#altaic

[joelchaimholtzman]

One of my older paintings inspired by Mongolian, Turkic and Altaic mythology. Almost 8 years (!) ago that I made this one while doing a mentorship.

I worked many, many hours on this piece and gave myself plenty of room to make mistakes, something that was essential to my growth as an artists at the time. I am still trying to find the time to go back to study and learn, and see how to bring my skillset to the next level.

Cheers!

JCH

[milii-macaroni]

W!P

[thenuclearmallard]

Reposted from YouTube. Altai - Telengits

[locketofviolets]

Korean date at the coffee shop!

fun fact: Did you know that Turkish and Korean come from the same root, Altaic?

[meirimerens]

the pathologic Kin is largely fictionalized with a created language that takes from multiple sources to be its own, a cosmogony & spirituality that does not correlate to the faiths (mostly Tengrist & Buddhist) practiced by the peoples it takes inspirations from, has customs, mores and roles invented for the purposes of the game, and even just a style of dress that does not resemble any of these peoples', but it is fascinating looking into specifically to me the sigils and see where they come from... watch this:

P2 Layers glyphs take from the mongolian script:

while the in-game words for Blood, Bones and Nerves are mongolian directly, it is interesting to note that their glyphs do not have a phonetic affiliation to the words (ex. the "Yas" layer of Bones having for glyph the equivalent of the letter F, the "Medrel" layer of Nerves having a glyph the equivalent of the letter È,...)

the leatherworks on the Kayura models', with their uses of angles and extending lines, remind me of the Phags Pa Script (used for Tibetan, Mongolian, Chineses, Uyghur language, and others)

some of the sigils also look either in part or fully inspired by Phags Pa script letters...

some look closer to the mongolian or vagindra (buryat) script

looking at the Herb Brides & their concept art, we can see bodypainting that looks like vertical buryat or mongolian script (oh hi (crossed out: Mark) Phags Pa script):

shaped and reshaped...

[impgall]

I miss when I was in highschool and obsessed w archaeolexicology. Just learned "wolf" in Mongolian is "chono". What the fuck

[petrachoir]

what language(s) are you studying?

Hello! I've been learning Spanish through my entire 1-12 public school journey. Because of this I can feel my way through Italian, and other romance languages, but can't speak them vocally.

I started teaching myself more Latin since a class I took in 2015.

My biggest interest right now is Ukrainian, due to my great grandparents hailing from Odessa. Though I've studied the Cyrillic alphabet intensely, so I can translate Russian, Romanian, etc. As well! (I usually can't understand what the words I translated mean though lol). I adore Cyrillic languages because there aren't hidden rules about the letters. Everything is pronounced phonetically :D

I noticed studying the roots and cultures surrounding these languages has exponentially improved my learning experience, so I'm picking up old chinese to test my theory (instead of tackling one of the several china has these days). Also considering starting with Ural-altaic (which if that proves to be difficult, I'll switch to Polynesian) for Japanese, korean, etc. As well, but I'm stoked to learn both these languages are syllabary because I am very much a visual learner.

I don't know if that's the right approach, but the research I've been doing goes far beyond a couple courses in Duolingo, so I hope it all pays off!

Thank you for asking :3

[mapswithoutwyoming]

To save time and allow further customization, I'm going to give the stats in my indie tabletop RPG proto-Indo-European names and include optional rules for linguistic evolution.

Real reasons to study Latin:

Construct spurious Latin plurals for non-Latin words

Give words which do have Latin roots the wrong Latin plurals

Understand all the stupid puns in species/genus nomenclature

Make complicated dick jokes only other Latin students understand

Give the stats in your indie tabletop RPG really annoying names

[joelchaimholtzman]

Painting I made from quiet a few years ago, where I was heavily inspired by Altaic cultures. This is a Tungusic/Siberian huntress with her trusted companion.

Hope you like the piece!

