1855年,德国东方学家、文献学家Friedrich Max Müller对非雅利安、非闪米特的亚洲语言提出了一种新的分类法。在他的《东方战争中心的语言》中,他将这些语言统称为“图兰语系”。Müller将这一分类分为南北两支。[22]他关于语言结构发展的进化论归根结底是将精细的语法和社会经济发展强行联系起来,统共有“冰期后”“氏族”“游牧”“政治”几个发展阶段,[23]事实证明是不可靠的,不过他那分类的北支可分析为是“乌拉尔-阿尔泰语系”。
在匈牙利,乌拉尔–阿尔泰语系的概念在19世纪末到20世纪中叶几乎被无条件接受,尽管其中的泛民族主义原因胜过语言学证据,也没有多少详细的研究。[需要解释]在其他地方,该假说很快变得“不可置信”,芬兰阿尔泰学家Martti Räsänen]] being in the minority.[11]:707–708匈牙利语言学界的观念和清晰证据的缺乏产生的矛盾,最终使得Aurélien Sauvageot和丹尼斯·塞诺等学者对阿尔泰语系展开审慎的研究,他们并未得出广为接受的结果。尼古拉·尼古拉耶维奇·鲍培在他的文章《苏联语言学光辉下的乌拉尔-阿尔泰理论》(1940)也试图批驳Castrén的观点,指出黏着化的特征非常普遍。[25]今日,匈牙利语被认为属于乌拉尔语系,不过受突厥语系强烈影响。
在1960年代初,阿尔泰语系假说变得越发具有争议性。今日,乌拉尔语系和阿尔泰语系有关系的假说已经基本没有坚定支持者了。[26]斯塔罗斯金在与Oleg A. Mudrak和Anna V. Dybo合著的《阿尔泰语系语源词典》中,评价乌拉尔–阿尔泰假说为“现在被完全抛弃的想法”。[26]现在有几种假设更大的超语系的假说,其中包含乌拉尔语系、阿尔泰语系和其他语系。但是没有一种假说目前得到了广泛的支持。在斯塔罗斯金的“北方大语系”的概述中,他认为乌拉尔语系和阿尔泰语系是约9千年前分化出来的,与达罗毗荼语系和古西伯利亚语言,包括爱斯基摩–阿留申语系也从同一个祖语分化而来。他假定,这种祖语与印欧语系和南高加索语系在约1.2万年前共同构成“欧亚语系”的祖语,而它又经由诺斯特拉语系隶属于北方大语系。[27]
^According to Manaster Ramer & Sidwell, this misconception first dates back to a 1901 article by Otto Donner, later most prominently repeated by Nicholas Poppe, Merritt Ruhlen and G. D. Sanzheev.
^ 1.01.1Colin Renfrew, Daniel Nettle: Nostratic: Examining a Linguistic Macrofamily - Page 207, Publisher: McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge(1999), ISBN9781902937007
^ 2.02.1Robert Lawrence Trask: The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics - PAGE: 357, Publisher: Psychology Press (2000), ISBN9781579582180
^ 3.03.1Lars Johanson, Martine Irma Robbeets : Transeurasian Verbal Morphology in a Comparative Perspective: Genealogy, Contact, Chance -PAGE: 8. Publisher: Otto Harrassowitz Verlag (2010), ISBN9783447059145
^ 4.04.1Ladislav Drozdík: Non-Finite Relativization. A Typological Study in Accessibility. Page 30 (XXX), Publisher: Ústav orientalistiky SAV, ISBN9788080950668
^“当‘阿尔泰语系’在百科全书和小手册中被反复提及时,大多数相关语言的专家却早已不再相信突厥语族、蒙古语族和通古斯语族间有什么亲缘关系了。” Lyle Campbell & Mauricio J. Mixco, A Glossary of Historical Linguistics (2007, University of Utah Press), pg. 7.
