Telling general linguists about Altaic

The hypothesis of an Altaic language family, comprising the Turkic, Mongoli c, Tungusic, Korean and, in most recent versions, Japanese languages contin ues to be a viable linguistic proposal, despite various published claims th at it is no longer accepted. A strong body of research continues to appear, developing and refining the hypothesis, along with publications that argue against a demonstrated relationship among these languages. This paper show s that many of the arguments against a genetic relationship fail to address the criteria demanded in modern historical linguistics, while many of the responses from proponents of the Altaic theory have failed to address the c riticisms raised. We hope that arguments focusing on the real issues of pho nological correspondences and morphological systems will shed greater light on the relationship among these languages.