Wei Yu Tan <[log in to unmask]> wrote:The  Tungusic languages have always been part of the Altaic language family  - one of the branches in a dendritic classification. It's the status of  Korean and that of Japanese that are disputable.
  The exact nature of the Altaic "language family" is disputed as well.  Some scholars like to follow the old view that all three branches -  Mongolic, Turkic, and Tungusic - descended from a common  proto-language, and that nearly all the common elements between the  languages are evidence of this common descent. This is the view of  scholars such as Nicholas Poppe. However, one view that has been  gaining more and more adherents in recent years is that the  similarities between the three branches can be explained as the result  of areal contact and borrowing, i.e. convergence as opposed to  divergence. In this light, Altaic should be termed a Sprachbund.  A third view is sort of a conflation of the above two: Although many of  the similarities between the languages can be explained as borrowings  and convergence, there are a number of common elements between  Mongolic, Turkic, and Tungusic that may be indicative of a very ancient  proto-language, although such elements
 are often quite difficult to  distinguish from the loanwords and other borrowed elements. 
  
  - Andrew Shimunek

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