Term no longer in polite use by linguists. Many believe in an Altaic family, comprising Turkish, Mongolian, and others, but all would object strenuously to "simple structure", and what Webster's meant by "low grade" is anyone's guess.

The term Turanian is occasionally met with on the outer fringes of historical linguistics for a wide-ranging proto-family covering Altaic and all sorts of other things: Semitic, Dravidian, anything mysterious that they can make wild connections to.

Tu*ra"ni*an (?), a. [From Tur, the name, in Persian legendary history, of one of the three brothers from whom sprang the races of mankind.]

Of, pertaining to, or designating, an extensive family of languages of simple structure and low grade (called also Altaic, Ural-Altaic, and Scythian), spoken in the northern parts of Europe and Asia and Central Asia; of pertaining to, or designating, the people who speak these languages.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Tu*ra"ni*an (?), n.

One of the Turanians.

 

© Webster 1913.