Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungus-Manchu Vocabularies: Etymological Research Methods and Objectives in the General Context of Contemporary Comparative-Historical Linguistics

Abstract

Introduction. The article discusses contemporary comparative-historical Altaic studies and problems of interpreting genetic and areal relations between Altaiс languages in educational discourse. Goals. The paper seeks to show that available Altaic linguistic constructs are largely determined by inertial outdated ideas about supposed affinities between independent groups of languages, and that many research paradigms in contemporary Turkology and Mongolian studies still remain somewhat biased and, thus, aimed at previously known negative results. At the same time, those are achievements in general Altaic reconstructions that yield a most reliable apparatus to separate general Altaic lexemes and original protoforms — from multidirectional borrowings, the presence of which was never denied by Altaists. So, the study theoretically analyzes ideas about the nature of relations between Altaiс languages through the lens of experience accumulated by Indo-European linguistics focusing on a group of languages with undeniable genetic ties. Materials and Methods. The work newly compares some Mongolic, Tungus-Manchu, and Turkic words, which reveals new phonetic correspondences hidden by historical changes in phonetic word structures of Turkic and partly Tungus-Manchu languages. Results. The paper substantiates a genetic kinship of Altaiс languages, and eliminates the reconstruction drawbacks identified by Acad. B. A. Serebrennikov. Conclusions. When it comes to etymological research of Altaic vocabularies, experience of Indo-European linguistics represented in textbooks and etymological dictionaries may prove instrumental enough.

Keywords

• comparative-historical linguistics
• altaic
• mongolic
• turkic
• tungus-manchu languages
• phonetic correspondences
• reconstructions
• borrowings
• etymological dictionaries