Standard Average Altaic

[WeepingElf]

Come on, Standard Average Altaic isn't that lame.

Indeed not. No relevant scholar doubts that Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic (the addition of Korean and Japanese is more questionable but not entirely out of range) have a lot of features in common, and that these common features are not just chance resemblances. Disagreement is only about whether these common features are inherited from a Proto-Altaic language, or due to contact. In other words, Altaic is either a language family (like Indo-European, but probably with a greater time depth) or a linguistic area (like the Balkan Sprachbund, but with a larger number of common features). Maybe both hypotheses are true, and some of the features are due to common inheritance and others due to contact.

[Legion]

It would be interesting though to have a list of features
1) common to the different Altaic languages
2) not shared with other north-asian languages (notably Uralic ones)
3) which are not the most common thing languages do in this case (eg: all Altaic languages use gap constructions for relative clauses, but that cannot be counted as a common feature between them since that's what a large majority of the world's language do).

[Radius Solis]

Moved to L&L, even though it's for conlanging purposes, because this thread has good discussion of real languages.

[kuroda]

It would be interesting though to have a list of features
1) common to the different Altaic languages
2) not shared with other north-asian languages (notably Uralic ones)
3) which are not the most common thing languages do in this case (eg: all Altaic languages use gap constructions for relative clauses, but that cannot be counted as a common feature between them since that's what a large majority of the world's language do).

I'll see what I can cobble together -- it does sound interesting. I've been out of the business for a while now so my memories are deteriorating, but FWIW after thinking about it for a few hours, I don't have any proposals.

[R.Rusanov]

What do y'all think about the Turanic theory

Finnish, Hungarian, Chuvash, Oghuz, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Tatar, Kazakh, Turcoman, Kyrgyz, Mongolian, Korean, Tungusic, Japanese and others all in one big family

[Xephyr]

What do y'all think about the Turanic theory

Finnish, Hungarian, Chuvash, Oghuz, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Tatar, Kazakh, Turcoman, Kyrgyz, Mongolian, Korean, Tungusic, Japanese and others all in one big family

Not as big as you make it look-- that's just Ural-Altaic.

[Drydic]

What do y'all think about the Turanic theory

Finnish, Hungarian, Chuvash, Oghuz, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Tatar, Kazakh, Turcoman, Kyrgyz, Mongolian, Korean, Tungusic, Japanese and others all in one big family

I love how you inflate its size by listing all the Turkic languages out but then just say Mongolian and Tungusic.

[WeepingElf]

What do y'all think about the Turanic theory

Finnish, Hungarian, Chuvash, Oghuz, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Tatar, Kazakh, Turcoman, Kyrgyz, Mongolian, Korean, Tungusic, Japanese and others all in one big family

Not as big as you make it look-- that's just Ural-Altaic.

And, while it has a venerable tradition, few if any scholars believe in it any more. Uralic seems to be closer to Indo-European on one hand and to Yukaghir and Eskimo-Aleut on the other, than to any of the Altaic families. Of course, Indo-European and Uralic may be more distantly related to the Altaic languages, but that's another story.

Yet, we are dealing with long-range relationships here, a matter about so much nonsense has been written that few proper scholars wish to concern themselves with it any more.

[R.Rusanov]

I looked up Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, Chuvash, Mongolian, Korean, and Japanese's phonologies and vowels and came up with this as a composite:

/m n/ m n
/p t k tʃ/ b d g j
/pʰ tʰ kʰ tʃʰ/ p t k c
/ʃ s h/ ş s h
/ʋ l j r/ v l y r

/i y u/ i ü u
/e ø o/ e ö o
/æ a/ ä a

Vowel harmony groups <ä ö ü> as front <e i> as neutral and <a o u> as back

Length exists and is distinctive for all consonants and vowels, ex.
sappaku [sap:aku] /sap.pʰa.kʰu/ vs sapaku [sapaku] /sa.pʰa.kʰu/ vs sapaaku [sapa:ku] /sa.pʰaa.kʰu/

Stress would fall on the first syllable like so many other vowel-length-distinguishing languages (ex. Czech, early Latin, Finnish...)

[KathTheDragon]

I think the u-umlaut in the second line of the vowels should be an o.

[sucaeyl]

Awesome stuff

What would the syllable structure be like?

I think the u-umlaut in the second line of the vowels should be an o.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. Can you rephrase or elaborate?

[finlay]

rusanov made a typo.

[Buran]

I looked up Finnish, Hungarian, Turkish, Chuvash, Mongolian, Korean, and Japanese's phonologies and vowels and came up with this as a composite:

/m n/ m n
/p t k tʃ/ b d g c
/pʰ tʰ kʰ tʃʰ/ p t k ç
/ʃ s h/ ş s h
/ʋ l j r/ v l j r

/i y u/ i ü u
/e ø o/ e ö o
/æ a/ ä a

Vowel harmony groups <ä ö ü> as front <e i> as neutral and <a o u> as back

Length exists and is distinctive for all consonants and vowels, ex.
sappaku [sap:aku] /sap.pʰa.kʰu/ vs sapaku [sapaku] /sa.pʰa.kʰu/ vs sapaaku [sapa:ku] /sa.pʰaa.kʰu/

Stress would fall on the first syllable like so many other vowel-length-distinguishing languages (ex. Czech, early Latin, Finnish...)

