Hi, all, 
  
  I personally would not term it an "Altaic" word. In my view, in order  for a word to be "Altaic" it needs to occur in all three branches of  the Altaic languages (or... perhaps more accurately... all three  languages of the Altaic Sprachbund). However, tngri ~ tengri ~ tängri  only occurs in Mongolic and Turkic. It would therefore be justified to  call it a "Turco-Mongolic" word, but to the best of my knowledge it  does not occur in any Tungusic languages, which in my book means it  cannot be called "an Altaic word".
  
  Prof. Vovin, in his article on Xiongnu and Yeniseian (CAJ, 2003), brings up the fact that the Xiongnu language also had this word, which he reconstructs as *t(r)engri  'sky'. If the hypothesis that Xiongnu was a Yeniseian language is  correct, which it seems to be (Vovin presents some good convincing  evidence of this possibility), then maybe the Turco-Mongolic word tngri ~ tengri ~ tängri  is a borrowing from Xiongnu. As Vovin points out in his article, Paul  Pelliot (1944) considered this Turco-Mongolic form a loanword from an  unknown source.
  
  Some scholars may also interpret the orthographic representation of the word in Written Mongolian, tngri,  with no vowel in the first syllable, as indicative of a loanword  (Mongolic < Turkic). This interpretation would suggest that the word  was originally Turkic (or Turkic < Xiongnu, depending on our view of  what Xiongnu was).
  
  As to the three-volume dictionary you mention, Etymological Dictionary of the Altaic Languages by  Sergei Starostin, Anna Dybo, and Oleg Mudrak (Brill, 2003), you may  have noticed that rather than proving the Altaic Hypothesis, it  provides some strong evidence against it with its disregard for  accepted, time-tested historical linguistic methods and some of the  outrageous etymologies it proposes. No caution is shown to distinguish  loanwords from words which could possibly be construed as reflexes of a  proto-form. However, it is an excellent reference material for studying  loanword relations between the languages of the Altaic Sprachbund  simply because it has a great body of related words in one place, and  could be easily used as an aid in studying, for example, routes of  lexical borrowing between these languages. This is where the merit of  the compilation lies, in my opinion.
  
  - Andrew Shimunek

Pamela Crossley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  Dear Adam,

It seems to me your advice to regard tngri in various forms as  
"Altaic" is perfectly good.  On the other hand, there is probably no  
reason to expect that Tungusic names, including Korean, must be  
Tungusic in derivation.  There are plenty of loanwords, especially in  
names, from Turkic all over the Northeast and in Korean history, I've  
noticed.



On May 19, 2006, at 11:20 AM, Adam Bohnet wrote:

> Dear all:
>
> If I may reveal my ignorance, I have been recently
> editing a very poorly translated book on Korean
> history. There is one comment, at one point, about the
> name Tan'gun, the legendary founder of Korea being
> related to the Tungusic word tengri, meaning 'heaven.'
> I know that most scholarship related to 'Tan'gun' is
> fairly lousy, so my question is'nt really concerning
> the accuracy of the claim.
>
> THe only Tungusic language I know is Manchu, and in
> Manchu the idea 'heaven' is expressed by 'abka,' or so
> I thought. I flipped through a few other dictionaries
> in Mongolian and Tungusic languages (with a view to
> confirming the spelling),and was only able to find
> tengri for Mongolian languages. I then found a
> wonderful three volume etymological dictionary
> designed to prove the Altaic hypothesis (I have
> forgotten the author). There tengri was listed as
> Turkic, although it was linked to some words with
> quite different meanings and forms in Tungus-Manchu.
> Presumably, then it is a loan-word form Turkish into
> Mongolian?
>
> On the off-chance that I consider it worth my while to
> argue with the author on this subject, I was
> considering advising him to call 'tengri' an 'Altaic,'
> not a 'Tungusic' word, (letting sleeping theories
> about magical ancestors lie, and arguments about
> Altaic alone). I am aware that a layman's interest in
> historical linguistics doesn't really qualify me to
> say anything, so I thought I might check that piece of
> advice with others in advance.
>
> Yours sincerely,
>
> Adam Bohnet


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