Old Siberian Turkic, generally known as East Old Turkic and often shortened to Old Turkic, was a Siberian Turkic language spoken around East Turkistan and Mongolia.[1] It was first discovered in inscriptions originating from the Second Turkic Khaganate, and later the Uyghur Khaganate, making it the earliest attested Common Turkic language. In terms of the datability of extant written sources, the period of Old Turkic can be dated from slightly before 720 AD to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. Old Turkic can generally be split into two dialects, the earlier Orkhon Turkic and the later Old Uyghur. There is a difference of opinion among linguists with regard to the Karakhanid language, some (among whom include Omeljan Pritsak, Sergey Malov and Marcel Erdal) classify it as another dialect of East Old Turkic, while others prefer to include Karakhanid among Middle Turkic languages;[2] nonetheless, Karakhanid is very close to Old Uyghur.[3] East Old Turkic and West Old Turkic together comprise the Old Turkic proper, though West Old Turkic is generally unattested and is mostly reconstructed through words loaned through Hungarian.[4] East Old Turkic is the oldest attested member of the Siberian Turkic branch of Turkic languages, and several of its now-archaic grammatical as well as lexical features are extant in the modern Yellow Uyghur, Lop Nur Uyghur[5] and Khalaj (all of which are endangered); Khalaj, for instance, has (surprisingly) retained a considerable number of archaic Old Turkic words[6] despite forming a language island[7] within Central Iran and being heavily influenced by Persian.[8] Old Uyghur is not a direct ancestor of the modern Uyghur language,[9][10] but rather the Western Yugur language; the contemporaneous ancestor of Modern Uyghur was the Chagatai literary language.[11]
| Old Siberian Turkic | |
|---|---|
| East Old Turkic, Old Turkic | |
| Region | East Asia, Central Asia and parts of Eastern Europe |
| Era | 8th–13th centuries |
Turkic
| |
| Dialects | |
| Old Turkic script, Old Uyghur alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:otk – Old Turkishoui – Old Uyghur |
otk Old Turkish | |
oui Old Uyghur | |
| Glottolog | oldu1238 |
East Old Turkic is attested in a number of scripts, including the Old Turkic script, the Old Uyghur alphabet, the Brahmi script, and the Manichaean script. The Turkic runiform alphabet of Orkhon Turkic was deciphered by Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893.
Sources
In stark contrast to Middle Turkic texts, the vast majority of available Old Turkic texts come from non-Muslim sources. The sources of Old Turkic are divided into two (three, according to Marcel Erdal) corpora:
- The 8th to 10th century Orkhon inscriptions in Mongolia and the Yenisey basin (Orkhon Turkic).
- 9th to 13th century Uyghur manuscripts from Gansu and Xinjiang (Old Uyghur), in various scripts including Brahmi, Tibetan, Syriac, and Sogdian alphabets, treating religious (Buddhist, Manichaean, and Church of the East), legal, literary, folkloric and astrological material, as well as personal correspondence.
- (According to Marcel Erdal) Kutadgu Bilig by Yūsuf Balasaguni and the parts of the monumental Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk by Mahmud al-Kashgari. As Marcel Erdal acknowledged, the latter work is not wholly Old Turkic but also contains lexemes from Middle Turkic, thus providing a rich resource for the study of both Old and Middle Turkic.
Writing systems
The Old Turkic script (also known variously as Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script) is the alphabet used by the Göktürks and other early Turkic khanates during the 8th to 10th centuries to record the Old Turkic language.[12]
The script is named after the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia where early 8th-century inscriptions were discovered in an 1889 expedition by Nikolai Yadrintsev.[13]
This writing system was later used within the Uyghur Khaganate. Additionally, a Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century Yenisei Kirghiz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old Hungarian alphabet of the 10th century. Words were usually written from right to left. Variants of the script were found in Mongolia and Xinjiang in the east and the Balkans in the west. The preserved inscriptions were dated between the 8th and 10th centuries.
Phonology
| Front | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unr. | Rnd. | Unr. | Rnd. | |
| Close | i | y | ɯ | u |
| Mid | e | ø | o | |
| Open | ɑ | |||
Vowel roundness is assimilated through the word through vowel harmony. Some vowels were considered to occur only in the initial syllable, but they were later found to be in suffixes.[14] Length is distinctive for all vowels; while most of its daughter languages have lost the distinction, many of these preserve it in the case of /e/ with a height distinction, where the long phoneme developed into a more closed vowel than the short counterpart.
| Labial | Dental | Post- alveolar | Velar | Uvular | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||
| Stop | p | b | t | d | tʃ | k | g | q | ɢ | |
| Fricative | s | z | ʃ | |||||||
| Tap/Flap | ɾ | |||||||||
| Approximant | ɫ | l | j | |||||||
Old Turkic is highly restrictive in which consonants words can begin with: words can begin with /b/, /t/, /tʃ/, /k/, /q/, /s/, /ɫ/ and /j/, but they do not usually begin with /p/, /d/, /g/, /ɢ/, /l/, /ɾ/, /n/, /ɲ/, /ŋ/, /m/, /ʃ/, or /z/. The only exceptions are 𐰤𐰀 (ne, "what, which") and its derivatives, and some early assimilations of word-initial /b/ to /m/ preceding a nasal in a word such as 𐰢𐰤 (men, "I").
