Altaic is a controversial proposed language family that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. The hypothetical language family has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, although it continues to be supported by a small but stable scholarly minority. Speakers of the constituent languages are currently scattered over most of Asia north of 35° N and in some eastern parts of Europe, extending in longitude from the Balkan Peninsula to Japan. The group is named after the Altai mountain range in the center of Asia.
The Five Barbarians, or Wu Hu, is a Chinese historical exonym for five ancient non-Han "Hu" peoples who immigrated to northern China in the Eastern Han dynasty, and then overthrew the Western Jin dynasty and established their own kingdoms in the 4th–5th centuries. The peoples categorized as the Five Barbarians were:
The Xiongnu were a tribal confederation of nomadic peoples who, according to ancient Chinese sources, inhabited the eastern Eurasian Steppe from the 3rd century BC to the late 1st century AD. Modu Chanyu, the supreme leader after 209 BC, founded the Xiongnu Empire.
The Jié were members of a tribe of northern China in the fourth century. During the period of the Sixteen Kingdoms, they were regarded by the Han people as one of the Five Barbarians. Under Shi Le and his family, they established the Later Zhao dynasty which dominated northern China for most of its existence from 319 to 351. The Jie ceased to play a role in Chinese history after Ran Min's culling order and the wars that followed the collapse of Later Zhao, although historians believe that certain prominent figures from later periods may have been descendants of the Jie.
The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language family, Mongolian, is the primary language of most of the residents of Mongolia and the Mongol residents of Inner Mongolia, with an estimated 5.7+ million speakers.
The Paleo-Siberian languages are several language isolates and small language families spoken in parts of Siberia. They are not known to have any genetic relationship to each other; their only common link is that they are held to have antedated the more dominant languages, particularly Tungusic and latterly Turkic languages, that have largely displaced them. Even more recently, Turkic and especially Tungusic have been displaced in their turn by Russian.
The Rouran Khaganate, also known as Ruanruan or Juan-juan was a tribal confederation and later state founded by a people of Proto-Mongolic Donghu origin. The Rouran supreme rulers used the title of "khagan", a popular title borrowed from the Xianbei. The Rouran Khaganate lasted from the late 4th century until the middle 6th century with territories that covers all of modern day Outer Mongolia, Inner Mongolia including parts of Manchuria, Eastern Siberia, Xinjiang and Kazakhstan. The Hephthalites were also vassal state to the Rouran Khaganate until the beginning of the 5th century, and with royal house of Rourans intermarrying in the royal houses of the Hephthalites. The Rouran Khaganate ended when they were defeated by a Göktürk rebellion at the peak of their power, which subsequently led to the rise of the Turks in world history.
The Yeniseian languages are a family of languages that are spoken by the Yeniseian people in the Yenisei River region of central Siberia. As part of the proposed Dené–Yeniseian language family, the Yeniseian languages have been argued to be part of "the first demonstration of a genealogical link between Old World and New World language families that meets the standards of traditional comparative-historical linguistics". The only surviving language of the group today is Ket.
Khagan or Qaghan is a title of imperial rank in Turkic, Mongolic, and some other languages, equal to the status of emperor and someone who rules a khaganate (empire). The female equivalent is Khatun.
The Hunnic language, or Hunnish, was the language spoken by Huns in the Hunnic Empire, a heterogeneous, multi-ethnic tribal confederation which invaded Eastern and Central Europe, and ruled most of Pannonian Eastern Europe, during the 4th and 5th centuries CE. A variety of languages were spoken within the Hun Empire. A contemporary report by Priscus has that Hunnish was spoken alongside Gothic and the languages of other tribes subjugated by the Huns.
Chanyu or Shanyu, short for Chengli Gutu Chanyu, was the title used by the supreme rulers of Inner Asian nomads for eight centuries until superseded by the title "Khagan" in 402 CE. The title was most famously used by the ruling Luandi clan of the Xiongnu during the Qin dynasty and Han dynasty. It was later also used infrequently by the Chinese as a reference to Tujue leaders.
Pumpokol is one of the Yeniseian languages. It has been extinct since the 18th century. Along with Arin, it shares many features with the ancient Xiongnu and Jie languages, and according to Alexander Vovin, Edward Vajda, and Étienne de la Vaissière, is closely related to them. It is poorly attested, the only available lexicon amounting to about 65 words, and some of them have been identified as being Yugh, not Pumpokol.
The Jie language is an unclassified extinct language formerly spoken in northeast China during the Later Zhao dynasty by the Jie people, who were formerly part of the Xiongnu confederation. It has been variously considered to be of either Yeniseian or Turkic affiliation.
Dukha or Dukhan is an endangered Turkic variety spoken by approximately five hundred people of the Dukhan people in the Tsagaan-Nuur county of Khövsgöl Province in northern Mongolia. Dukhan belongs to the Taiga subgroup of Sayan Turkic. This language is nearly extinct and is only spoken as a second language. The ISO 639-3 proposal (request) code was dkh, but this proposal was rejected.
Para-Mongolic is a proposed group of languages that is considered to be an extinct sister branch of the Mongolic languages. Para-Mongolic contains certain historically attested extinct languages, among them Khitan and Tuyuhun.
Tuyuhun, also known as ‘Azha from Tibetan script, is an extinct language once spoken by the Tuyuhun of northern China about 500 AD. The existence of the Tuyuhun, and consequently their language, is first attested in the Book of Song, compiled around 488 AD.
The Inscription of Hüis Tolgoi (HT) is a monolingual inscription in a Mongolian language found in Bulgan Province, Mongolia in 1975 by D. Navaan. The 11-line text is written in vertical Brahmi script running right to left with horizontal marks separating words. The language of the inscription was unknown until the joint expedition of Alexander Vovin, Étienne de la Vaissière, Dieter Maue and Mehmet Ölmez to Mongolia in 2014 for closer imaging of the stele. Due to certain morphological peculiarities the language of the inscription was hypothesized to be Mongolic rather than Turkic. The language, "which can be conditionally termed as a variety of Para-Mongolic," is "much closer to the mainstream Mongolic languages, such as Middle Mongolian and modern extant Mongolic languages than to Serbi-Khitan," and is beyond reasonable doubt some form of Mongolic, close to the mainstream Mongolic language.
The Yeniseian people refers either to the modern or ancient Siberian populations speaking Yeniseian languages. Despite evidence pointing to the historical presence of Yeniseian populations throughout Central Siberia and Northern Mongolia, only the Ket and Yugh people survive today. The modern Yeniseians live along the eastern middle stretch of the Yenisei River in Northern Siberia. According to the 2021 census, there were 1,088 Kets and 7 Yugs in Russia.
The Pumpokolic languages form one of the principal subgroups of the Yeniseian languages. All constituent languages are now extinct.
