, an inclusion followed by most leading Altaicists (supporters of the theory) to date.<!--Which date?--><ref name=rams>Gustaf John Ramstedt (1952): ''Einführung in die altaische Sprachwissenschaft'' ("Introduction to Altaic Linguistics"). Volume I, ''Lautlehre'' ("Phonology").</ref> His book contained the first comprehensive attempt to identify regular correspondences among the sound systems within the Altaic language families.

In 1960, Nicholas Poppe published what was in effect a heavily revised version of Ramstedt's volume on phonology<ref name=poppe60>Nicholas Poppe (1960): ''Vergleichende Grammatik der altaischen Sprachen. Teil I. Vergleichende Lautlehre'', ('Comparative Grammar of the Altaic Languages, Part 1: Comparative Phonology'). Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz. (Only part to appear of a projected larger work.)</ref><ref>Roy Andrew Miller (1991): "Genetic connections among the Altaic languages." In Sydney M. Lamb and E. Douglas Mitchell (editors), ''Sprung from Some Common Source: Investigations into the Prehistory of Languages'', 1991, 293–327. {{ISBN|0-8047-1897-0}}.</ref> that has since set the standard in Altaic studies. Poppe considered the issue of the relationship of Korean to Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic not settled.<ref name=poppe65/>{{rp|148}} In his view, there were three possibilities: (1) Korean did not belong with the other three genealogically, but had been influenced by an Altaic substratum; (2) Korean was related to the other three at the same level they were related to each other; (3) Korean had split off from the other three before they underwent a series of characteristic changes.

[[Roy Andrew Miller]]'s 1971 book ''Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages'' convinced most Altaicists that Japanese also belonged to Altaic.<ref name=poppe76>Nicholas Poppe (1976): "[https://www.jstor.org/pss/132066 Review of Karl H. Menges, ''Altajische Studien II. Japanisch und Altajisch'' (1975)]". In ''The Journal of Japanese Studies'', volume 2, issue 2, pages 470–474.</ref><ref name=miller71>Roy Andrew Miller (1971): ''Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages.'' University of Chicago Press. {{ISBN|0-226-52719-0}}.</ref> Since then, the "Macro-Altaic" has been generally assumed to include Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japanese.

In 1990, Unger, emphasizing the need to establish language relationships rigorously "from the bottom up," advocated comparing Tungusic with the common ancestor of Korean and Japanese before seeking connections with Turkic or Mongolic.<ref name=unger90>J. Marshall Unger (1990): "Summary report of the Altaic panel." In [[Philip Baldi]], ed., ''Linguistic Change and Reconstruction Methodology'', pages 479–482. Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin.</ref>

However, many linguists dispute the alleged affinities of Korean and Japanese to the other three groups. Some authors instead tried to connect Japanese to the [[Austronesian languages]].<ref name=staro2003/>{{rp|8–9}}

In 2017, [[Martine Robbeets]] proposed that Japanese (and possibly Korean) originated as a [[creole language|hybrid language]]. She proposed that the [[urheimat|ancestral home]] of the Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages was somewhere in northwestern [[Manchuria]]. A group of those proto-Altaic ("Transeurasian") speakers would have migrated south into the modern [[Liaoning]] province, where they would have been mostly assimilated by an agricultural community with an [[Austronesian languages|Austronesian]]-like language. The fusion of the two languages would have resulted in proto-Japanese and proto-Korean.<ref name=robbe>Martine Irma Robbeets (2017): "[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320915864_Austronesian_influence_and_Transeurasian_ancestry_in_Japanese_A_case_of_farminglanguage_dispersal Austronesian influence and Transeurasian ancestry in Japanese: A case of farming/language dispersal]". ''Language Dynamics and Change'', volume 7, issue 2, pages 201–251, {{doi|10.1163/22105832-00702005}}</ref><ref name=robb2015>Martine Irma Robbeets (2015): ''Diachrony of verb morphology – Japanese and the Transeurasian languages''. Mouton de Gruyter.</ref>

In a typological study that does not directly evaluate the validity of the Altaic hypothesis, Yurayong and Szeto (2020) discuss for Koreanic and Japonic the stages of convergence to the Altaic typological model and subsequent divergence from that model, which resulted in the present typological similarity between Koreanic and Japonic. They state that both are "still so different from the Core Altaic languages that we can even speak of an independent Japanese-Korean type of grammar. Given also that there is neither a strong proof of common Proto-Altaic lexical items nor solid regular sound correspondences but, rather, only lexical and structural borrowings between languages of the Altaic typology, our results indirectly speak in favour of a “Paleo-Asiatic” origin of the Japonic and Koreanic languages."<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Yurayong, Szeto|date=August 2020|title=Altaicization and De-Altaicization of Japonic and Koreanic|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343576887|journal=International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics|volume=2 |pages=108–148 |doi=10.1163/25898833-12340026 |s2cid=225358117 |quote=Despite the conventional classification of Japonic and Koreanic languages as examples of the Altaic typology (Janhunen 2007, 2014, Tranter 2012a), these languages, both today and in the past, are still so different from the Core Altaic languages that we can even speak of an independent Japanese-Korean type of grammar (see also Vovin 2015a). Given also that there is neither a strong proof of common Proto-Altaic lexical items nor solid regular sound correspondences (Janhunen 1999: 10, 2010: 296, cf. Robbeets 2005) but, rather, only lexical and structural borrowings between languages of the Altaic typology, our results indirectly speak in favour of a “Paleo-Asiatic” origin of the Japonic and Koreanic languages (see also Janhunen 2010, Vovin 2015a). However, through later intense language contacts, Japanese and Koreanic converged by the phenomena of Altaicization and de-Altaicization during the first millennium BC and AD, respectively (see also Janhunen 2010: 290, Vovin 2010: 239–240).}}</ref>