Talk:Tungusic languages

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What I refer to in this context is NOT the "Mongolian language" but the "Mongolian languages". The latter includes Daur, Dongxian, Moghol and other languages. I used "Mongolic" to distinguish both clearly. --Nanshu 01:04, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

"Shaman"

On Shamanism it is asserted that "shaman" literally means "knower". Can this be confirmed, i.e. is it actually from a Tungus root for "to know" or similar, or is this just a description of the concept? I am asking because the hypothesis that the word is a loan from Chinese would seem rather to depend on whether it has a transparent Tungus etymology. dab (ᛏ) 13:23, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

What is this ssentence supposed to mean?

"One classification which seems to be advocated for a little more than the other alternatives is that the Tungusic languages can be divided into a northern branch and a southern branch, with the southern branch further subdivided into southeastern and southwestern groups."

Should it maybe read: "Once classification, which is [sometimes] advocated over the other alternatives, is dividing the Tungusic languages into a northern and southern branch, with the southern branch further subdivided into southeastern and southwestern groups."

As it is, I don't think the original is english. I've never heard anything to be "advocated for" before. But you can advocate something "over" something else - that means to favour more than the alternatives. Furthermore, "a little more" is a very wishy-washy phrase. --Steevm 01:12, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Altaic Claims

The article claims, in the introduction, that the controversial Altaic family is a sprachbund. The Altaic family has neither been formally established as a sprachbund, nor as a language family. There are varying opinions on the topic in linguistics and there is no consensus. There has been some lexostatical research into the possibility of remotely related cognates and there is even a dictionary called An Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Brianc26 (talk • contribs) 06:52, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

See also Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages.

If this is the same work that backs the Starling database, it is rife with problems -- it is clear the authors don't know Japanese and don't understand Japanese etymologies. Examples:

• https://starlingdb.org/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=%2fdata%2falt%2faltet&text_number=2104&root=config

They claim that the suki portion in Japanese sukiyaki is from some Altaic root *sogì meaning "meat". However, the Japanese term is relatively recent (only appearing from the Edo period), and has a different derivation, where suki instead is either from 鋤 (suki, "plough; spade") in reference to origins in rural areas, repurposing a farm implement as a cooking tool, or from verb 剝く (suku, "to shave thinly") in reference to how the meat is cut. See also the Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (literally "Japan National-language Large-dictionary") entry here at Kotobank, or the Gogen Yurai Jiten ("Etymology Derivation Dictionary") entry here (both in Japanese). The Gogen Yurai Jiten concludes that the "plough; spade" sense is the more likely origin, citing a reference work from 1832, and indeed the word sukiyaki is also found spelled as 鋤焼き.

• https://starlingdb.org/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=%2fdata%2falt%2fjapet&text_number=1348&root=config

They claim that 後ろ (ushiro) meaning "behind; after" is from some Altaic root *ŋŭ̀sí meaning "heel". However, the Japanese term originally meant "the backside of something", whereas the "behind; after" senses were expressed using the term 後方 (shirie, literally "butt-wards"). There is no Japanese root that I'm aware of with any meaning "heel" that resembles *ŋŭ̀sí at all; indeed, the oldest Japanese word for "heel" was Old Japanese 踵 (kupibisu or kubipisu), in turn possibly from kupa (the OJP form of modern kuwa, "hoe", in reference to the shape of the hoe blade looking vaguely like the top of the foot) + pisu (shift from, or cognate with, OJP pusi, "joint", in reference to the ankle).

NKD entry, GYJ entry.

• https://starlingdb.org/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=%2fdata%2falt%2fjapet&text_number=+758&root=config

They claim that Japanese 後 (ato, "back; behind; after") is from some Altaic root *ằra meaning "behind". However, the Japanese term is a compound of 足 (a, "foot") + 所 (to, "place"), with an original meaning of "footprint, trace, track").

Digital Daijisen entry here at Weblio (in Japanese)

• https://starlingdb.org/cgi-bin/response.cgi?single=1&basename=%2fdata%2falt%2fjapet&text_number=++65&root=config

They claim that 前 (mae) meaning "front; before" is from some Altaic root *ńi̯ṑpo meaning "front, front side". However, the Japanese term is a compound, from Old Japanese 目 (ma-) + 辺 or 方 (pe₁, "side, direction, vicinity"), literally meaning "eye-wards" (compare "butt-wards" above).

NKD entry, Digital Daijisen entry, GYJ entry.

