Editing Languages of Asia (section)

===Altaic families===
{{main|Altaic languages}}

A number of smaller, but important and separately distinguished language families spread across central and northern Asia have long been linked in a hypothetical, controversial and unproven Altaic family. These are the [[Turkic languages|Turkic]], [[Mongolic languages|Mongolic]], [[Tungusic languages|Tungusic]] (including [[Manchu language|Manchu]]), [[Koreanic languages|Koreanic]], and [[Japonic languages|Japonic]] languages. But since the mid-20th century a majority of scholars have come to regard it as a [[Sprachbund]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Starostin |first=George |author-link=Georgiy Starostin |encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Linguistics |title=Altaic Languages |url=https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-35 |access-date=2023-07-11 |language=en |date=2016-04-05 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-938465-5 |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.013.35|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last=De la Fuente |first=José Andrés Alonso |year=2016 |title=Review of Robbeets, Martine (2015): Diachrony of verb morphology. Japanese and the Transeurasian languages |url=https://www.academia.edu/30240029 |journal=Diachronica |volume=33 |issue=4 |pages=530–537 |doi=10.1075/dia.33.4.04alo |quote=For now, shared material between Transeurasian [i.e. Altaic] languages is undoubtedly better explained as the result of language contact. But if researchers provide cogent evidence of genealogical relatedness, that will be the time to re-evaluate old positions. That time, however, has not yet come.}}</ref>