Best,

JCH

[velaraffricate]

ok

[thenuclearmallard]

I want to tell you about one disappearing nation, living in Russia, the Telengits - the indigenous people of the Altai Territory. According to the 2010 census, 3712 people remained. ⠀

In the southern Altai, to whom the telengits belong, the Mongoloid anthropological type prevails: often because of their appearance they are compared with Kalmyks. ⠀

In connection with the prevailing nomadic way of life, the traditional house of the Telengits was a yurt, felt or covered with birch bark.

⠀

By the beginning of the 20th century, pentagonal or hexagonal log cabins gained popularity. In the center of the dwelling, a hearth was established, the inner space was divided into female - on the right, and male opposite.

⠀

The main occupation was cattle breeding. Sheep, horses, goats, cows, yaks were raised. In winter, pastures were organized in flat areas, herds were taken to the mountains. In parallel, they hunted birds, deer, bears, wolves, lynxes, sables.

⠀

There were many hunting rituals, for example, after killing an otter, it was customary to leave it for a day in the forest. It was believed that this is the beloved animal of the God of the dead, so after death several dozen souls can go out of it.

⠀

The traditional telengit musical instrument is topshur. It is a mixture of lute and plucked balalaika. The tool was made of pine or sneaker; twisted hair from the tail of the fastest horse in the herd was used as strings. This tradition is symbolic: it was believed that the topshur is the horse of the narrator, on which he rushes into the world of epic battles.

⠀

The traditional religion of telengits is associated with shamanism. It is believed that the good god Ulgen rules the world, and Erlik rules the underground kingdom of spirits. Some legends mention that this is one two-faced deity.

⠀

The telengit world was filled with many patron spirits under the common name "eesi". It was believed that they could appear in front of people in the form of animals and birds or take on a human form.

⠀

Rites of burial, weddings, births, prayers were held with the participation of shamans.

⠀

Today 81% of Altai people profess Burkhanism: a combination of shamanism⬇️

[2percentsugar]

i had a history professor (of east asia specifically) in uni who referred to the Altaic language family as if it were a real thing. it's baffling to me how much traction that ridiculous idea still has -- though it's in no small part bc ppl dont care abt the languages called Altaic

Language families in Europe

[chizoies]

Not 100% about the main discussion but if I would share my own experience as a language learner, duolingo's unnecessary competitive way of teaching always bothered me. It was nice at first, but as you go on more and more days and building your rank higher and higher...it is not about learning the language anymore. It turns into a horse race.

I was studying German and Japanese on that app but since the day I discovered the japanesepod101.com and innovativelanguage.com 's other language teaching sites and their youtube channels, I have been improving way better! I am able to read paragraphs in Hiragana and Katakana very well and now I'm studying the Kanji and everyday phrases. All though my improvement in Japanese is probably because of my native tongue - Turkish - being a sister language with Japanese (Ural-Altaic language family) i think with innovativelanguage everyone can pull the language learning off! AND NO THIS IS NOT SPONSORSHIP. I JUST RESPECT AND LOVE THEIR TEACHING METHODS.

Edıt: Thank you for the people who informed me about the real relationship with Turkish and Japanese! My debatable statement was rather arrogant I assume. So I apologize for the misinformation. Long live the Turkic family!

[tepat-side]

I don't know too much about him, but Vovin was a supporter of the Altaic hypothesis, which is not favored by most people working on "Altaic" languages - but has enough following that I wouldn't consider it inherently "crankish" and he seems to have reconsidered and rejected it later. So that's good. According to this review of his book A Reconstruction of Proto-Ainu (which rips his reconstruction), Vovin entertained the idea of a genetic relationship between Ainu and Austronesian. That is kind of not common (although the review's author seems to entertain the notion of Proto-Indo-European-Ainu, which is even wilder, so take what you will of it.) (This other review also notes the Austronesian connection but is more charitable to his reconstruction.) I don't have any reason to believe his ideas about Old Japanese in particular are crazy, although I haven't read his book on it. Maybe other people know something?

Is Alexander Vovin a good source for Japanese philology? I've heard some crank-ish things about him before but it also seems like he's the practically the only English source for Old Japanese

He's a good source, yes; I don't know him to hold any crankish views at all. Maybe there's something I haven't heard of but overall he is good.

