Old Turkic language

Old Turkic
Spoken in	Central Asia
Extinct	by the 13th century
Language family	Turkic Southeastern Turkic (Uyghuric) Old Turkic
Writing system	Old Turkic, Brahmi, Aramaic-derived, Uyghur alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	otk

Old Turkic (also East Old Turkic, Orkhon Turkic, Old Uyghur) is the earliest attested form of Turkic, found in Göktürk and Uyghur inscriptions dating from about the 7th century to the 13th century. It is the oldest attested member of the Southeastern (Uyghuric) branch of Turkic, which is extant in the modern Chagatai, Uyghur and Western Yugur languages.

Old Turkic is attested in a number of scripts, including the Orkhon-Yenisei runiform script, the Old Uyghur alphabet (a form of the Sogdian alphabet), the Brāhmī script, and the Manichean alphabet.

Sources

Sources of Old Turkic are divided into three corpora:

• the 7th to 10th century Orkhon inscriptions in Mongolia and the Yenisey basin (Orkhon Turkic, or Old Turkic proper)
• 9th to 13th century Uyghur manuscripts from Xinjiang (Old Uyghur), in various scripts including Brahmi, the Manichaean, Syriac and Uyghur alphabets, treating religious (Buddhist, Manichaean and Nestorian), legal, literary, folkloric and astrologic material as well as personal correspondence.
• 11th century Qarakhanid manuscripts, mostly written in Arabic script (Qarakhanid Turkic). The Qarakhanid corpus includes a 6,500 couplet poem, Qutaδγu bilig "Wisdom that brings good fortune", an Arabic–Turkic dictionary and Mahmud al-Kashgari's "Compendium of the Turkic dialects". This variety is sometimes referred to as Middle Turkic.

Phonology

Old Turkic has nine vowel qualities—a, e, ė, i, ï, o, ö, u, ü—distinct only in the first syllable of a word, collapsed into four classes elsewhere—a, e, ï, i.

The consonantal system distinguishes between unvoiced, voiced (with fricative variants) and nasal:

labial: p, v (β), m;

dental: t, d (δ), n;

palatal: č, y, ń;

velar: k (q, χ), g (γ), ŋ;

sibilant: s, š, z;

liquid: r, l.

Language contact

German Turkologist W.-E. Scharlipp writes that "a conspicuously large amount" of early Turkic titles are "in fact borrowings from Iranian", including "almost all of their titles".^[1] such as Khatun, Yabgu etc.

Comparison with modern Turkic languages

Old Turkic
Üze tengri basmasar, asra yir telinmeser, Türk budun, ilingin törüngün kim artati udaçı erti?
Turkish
Üstte gök basmasa, altta yer delinmese, Türk budunu, ilini töreni kim bozabilecek idi?
Azerbaijani
Üstdə göy basmasa, altda yer dəlinməsə, Türk milləti, elini adətini kim poza biləcək idi?
Uzbek
Ustdan ko'k bosmasa, ostda yer tilinmasa, Turk millati, elingni to'rini kim egallardi ?
Kazakh
Үстінде көк баспаса, астында жер делінбесе, Түрк елі, жеріңді дәстүріңді кім атар? (Üstinde kök baspasa, astında jer delinbese, Türk eli, jeriñdi dästürindi kim atar?)
Kyrgyz
Үстүндө көк баспаса, астында жер тилинбесе, Түрк эли, жериңди салтыңды ким жогото алар эле? (Üstündö kök baspasa, astında jer tilinbese, Turk eli, jerindi saltındı kim jogoto alar ele?)
Qashqai
Üstte kök çökmese, altta yer delinmese, Türk bodunu ilini töreni kim atar?[dubious – discuss]
English
Had the sky not stamped from above, had the ground not been pierced from below, Turkic nation, who could have invaded your land and tradition?

Turkish	Azerbaijani	Uzbek	Kazakh	Old Turkic	Qashqai	Krymchak	English
Bir	Bir	Bir	Bir	Bir	Bir	Bir	One
İki	İki	Ikki	Eki	Eki	İki	Eki	Two
Üç	Üç	Uch	Üş	Üç	Üç	Üç	Three
Dört	Dörd	To'rt	Tört	Tört	Dörd	Dort	Four
Beş	Beş	Besh	Bes	Beş	Beş	Beş	Five
Altı	Altı	Olti	Altı	Altı	Altı	Altı	Six
Yedi	Yeddi	Yetti	Jeti	Yeti	Yeddi	Yedi	Seven
Sekiz	Səkkiz	Sakkiz	Segiz	Sekiz	Sakkiz	Sekiz	Eight
Dokuz	Doqquz	To'qqiz	Toğız	Tokuz	Doghuz	Tokuz	Nine
On	On	O'n	On	On	On	On	Ten

See also

• Old Turkic script
• Middle Turkic
• Proto-Turkic
• Pecheneg language
• Bulgar language
• Hunnic language
• Cuman language
• Turkic Avar language
• Kipchak language
• Khazar language

References

• M. Erdal, Old Turkic, in: The Turkic Languages, eds. L. Johanson & E.A. Csato, Routledge, London (1998), ISBN 0415082005
• M. Erdal, A Grammar of Old Turkic, Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 8 Uralic & Central Asia, Brill, Leiden (2004), ISBN 9004102949.
• M. Erdal, Old Turkic word formation: A functional approach to the lexicon, Turcologica, Harassowitz (1991), ISBN 3447030844.
• 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); RoutledgeCurzon (1997), ISBN 0700708693.
• L. Johanson, A History of Turkic, in: The Turkic Languages, eds. L. Johanson & E.A. Csato, Routledge, London (1998), ISBN 0415082005

1. ^ „(...) Über die Ethnogenese dieses Stammes ist viel gerätselt worden. Auffallend ist, dass viele zentrale Begriffe iranischen Ursprungs sind. Dies betrifft fast alle Titel (...). Einige Gelehrte wollen auch die Eigenbezeichnung türk auf einen iranischen Ursprung zurückführen und ihn mit dem Wort „Turan“, der persischen Bezeichnung für das Land jeneseits des Oxus, in Verbindung bringen.“ Wolfgang-Ekkehard Scharlipp in Die frühen Türken in Zentralasien, p. 18

External links

• Old Turkic (8th century) funerary inscription (W. Schulze)
• VATEC, pre-Islamic Old Turkic electronic corpus at uni-frankfurt.de.
• Old Turkic inscriptions, reading lessons and tutorials
• A Grammar of Old Turkic by Marcel Erdal