These are but some of the problems in Starostin's work. See also Wiktionary:Etymology_scriptorium/2021/January#Proto-Nostratic and the threads I linked to from there. If he is so wrong about Japanese, that calls into question the accuracy of his work with other languages.

Personally, I think there is something worth exploring in the Altaic hypothesis. However, shoddy research like that seen in Starling's Japanese entries only muddies the waters. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 19:53, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

We need to move on. If we want to engage with the Altaic hypothesis, we should focus on Robbeets' pruned Altaic 3.0 (i.e. Transeurasian). Much of Ramstedt (1.0) and Starostin (2.0) has been dismissed by Robbeets anyway. –Austronesier (talk) 22:02, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm far enough out of academia that much of the shorthand loses me, unfortunately. Might this be Robbeets' 2005 work Is Japanese Related to Korean, Tungusic, Mongolic and Turkic?, as reviewed rather scathingly by Vovin in 2009 (link to PDF of the review at Academia.edu)? Or is Robbeets' work actually entitled Altaic 3.0? Googling for this finds me nothing at present. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 22:52, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

@Eirikr: Oh, sorry, I admit that was too dense and allusive. "Altaic 3.0" was meant as a joke. Martine Robbeets has been very prolific in the last decade with her research about Macro-Altaic, or "Transeurasian" as she and many associates (including archaeologists and geneticists) prefer to call it now. While many think that this is just "old wine in a new bottle" (User:TaivoLinguist is one among them), the "old wine" being the 20th century Ramstedt tradition and the ramblings of Starostin's Moscow school, Robbeets is at least way more conservative in selecting her evidence (but eventually just as confident about validity of her construct as Starostin was).

Robbeets' major publications are Diachrony of Verb Morphology: Japanese and the Transeurasian Languages (2015) and the co-authored volume The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages (2020). Both books are accessible at the WP Library:[1][2]. Based on our edit count, you should be eligible for access to the WP Library package. In case you have problems in opening the library URLs, I can send you the 2015 volume via email if you like, and also selected chapters from the 2020 volume (you can't download it all at once). –Austronesier (talk) 20:11, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

@Austronesier:, thank you for the links, it does appear that I can access those via the WP library. Much appreciated! ... That is a lot to go through.  :) I'll work my way through (at least some of) that, as and when time allows. Cheers! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:29, 8 March 2022 (UTC)

Just butting my nose in since I was "summoned" by Austronesier with that beautiful blue link. The establishment of a valid language family cannot be done by "archeologists and geneticists", it's the task of linguists alone. Once there is linguistic consensus on a genetic unit, then the archeologists and geneticists can play with that grouping at will, but until that consensus exists, their opinion matters about as much as that of a florist in a discussion of computational fluid dynamics. Robbeets' work is, indeed, better than Starostin's, but there is still no consensus among the majority of historical linguists that Altaic is more than a Sprachbund. In terms of the literature, I haven't detected that the needle has moved much, if at all, in the direction of acceptance. --TaivoLinguist (Taivo) (talk) 01:35, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Private use Unicode

In the further reading section there is a whole lot of Private use Unicode that is useless as it does not render. So please whoever put it there, can you find out a character set that is readable from the standard Unicode sets, especially if it is Chinese characters? There is what looks like Pinyin in there, that is whey I think some of this is Chinese. A Google seach on this kind of text eg 􀀖􀀐􀀕 comes up with nothing. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:57, 26 July 2019 (UTC)

Nicolaas Witsen publishes work seventy years after death?

Should the sentence: "Following his travel to Russia, he published his collected findings in three editions, 1692, 1705, and 1785." in the section about Nicolaas Witsen not be: "Following his travel to Russia, his collected findings were published in three editions, 1692, 1705, and 1785."

According his wiki page, he died in 1717, so it is quite weird to state he published work in 1785.

Open access publication " Tungusic languages: Past and present" edited by Andreas Hölzl & Thomas E. Payne

This open access publication might be a worthwhile addition to the article's list of references

https://langsci-press.org/catalog/book/355

Hölzl, Andreas & Payne, Thomas E. (eds.). 2022. Tungusic languages: Past and present. (Studies in Diversity Linguistics 32). Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.7025328

I see that there is an active community editing this article, so I leave it to you whether and how to include this book or the chapters contained therein.

Jasy jatere (talk) 07:50, 6 October 2022 (UTC) Jasy jatere (talk) 07:50, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

References