[mehilaiselokuva]

URALIC LANGUAGES 101

an over-simplified guide for people who have never studied them

from real questions I have received

as I am finally qualified enough to talk about them

WHAT?

A language family spanning (mostly northern) Eurasia. The three biggest languages by amount of speakers are Hungarian, Finnish, and Estonian.

WAIT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE MORE?

The Sámi languages might be the most famous of the "smaller" Uralic languages, but have you heard about Karelian? Udmurt? Hill Mari? Nganasan? There are 38~42 Uralic languages that we know as of today.

WHERE ARE THESE OTHER LANGUAGES?

(image description: the locations of the Uralic languages on a map. The Uralic languages span from modern-day Hungary, the northern Nordics, and northern Russia.)

(CONTINUE READING UNDER THE CUT)

BUT I THOUGHT HUNGARIAN WAS ALTAIC / RELATED TO TURKISH?

Modern science links Hungarian to the Uralic languages. The links to "Altaic" (many on the field don't believe in the Altaic theory) and the Turkic languages are speculative.

ARE THEY RELATED TO ENGLISH?

No, they are a separate language family. English is more related to Russian than Finnish or Hungarian.

HOW DID THEY END UP WHERE THEY ARE NOW?

We still haven't figured this out, but the Uralic peoples' proposed homeland is often located north of Central Asia.

HOW DO THEY KNOW THESE ARE RELATED TO EACH OTHER?

Linguistics uses many different ways to find out relations between languages. With the Uralic languages, there are many cognates (=words that come from the same root word) that exist in most languages. These words can be used to reconstruct Proto-Uralic, a hypothesis of what the original Uralic people might have spoken.

Examples:

"tongue, (language)" (Finnish) kieli, (Estonian) keel, (Veps) kel', (N.Sami) giella, (Erzya) keľ, (Beserman) kål, (E.Khanty) köł, (Mator) kašte

"two" (Finnish) kaksi, (Courland Livonian) kakš, (Ter Sami) kïkktʼ, (Moksha) kafta, (Mari) kok, (Komi-Zyrian) kyk

HOW DO THESE LANGUAGES SOUND LIKE?

Here are selected samples of text from a few different branches of Uralic languages:

NGANASAN: Mənə ńinti̮ˀam ńiluməni̮nə inśüδüˀ, mi̮əďindi̮ˀam hüətə. (I never sledge in my life, I always go by foot.) SELKUP: Nılʲčik qumɨp mee qontɨrämɨt čääŋka. (We have not seen such a person.) BESERMAN: Picʼi pilə̑ sʼed jə̑ rcʼijenezlə̑. (To the little boy with black hair.) MANSI: Mənə kńigaðəmtu miśiəm. (I gave him/her the book.) NORTH SÁMI: Sáhpán njuikii girjji duohken. (The mouse jumped from behind the book.) TVER KARELIAN: Mie hüviin zdaičin igzamenati miun, na felÍdšerku pandih. (I passed the exams well and I was put [to work] as a nurse.)

If you have more questions about these languages, feel free to ask me! I am no professor but am majoring in this at the university so I know more than the average person hehe

[thesoftestcowboy]

I'm curious about something... (and fucked up the last poll. if u saw no u didnt)

*As in, you enjoy listening to it, like it aesthetically, think of it as attractive, whatever. This is NOT about whether or not you understand the language or if you like whatever you associate with it or whether or not it's "useful" (e.g. If you do not speak a single word of japanese but really love how it sounds, vote for it. if you think italian sounds sexy but don't really care about visiting Italy, vote for it. If you like the look of the hebrew alphabet but not how it sounds, DONT vote for that. It's about the sound.)

Before you come at me: These categories are not perfect. Some of them are sub-categories of a bigger family (Indo-European), some languages are in the same category but sound really different etc etc. I had to leave out or group some of these together in a way that I felt made most sense for what I wanna know & the demographics of this site. I'm not a linguistics expert.

Feel free to share your thoughts in comments or tags! 👍