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Ural-Altaic

Eurasian Language Families

Ural-Altaic, or Uralo-Altaic, is a linguistic convergence zone and an abandoned language-family proposal that once united the Uralic and Altaic languages. It is now generally agreed that even the Altaic languages do not share a common descent, since the similarities among Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic are better explained by diffusion and borrowing, and doubts about most or all proposed higher-order Uralic branchings have also become more common. The term continues to be used for the central Eurasian typological, grammatical and lexical convergence zone rather than for a genuine genealogical family.

Facts
Debunked
Proto-Language Status
Rejected as a genealogical family; mainstream linguistics now holds that even the Altaic languages proposed within it do not share a common descent, so no valid Ural-Altaic proto-language is reconstructed. 1
Region
Eurasia 1
Sources
1. Ural-Altaic languages, Wikipedia
  • Infobox, Geographic distribution
    Geographic distribution: Eurasia
  • Introduction, sentence 2
    It is now generally agreed that even the Altaic languages do not share a common descent
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