Ural-Altaic languages

Some linguists propose the Ural-Altaic grouping of the Altaic languages (Turkish, Mongolian, Kazakh, Uzbek, Tatar, Manchu, etc., plus perhaps Korean and Japanese) and Uralic languages (Hungarian, Finnish and Estonian mostly) into one language group. This theory is debated and since nowdays even existence of Altaic language family as genetical relatives is highly controversial, the whole Ural-Altaic theory has faced some criticism among linguistics.

This proposed language family and the speakers are also known as the Turanian. The term derives from the Persia word for places beyond the Oxus, Turān.

Both groups follow the principle of vowel harmony, are agglutinative (stringing suffixes, prefixes or both onto a single root) and lack any way for expressing grammatical gender (see noun case). However this is not necessarely proof for genetic relationship and the vocabulary of both groups does not correspond, except for borrowings.