Grammar
Cases
There are approximately 12 case morphemes in Old Turkic (treating 3 types of accusatives as one); the table below lists Old Turkic cases following Marcel Erdal’s classification (some phonemes of suffixes written in capital letters denote archiphonemes which sometimes are dropped or changed as per (East) Old Turkic phonotactics):
| Case Suffixes | Examples | Translation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | ∅ (unmarked) | köŋül∅ | heart |
| Genitive | -nIŋ | Tämürniŋ | Tämür’s |
| Accusative I (Pronominal Accusative) | -nI | bunï | this |
| Accusative II (Nominal Accusative) | -Ig/-Ug[a] | kïzlarïg, Karlukug | girls, Karluk |
| Accusative III[16] | -(I)n | oglïmïn | my son’s |
| Dative | -ka[b] | ordoka | to palace |
| Directive / Allative[c] | -gArU[d] | ävgärü | towards home |
| Locative | -tA/-dA | ävdä, suvlukta | in house, in vessel |
| Directive-Locative / Partitive-Locative | -rA | asra[e], bašra[f] | below, at/towards/on head |
| Ablative | -dIn/-tIn -dAn | kaŋtïn | from father |
| Equative-Lative | -čA[g] [h] | tükägüčä | up to/till end |
| Instrumental | -In/-Un | okun | with arrow |
| Comitative[i] | -lXgU[j] -lUgUn[k] | iniligü | together with young brother |
| Similative | -lAyU | yultuzlayu | like star(s) |
Grammatical Number
Old Turkic (like Modern Turkic) had 2 grammatical numbers: singular and plural. However, Old Turkic also formed collective nouns (a category related to plurals) by a separate suffix -(A)gU(n) e.g. tayagunuŋuz ‘your colts’.[21] Unlike Modern Turkic, Old Turkic had 3 types of suffixes to denote plural:[22]
- -(X)t
- -An
- -lAr
Today, all Modern Turkic languages (except for Chuvash) use exclusively the suffix of the -lAr type for plural.
Verb
Finite verb forms in Old Turkic (i.e. verbs to which a tense suffix is added) always conjugate for person and number of the subject by corresponding suffixes save for the 3rd person, in which case person suffix is absent. This grammatical configuration is preserved in the majority of Modern Turkic languages, except for some such as Yellow Uyghur in which verbs no longer agree with the person of the subject.
Tense
Old Turkic had a complex system of tenses,[23] which could be divided into six simple[24] and derived tenses, the latter formed by adding special (auxiliary) verbs to the simple tenses.
| Tense | Positive | Negative |
|---|---|---|
| Imperfect Aorist | -Ur | -mAz |
| Preterite (Simple Past) | -dI | |
| Perfect Participle | -mIš | -mAdOk |
| Future | -dAčI | -mAčI |
| Vivid Past | -yOk | -mAyOk |
| Imminent Future | -gAlIr |
Hapax Legomena
Some suffixes are attested as being attached to only one word and no other instance of attachment is to be found. Similarly, some words are attested only once in the entire extant Old Turkic corpus.
Denominal
The following have been classified by Gerard Clauson as denominal noun suffixes.
| Suffix | Usages | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| -ča | anča | at least one |
| -ke | sigirke yipke | sinew string/thread |
| -la/-le | ayla tünle körkle | thus, like that yesterday, night, north beautiful |
| -suq/-sük | bağïrsuq | liver, entrails |
| -ra/-re | içre | inside, within |
| -ya/-ye | bérye yırya | here north |
| -čïl/-čil | igčil | sickly |
| -ğïl/-gil | üçgil qïrğïl | triangular grey haired |
| -nti | ékkinti | second |
| -dam/-dem | tegridem | god-like |
| tïrtï:/-türti | ičtirti | inside, within |
| -qı:/-ki | ašnuki üzeki ebdeki | former on or above in the house |
| -an/-en/-un | oğlan eren | children men, gentlemen |
| -ğu:/-gü | enčgü tuzğu buğrağu | tranquil, at peace food given to a traveller as a gift woodwork |
| -a:ğu:/-e:gü: | üčegü ičegü | three together inside human body |
| -dan/-dun | otun izden | firewood track, trace |
| -ar/-er | birer azar | one each a few |
| -layu:/-leyü | börileyü | like a wolf |
| -daš/-deš | qarïndaš yerdeš | kinsman compatriot |
| -mïš/-miš | altmïš yetmiš | sixty seventy |
| -gey | küçgey | violent |
| -çaq/-çek and -çuq/-çük | ïğïrčaq | spindle-whorl |
| -q/-k (after vowels and -r) -aq/-ek (the normal forms) -ïq/-ik/-uq/-ük (rare forms) | ortuq | middle partner |
| -daq/-dek and(?) -duq/-dük | bağırdaq beligdek burunduq | wrap terrifying nose ring |
| -ğuq/-gük | çamğuq | objectionable |
| -maq/-mek | kögüzmek | breastplate |
| -muq/-a:muq | solamuk | left-handed (pejorative?) |
| -naq | baqanaq | "frog in a horse's hoof" (from baqa frog) |
| -duruq/-dürük | boyunduruq | yoke |
Deverbal
The following have been classified by Gerard Clauson as deverbal suffixes.