If [j] is <j>, why not make [y] <y>, as in Finnish? It would save on a diacritic. Otherwise, I would do as Turkish does and use <y> for [j] and save <j> for [ʒ], if it exists, since you seem to be basing your orthography on Turkish.

Edit: Serafín mentioned a strong dislike for word-initial rhotics, but after going over this page, which states that /r/ and /j/ never occurred word-initially in reconstructed Proto-Altaic, you might want to avoid word-initial /j/ as well.

[clawgrip]

If [j] is <j>, why not make [y] <y>, as in Finnish? It would save on a diacritic. Otherwise, I would do as Turkish does and use <y> for [j] and save <j> for [ʒ], if it exists, since you seem to be basing your orthography on Turkish.

He probably did it because it allows for a simple and transparent representation of the relationships between front and back vowel groups and vowel height within those groups. Anyone can immediately recognize that ü bears some similarity both to u and to ö and ä, while y is ambiguous unless you know how Finnish does it.

[finlay]

Also, in terms of the plosives, native Finnish words maybe have no voicing contrast, except that d does exist and all of b,d,g exist in loanwords and slang words; Hungarian, Turkish, Chuvash and Japanese have a voicing contrast; Korean... well, it's complicated (and Korean has three sets of plosives) but maybe aspiration contrast is the best way to put it; and only Mongolian has an aspiration contrast (and even then it doesn't apply to velars). Considering that the mode here is to have a voiced/voiceless distinction, why did you give your phonology an aspiration contrast?

[Buran]

Also, in terms of the plosives, native Finnish words maybe have no voicing contrast, except that d does exist and all of b,d,g exist in loanwords and slang words; Hungarian, Turkish, Chuvash and Japanese have a voicing contrast; Korean... well, it's complicated (and Korean has three sets of plosives) but maybe aspiration contrast is the best way to put it; and only Mongolian has an aspiration contrast (and even then it doesn't apply to velars). Considering that the mode here is to have a voiced/voiceless distinction, why did you give your phonology an aspiration contrast?

Why not have unvoiced, aspirated plosives (/p^h t^h k^h tʃ^h/) vs. voiced, unaspirated stops (/b d g dʒ/)? It is a bit Anglo-centric, admittedly, but it's a compromise between Turkish, Japanese, Korean, and Mongolian, and it has the nice advantage of keeping plosives distinct when whispered (on a tangent, how common is it to have unvoiced aspirated vs. voiced unaspirated, instead of simply voiced vs. unvoiced or aspirated vs. unaspirated?). Also, when did this turn into Standard Average Ural-Altaic?

[finlay]

Whispering is not the same as voicelessness in either an anatomical or acoustic sense. Aspiration can help you along, of course, but just try whispering "fission" and "vision" for proof that you distinguish whispered voiced/voiceless pairs of fricatives.

[Ithisa]

Aspiration differences also exist in fricatives: /ʒ　ʃ/ gets whispered into [ʃ　ʃʰ]. Mandarin has contrasts based on this. I dare say unaspirated fricatives are very rare but they do exist pervasively when whispering.

[Hallow XIII]

Not to be a party pooper but I have a certain suspicion that you did not read the post above.

[finlay]

Whispering is not voicelessness: they are separate configurations of the glottis (voicelessness is completely open, whispering is kinda half-closed). This has nothing to do with aspiration, especially since we don't aspirate fricatives in English.

[kuroda]

It would be interesting though to have a list of features
1) common to the different Altaic languages
2) not shared with other north-asian languages (notably Uralic ones)
3) which are not the most common thing languages do in this case (eg: all Altaic languages use gap constructions for relative clauses, but that cannot be counted as a common feature between them since that's what a large majority of the world's language do).

I'll see what I can cobble together -- it does sound interesting. I've been out of the business for a while now so my memories are deteriorating, but FWIW after thinking about it for a few hours, I don't have any proposals.

For the sake of sharing negative results, I did sit down and try to come up with some features (or _a_ feature) that met these three criteria. Results:still zero.

(And for the sake of disclosing personal interests: yes, while I'm agnostic on the Altaic family as a 'genetic' unity, I do tend to the skeptical side these days.)

Rather than plunging into phonetics or morphosyntax, why not work on developing an 'SAA conlang' on the basis of widespread Altaic vocabulary items? There's a publicly available reconstruction of PA (starling.rinet.ru) which includes Korean and Japanese -- go wild! Pick just the reconstructions that are found among all five branches of the family and work from there