The Turkic-Mongolic Lexical Relationship in View of the Leipzig–Jakarta List

Abstract

The controversy around the question of whether the so-called “Altaic” language groups are genetically related has again flared up during the recent years, with some scholars pointing at verbal morphology as the most promising base for “proving” such a relationship. However, much of the data quoted in this connection is controversial, and many of the actual parallels are clearly due to borrowing between the two language groups. While it is a fact that Turkic and Mongolic varieties have undergone processes of phonic, morphological and syntactic convergence throughout their documented history, the issue of original “relationship” can best be approached on the basis of lexical data. The present paper is an attempt at an objective review of the lexical parallels between Turkic and Mongolic in the realm of basic vocabulary, as defined in terms of the Leipzig-Jakarta List. The result shows that the proportion of even potentially shared vocabulary items between the two language groups is too insignificant to justify the postulation of any genetic connection.