Orkhon Turkic

Orkhon Turkic
Orkhon Uyghur, Göktürk
Kul Tigin stele, of the Orkhon inscription
RegionEastern Europe, Central Asia, Eastern Asia
EthnicityGöktürks, Yenisei Kyrgyz
Era5th–8th century
Turkic
Dialects
  • Orkhon
  • Yenisei Kyrgyz
Old Turkic
Language codes
ISO 639-3otk
Glottologorkh1234

Orkhon Turkic (also Göktürk), is the earliest version of Old Turkic, known as the oldest Turkic literary language, preceding Old Uyghur. It is the language in which the Orkhon and Yenisei inscriptions are written.[1][2]

Dialects

Turkic people used a common literary language in the 5th-8th centuries, but there were some differences.[3] It is possible to examine the Orkhon Turkic under two Yenisei and the Classical Orkhon Turkic headings. Orkhon Turkic had two main dialects, both written in Orkhon script.

Orkhon Turkic Inscriptions

Main article: Orkhon inscriptions

The language used in the inscriptions, most of which are found along the Orkhon river[4] is called the Orkhon Turkic language. It contains not only tombstones but also diaries describing state events. For this reason, it is richer in terms of language and the language used expertly.

Yenisei Kyrgyz Inscriptions

Main article: Yenisei Inscriptions

The language used in the inscriptions found along the Yenisei river[4] is called the Yenisei Kyrgyz dialect.

Phonetics

In Yenisei inscriptions, the letters e and i change places from time to time. The same change is seen in b with m, g with k, ş with s, and z with s. It has also been seen once in the letters ı and i.[3]

Morphonology

A completely morphological difference was not detected in the Yenisei Inscriptions. But there are some points:[3]

  • In Orkhon inscriptions, the case of direction takes the suffix -a/-e after the possessive suffix, while in the Yenisei inscriptions it sometimes takes the suffixes -qa/-ke/-ğa/-ge when the same is the case.
  • In the locative case, the letters l and n sometimes have the suffix -te/-ta but sometimes the suffix -de/-da.
  • The past tense begins irregularly, sometimes with a hard consonant and sometimes with a soft consonant.

Other inscriptions

Talas Inscriptions

They are found around Talas, Issyk-Kul and Kochkor.[5] They were written with the Yenisei variants of the Orkhon alphabet.[4] It is believed that these inscriptions were also written by the Kyrgyzs.[6]

The language of the texts used in the inscriptions is the same as the language used in the Orkhon and Yenisei inscriptions. The suffix -ka after the possessive suffix, which is seen in some of the Yenisei Kyrgyz inscriptions, is not seen in these inscriptions.[7]

Phonology

Orkhon Turkic is a Shaz Turkic language, and a d-type Turkic language (e.g.; Turkish: ayak, Chuvash: ура (ura) but Old Turkic: 𐰑𐰴 (adaq)) which belongs to the Siberian Turkic branch.

Consonants

Orkhon Turkic consonants[1]
Labial Dental/Alveolar Palatal Velar
Nasal m n ɲ ŋ
Stop voiceless p t k q
voiced b d g
Fricative voiceless s ʃ
voiced z ɣ
Affricate voiceless t͡ʃ
voiced
Approximant l j
Rhotic r

[p] occurs in all positions in a word, but word-initial occurences are all loanwords.

Vowels

It sometimes has long vowels.[8][9][10]

Vocabulary

Most of the vocabulary includes words of Turkic origin in Orkhon Turkic. In addition, a few words used are based on languages such as Sogdian and Middle Chinese.[11][12] Mehmet Ölmez claims that about 20% of the vocabulary in Orkhon Turkic comes from neighboring cultures.[13]

The borrowed words of the Orkhon Turkic period include Chinese, Sogdian, Mongolian, and Tibetan loanwords.[14] Orkhon Turkic has a vocabulary that is less influenced by Sogdian and more heavily influenced by Chinese. In the period of Old Uyghur, Sogdian loanwords increase exponentially. The main reason for the increase of Sogdian influence is that the Uyghurs embraced Manichaeism.[15]

References

  1. ^ a b Tekin, Talât (1968). A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (PDF). Bloomington: Indiana University. ISBN 978-0700708697.
  2. ^ Erdal, Marcel (2004-01-01). A Grammar Of Old Turkic. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-10294-1.
  3. ^ a b c Şabdanaliyev, Negizbek. "YENİSEY YAZITLARI'NDAKİ AĞIZ ÖZELLİKLERİ (FONOLOJİK VE MORFONOLOJİK İNCELEME)". Türk Dünyası. 42: 153–165.
  4. ^ a b c "TURK BITIG". bitig.kz. Retrieved 2022-04-10.
  5. ^ Ali̇mov, Rysbek (2017-12-31). "TALAS YAZITLARI: İŞARET KADROSUYLA İLGİLİ BAZI DÜZELTMELER (2. TALAS YAZITI ÖRNEĞİNDE)". Türk Dili Araştırmaları Yıllığı - Belleten. 65 (1): 129–144. ISSN 0564-5050.
  6. ^ "Türkçe Bilgi: Talas-Yenisey Yazıtları". Türkçe Bilgi (in Turkish). Retrieved 2022-04-12.
  7. ^ "TURK BITIG". bitig.kz, uyalarïna adïrïlmïš. Retrieved 2022-04-12.
  8. ^ Tekin, Talat (1997). A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7007-0869-7.
  9. ^ "KökTörükçede Birincil Uzun Üŋlüler". Retrieved 2022-04-24.
  10. ^ Tekin, Talât (1967). "Determination of Middle-Turkic Long Vowels Through ʿarūḍ". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 20 (2): 151–170. ISSN 0001-6446. JSTOR 23682110.
  11. ^ Ölmez, Mehmet (1995). "Eski Türk Yazıtlarında Yabancı Öğeler" (PDF). Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları. 5: 227–229.
  12. ^ Ölmez, Mehmet (1997). "Eski Türk Yazıtlarında Yabancı Öğeler 2" (PDF). Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları. 7: 175–186.
  13. ^ Olmez, Mehmet (1999-01-01). "Foreign Elements in Old Turkic Inscriptions (3) // Eski Türk Yazıtlarında Yabancı Öğeler (3)". Türk Dilleri Araştırmaları, 9: 59-65.
  14. ^ Clauson, Sir Gerard (1975). "The Foreign Elements in Early Turkish". Researchs in Altaic Languages: 43–49.
  15. ^ Ayazlı, Özlem (2020-01-01). "Soğdca Bazı Sözcüklerin Eski Uygurcadaki İmlası / Orthography of Some Sogdian Words in Old Uyghur Turkic". International Journal of Old Uyghur Studies. doi:10.46614/ijous.743040. S2CID 225560776.
  • 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.