The Altaic (/ælˈteɪ.ɪk/ ) languages are a sprachbund and proposed language family comprising the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families, with some linguists having included the Koreanic and Japonic families. The proposed Altaic language family is no longer considered valid by the majority of scholars, as linguistic similarities among Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic languages appear to be better explained by areal convergence within a convergence zone rather than by a shared genetic lineage, a phenomenon observed cross-linguistically in diverse language families worldwide. However, a sizeable number of linguists still support the language family classification, citing morphological and grammatical similarities amongst the constituent languages.
These languages share agglutinative morphology, head-final word order and some vocabulary. The once-popular theory attributing these similarities to a common ancestry has been questioned by most comparative linguists in favor of language contact, although it continues to be supported by a smaller, yet stable scholarly minority. Like the Uralic language family, which is named after the Ural Mountains, the group is named after the Altai mountain range in the center of Asia.
