UGRO-ALTAIG, a family of languages, which have been also designated Ural-Altaic, Ugro Japanese (Logan), Ugro-Tartarian, Ugro-Turau ian, and 'Turanian. Its limits are not settled. Dr. Edkins connects Chinese with Mongol roots. Others question the affinity of Mongol itself to the Tatar-Finnic languages.
The term' Turanian is used in opposition t,o Iranian, and is applied to the uomadic races of Asia as opposed to the agricultural or Aryan races. The Turanian family or class consista of two great divisions. The northeni is sometimes called the Ural-Altaie or Ugro-Tartarie, and it is divided into five sections —the Tungusic, Mon golic, Turkic, Finnic, and Samoyedic. The southern, which occupies the south of Asia, Is divided into four classes,—the Tamilic, or the languages of the Deklian ; the 13hotiya, or the dialects of Tibet and Bhutan ; the Taic, or tho dialects of Siam ; and the MAIRiC, or the Malay and Polynesian dialects.
By the term Ugro-Japanese, Mr. Logan desig nates the principal languages from the Fin and Magyar on the west to the Japauese on the east, and which have many phonetic characters in common, particularly that of vocalic harmony. They are the Fin, Hungarian, Turkish, Samoyede, Yenisian, Corean, Koriak, Tungusiau, Kamt schatka, Mongol, Yukahiri, Japanese, Aino chukehi, Uigur, Manchu.
The Ugro-Tartarian languages of High Asia and other regions, which other writers style Turanian, are those of Dr. Pritchard's second group of nations belonging to the same great family, and include the various hordes who have been known under the mimes of Tartar, Turk, Mongol, 3fanchu, and Tungus. All these nations appear, from the result of late researches, to be allied in descent, though long supposed to be quite separate. In the vast region of High Asia, extending from the chain of Altai to that of the Himalaya, are the pasture lands where, during immemorial ages, the nomadic tribes of that region have fed their flocks, and multiplied those hordes which from time to thne descended in immense swarms on the fertile regions of Asia and of Europe. Perhaps the earliest of these invasions of the civilised world was that of the Hinng-nu, expelled from the borders of China by the powerful dynasty of the Ilan. These
were the people who, after their inroad on tho Gothic ernpire of Hermanrich, made their way, tuider Etzel or Attila, into the heart of France. Hordes from the same region13, .under Toghrul Beg, and Seljuk, and Mahmud of Ghazni, and Chengiz, and Timur, and Othman, overwhelmed the khali fat and the empires of China, of Byzantium, and of Hindustan ; and lineal descendants of the shepherds of High Asia still sit on the throne of Cyrus, and on that of the Great Constantine. As a branch of the Ugro-Tartarian, Dr. Pritchard speaks of some of the insular nations to the eastward of Agin. and near the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The idiom of the ishuids comprised in the empire of Niphon, as well as that of the independent Liu - kiu Archipelago. bears some signs of affinity to those of the Ugro-Tartarian nations ; aud he adds that Mr. Norris had &mired him that the principle of vocalic harmony and other phenomena of the Tartar la%-uages prevail in the idiom of the Japanese and lalands. As a seventh group of his Ugro-Tartarian, he classes the aboriginal inhabitants of India, who, he supposes, were expelled from Hindustan by the Brahmans and the Aryan people who accompanied them across the Indua, and retired, as it is sup posed, on apparently insufficient proof, into the Delany. They still occupy the greater part of that peninsula, and a portion at least of the island of Ceylon. Their idioms—the Tamil, the Telugu, and the Carnatica of the Mysore—are sister dialects of one speech ; and he considered it likely that the languages of the mounta.in tribes of India, the Bhil, the Gond, the Toda, and others, belong to the same stock. Dr. Pritchard adds that Professor Rask had conjectured that these nations are also of the Tartar stock. Their language has soine of the peculiarities of structure which have been pointed out. He also observes that there are some curious analogies between the Tamilian and other dialects of the Dekhan and the languages of Australia, with which we have obtained some acquaintance through the labours of Mr. Threlkeld and several other missionaries, and from the able researches of Captain Gray.— Sayce, p. 57 ; Logan.