Internal classification of Turkic languages

Feb 22, 2011 by

To wrap up our recent discussion of Turkic languages, let’s consider another quote from Bernard Lewis’ book The Middle East. A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. He writes: “…Azerbaijan and the five...

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Altaic family: introducing Mongolian and Tungusic languages

Feb 16, 2011 by

In several recent postings, I’ve given some attention to Turkic languages. As I’ve mentioned before, some scholars believe that Turkic languages are part of a larger language family called “Altaic”. Fig.1: The...

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Turkic words in Russian

Feb 14, 2011 by

Staying on the subject of Turkic languages, let’s consider what impact these languages had on the Russian language. Some time ago we’ve considered the influence of Finnic languages on Russian, which, as I pointed out in...

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Creating illusions with language maps

Feb 14, 2011 by

At the end of the latest posting, I promised to talk about the controversy surrounding the alledged Altaic language family. But before I move on to that topic, there are two more things I want to discuss in connection with the Turkic...

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How far does Turkic-speaking area stretch?

Feb 12, 2011 by

As I’ve already pointed out in several previous postings, good books on languages and linguistics, that is, books that are simultaneously accessible and accurate, are rare. But the problem extends beyond books specifically on...

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