^“当同源词证据不再确凿时,阿尔泰语系假说就被抛弃了。目前被接受的观点是,突厥语、蒙古语和通古斯语间没有关系。” Johanna Nichols, Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time (1992, Chicago), pg. 4.
^“审慎的检测发现,突厥语、蒙古语和通古斯语实际上形成了一个语言联盟(称作阿尔泰)...此处我们给不出判定它们同源的充分标准。” R.M.W. Dixon, The Rise and Fall of Languages (1997, Cambridge), pg. 32.
^“...这些特征的集合并不是好的同源证据”“蒙古语和突厥语间,我们可以观察到的是趋同,而不是同源——即我们观察到的,是通过扩散和借用解释得比同源更好的模式”, Asya Pereltsvaig, Languages of the World, An Introduction (2012, Cambridge) has a good discussion of the Altaic hypothesis (pp. 211-216).
^BROWN, Keith and OGILVIE, Sarah eds.:Concise Encyclopedia of Languages of the World. 2009.
^ 10.010.1Stefan Georg (2017) "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 (Robbeets and Bisang, eds.)." Journal of Language Contact, volume 10, issue 2, p.
^Ramer, Alexis Manaster; Sidwell, Paul. The truth about Strahlenberg's classification of the languages of Northeastern Eurasia. Journal de la Société Finno-Ougrienne. 1997, 87.
^W. Schott, Versuch über die tatarischen Sprachen (1836)
^F. J. Wiedemann, Ueber die früheren Sitze der tschudischen Völker und ihre Sprachverwandschaft mit dem Völkern Mittelhochasiens (1838).
^M. A. Castrén, Dissertatio Academica de affinitate declinationum in lingua Fennica, Esthonica et Lapponica, Helsingforsiae, 1839
^M. A. Castrén, Nordische Reisen und Forschungen. V, St.-Petersburg, 1849
^MÜLLER, Friedrich Max. The languages of the seat of war in the East. With a survey of the three families of language, Semitic, Arian and Turanian. Williams and Norgate, London, 1855. https://archive.org/details/languagesseatwa00mlgoog
^Janhunen, Juha. Typological Expansion in the Ural-Altaic belt. Incontri Linguistici. 2007.
^Fortescue, Michael. Language Relations across Bering Strait: Reappraising the Archaeological and Linguistic Evidence. London and New York: Cassell. 1998. ISBN 0-304-70330-3.
^Róna-Tas, A. De hypothesi Uralo-Altaica. Symposium saeculare societatis Fenno-Ugricae. Memoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 185. 1983.
^Poppe, Nicholas. The Ural-Altaic affinity. Symposium saeculare societatis Fenno-Ugricae. Memoires de la Société Finno-Ougrienne 185. 1983.
书目
Greenberg, Joseph H. Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives: The Eurasiatic Language Family, Volume 1: Grammar. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2000.
Greenberg, Joseph H. (2005). Genetic Linguistics: Essays on Theory and Method, edited by William Croft. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Marcantonio, Angela. The Uralic Language Family: Facts, Myths and Statistics. Publications of the Philological Society 35. Oxford – Boston: Blackwell. 2002.
Shirokogoroff, S. M. Ethnological and Linguistical Aspects of the Ural–Altaic Hypothesis. Peiping, China: The Commercial Press. 1931.
Sinor, Denis. Sinor, Denis , 编. The Uralic Languages: Description, History and Modern Influences. Leiden: Brill: 706–741. 1988.|chapter=被忽略 (帮助)
Starostin, Sergei A., Anna V. Dybo, and Oleg A. Mudrak. (2003). Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages. Brill Academic Publishers. ISBN90-04-13153-1.
Vago, R. M. (1972). Abstract Vowel Harmony Systems in Uralic and Altaic Languages. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.
Keane, Augustus Henry. Ural-Altaic. Encyclopædia Britannica27 (第11版). London: 784–786. 1911. This reflects the contemporary transitional state of understanding of the relationships among the languages.