Ural-Altaic, Uralo-Altaic or Uraltaic is a linguistic convergence zone and former language-family proposal uniting the Uralic and the Altaic (in the narrow sense) languages. It is generally now agreed that even the Altaic languages do not share a common descent: the similarities among Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic are better explained by diffusion and borrowing. The term continues to be used for the central Eurasian typological, grammatical and lexical convergence zone. Indeed, "Ural-Altaic" may be preferable to "Altaic" in this sense. For example, J. Janhunen states that "speaking of 'Altaic' instead of 'Ural-Altaic' is a misconception, for there are no areal or typological features that are specific to 'Altaic' without Uralic." Originally suggested in the 18th century, the genealogical and racial hypotheses remained debated into the mid-20th century, often with disagreements exacerbated by pan-nationalist agendas. It had many proponents in Britain. Since the 1960s, the proposed language family has been widely rejected. A relationship between the Altaic, Indo-European and Uralic families was revived in the context of the Nostratic hypothesis, which was popular for a time, with for example Allan Bomhard treating Uralic, Altaic and Indo-European as coordinate branches. However, Nostratic too is now rejected. History as a hypothesized language family The concept of a Ural-Altaic ethnic and language family goes back to the linguistic theories of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz; in his opinion there was no better method for specifying the relationship and origin of the various peoples of the Earth, than the comparison of their languages. In his Brevis designatio meditationum de originibus gentium ductis potissimum ex indicio linguarum, written in 1710, he originates every human language from one common ancestor language. Over time, this ancestor language split into two families; the Japhetic and the Aramaic. The Japhetic family split even further, into Scythian and Celtic branches. The members of the Scythian family were: the Greek language, the family of Sarmato-Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Czech, Dalmatian, Bulgar, Slovene, Avar and Khazar), the family of Turkic languages (Turkish, Cuman, Kalmyk and Mongolian), the family of Finno-Ugric languages (Finnish, Saami, Hungarian, Estonian, Liv and Samoyed). Although his theory and grouping were far from perfect, they had a considerable effect on the development of linguistic research, especially in German-speaking countries. In his book An historico-geographical description of the north and east parts of Europe and Asia, published in 1730, Philip Johan von Strahlenberg, Swedish prisoner-of-war and explorer of Siberia, who accompanied Daniel Gottlieb