Sabirs Shatuo Ongud (from Shatuo) Göktürks Oghuz Turks Kanglys Khazars Kipchaks Kurykans Kumans Pechenegs Karluks Tiele Turgesh Tukhsi Yenisei Kirghiz Chigils Toquz Oghuz Orkhon Uyghurs Yagma Nushibi Duolu Kutrigurs Utigurs Yabaku Yueban Bulaqs Xueyantuo Torks Chorni Klobuky Berendei Yemeks Naimans (partly) Keraites (partly) Merkits (partly) Uriankhai (partly) Possible Proto-Turkic ancestry, at least partial, has been posited for Xiongnu, Huns and Pannonian Avars, as well as Tuoba and Rouran, who were of Proto-Mongolic Donghu ancestry. as well as Tatars, Rourans' supposed descendants. Remarks Language Distribution The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some 30 languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean, to Siberia and Manchuria and through to the Middle East. Some 170 million people have a Turkic language as their native language; an additional 20 million people speak a Turkic language as a second language. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish proper, or Anatolian Turkish, the speakers of which account for about 40% of all Turkic speakers. More than one third of these are ethnic Turks of Turkey, dwelling predominantly in Turkey proper and formerly Ottoman-dominated areas of Southern and Eastern Europe and West Asia; as well as in Western Europe, Australia and the Americas as a result of immigration. The remainder of the Turkic people are concentrated in Central Asia, Russia, the Caucasus, China, and northern Iraq. The Turkic language family is traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. Howeover since the 1950s, many comparative linguists have rejected the proposal, after supposed cognates were found not to be valid, hypothesized sound shifts were not found, and Turkic and Mongolic languages were found to be converging rather than diverging over the centuries. Opponents of the theory proposed that the similarities are due to mutual linguistic influences between the groups concerned. Alphabet The Turkic alphabets are sets of related alphabets with letters (formerly known as runes), used for writing mostly Turkic languages. Inscriptions in Turkic alphabets were found in Mongolia. Most of the preserved inscriptions were dated to between 8th and 10th centuries CE. The earliest positively dated and read Turkic inscriptions date from the 8th century, and the alphabets were generally replaced by the Old Uyghur alphabet in the East and Central Asia, Arabic script in the Middle and Western Asia, Cyrillic in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans, and Latin alphabet in Central Europe.