| Suffix | Usages | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| -a/-e/-ı:/-i/-u/-ü | oprı adrı keçe egri köni ötrü | hollow,valley branched,forked evening, night crooked straight, upright, lawful then, so |
| -ğa/-ge | kısğa öge bilge kölige tilge | short wise wise shadow slice |
| -ğma/-gme | tanığma | riddle |
| -çı/-çi | otaçı: okıçı | healer priest |
| -ğuçı/-güçi | ayğuçı bitigüçi | councilor scribe |
| -dı/-di | üdründi ögdi alkadı sökti | chosen,parted,separated,scattered customs praised bran |
| -tı/-ti | arıtı uzatı tüketi | completely, clean lengthily completely |
| -du | eğdu umdul süktü | curved knife desire, covetousness campaigning |
| -ğu:/-gü | bilegü kedgü oğlağü | whetstone clothing gently nurtured |
| -ingü | bilingü etingü yeringü salingü | be in the know be prepared disgusted be moving violently |
| -ğa:ç/-geç | kışgaç | pincers |
| -ğuç/-güç | bıçgüç | scissors |
| -maç/-meç | tutmaç | "saved" noodle dish |
| -ğut/-güt | alpağut bayağut | warrior merchant |
Literary works
- Yenisei Inscriptions (8-10th centuries CE) - a group of texts in Old Turkic from Yenisei River basin.
- Uyuk-Tarlak inscription (date unknown) by an unknown writer (in Yenisei Kyrgyz)
- Elegest inscription (date unknown) by an unknown writer (in Yenisei Kyrgyz)
- Orkhon Inscriptions (732 and 735) by Yollıg Khagan (in Orkhon Turkic)
- Bain Tsokto inscriptions (716) by an unknown writer (in Orkhon Turkic)
- Ongin inscription (between 716 and 735) by an unknown writer (in Orkhon Turkic)
- Kul-chur inscription (between 723 and 725) a writer called "Ebizter" (in Orkhon Turkic)
- Altyn Tamgan Tarhan inscription (724) by an unknown writer (in Orkhon Turkic)
- Tariat inscriptions (between 753 and 760) by an unknown writer (in Old Uyghur)
- Choiti-Tamir inscriptions (between 753 and 756) by an unknown writer (in Old Uyghur)
- Sükhbaatar inscriptions (8th century) by an unknown writer (in Old Uyghur)
- Bombogor inscription (8th century) by an unknown writer (in Old Uyghur)
- Book of Divination (9th century) by an unknown writer (in Old Uyghur)
See also
References
Further reading
- Noten zu den alttürkischen Inschriften der Mongolei und Sibiriens (1898)
- Ö.D. Baatar, Old Turkic Script, Ulan-Baator (2008), ISBN 0-415-08200-5
- M. Erdal, Old Turkic word formation: A functional approach to the lexicon, Turcologica, Harassowitz (1991), ISBN 3-447-03084-4.
- M. Erdal, Old Turkic, in: The Turkic Languages, eds. L. Johanson & E.A. Csato, Routledge, London (1998), ISBN 978-99929-944-0-5
- M. Erdal, A Grammar of Old Turkic, Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 8 Uralic & Central Asia, Brill, Leiden (2004), ISBN 90-04-10294-9.
- Erdal, Marcel (1 January 2004). A Grammar Of Old Turkic. BRILL. ISBN 90-04-10294-9.
- L. Johanson, A History of Turkic, in: The Turkic Languages, eds. L. Johanson & E.A. Csato, Routledge, London (1998), ISBN 0-415-08200-5
- Talat Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic, Uralic and Altaic Series Vol. 69, Indiana University Publications, Mouton and Co. (1968). (review: Gerard Clauson, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1969); Routledge Curzon (1997), ISBN 0-7007-0869-3.
External links
- Old Turkic inscriptions (with translations into English), reading lessons and tutorials
- Turkic Inscriptions of Orkhon Valley (with translations into Turkish)
- VATEC, pre-Islamic Old Turkic electronic corpus at uni-frankfurt.de.
- A Grammar of Old Turkic by Marcel Erdal
- Old Turkic (8th century) funerary inscription (W. Schulze)
- Kuli Chor inscription complete text
- Tonyukuk inscription complete text
- Kul Tigin inscription complete text
- Bilge Qaghan inscription complete text
- Eletmiš Yabgu (Ongin) inscription complete text
- Bayanchur Khan inscription complete text
- Ongin inscriptions by Gerard Clauson
- Timeline of Turkic Languages (Turkish)