Social:Old Turkic language

Old Turkic
Old Uyghur
Region	Central Asia and Mongolia
Era	evolved into other Turkic languages
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Siberian Old Turkic
Writing system	Old Turkic, Uyghur alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3	Either: otk – Old Turkish oui – Old Uighur
Linguist List	otk Old Turkish
	oui Old Uighur
Glottolog	oldu1238

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 AD to the 13th century. It is the oldest attested member of the Orkhon branch of Turkic, which is extant in the modern Western Yugur language. However, it is not the ancestor of the language now called Uighur; the contemporaneous ancestor of Uighur to the west is called Middle Turkic, later Chagatai or Turki.

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, the Manichean alphabet, and the Perso-Arabic script.

Old Turkic often refers not to a single language, but collectively to the closely related and mutually intelligible stages of various Common Turkic branches that were spoken during the late 1st millennium AD.

Sources

The sources of Old Turkic are divided into two 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.

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.

The script is named after the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia where early 8th-century inscriptions were discovered in an 1889 expedition by Nikolai Yadrintsev.

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 from Mongolia and Xinjiang in the east to the Balkans in the west. The preserved inscriptions were dated to between the 8th and 10th centuries.

Phonology

Vowels

	Front		Back
	Unr.	Rnd.	Unr.	Rnd.
Close	i	y	ɯ	u
Mid	e	ø		o
Open			ɑ

Rounded vowels may only occur in the initial syllable. This vowel inventory is the same as in contemporary Turkish.

Consonants

	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
Trill				ɾ
Approximant			ɫ	l		j

Old Turkic is highly restrictive in which consonants words can begin with: /p/, /d/, /g/, /ɢ/, /l/, /ɾ/, /n/, /ɲ/, /ŋ/, /m/, /ʃ/, and /z/ are not allowed in a word-initial position. The only exceptions are 𐰤𐰀 (ne, “what, which”) and its derivatives, and some early assimilations of word-initial /b/ to /m/ following a nasal in a word such as 𐰢𐰤 (men, “I”).

Nominal suffixes

This is a partial list of nominal suffixes attested to in Old Turkic and known usages.

Denominal

The following have been classified by Gerard Clauson as denominal noun suffixes.

Suffix	Usages	Translation
-ça	ança	at least one
-ke	sigirke yipke	sinew string/thread
-la/-le	ayla tünle körkle	thus, like that) yesterday, night, north) beautiful
-suk/-sük	bağırsuk	liver, entrails
-ra/-re	içre	inside, within
-ya/-ye	bérye yırya	here north
-çıl/-çil	igçil	sickly
-ğıl/-gil	üçgil kırğıl	triangular grey haired
-nti	ékkinti	second
-dam/-dem	tegridem	god-like
tırtı:/-türti	içtirti	inside, within
-kı:/-ki	aşnuki üzeki evdeki	former on or above in the house
-an/-en/-un	oğlan eren	children men, gentlemen
-ğu:/-gü	ençgü tuzğu buğrağu	tranquil, at peace food given to a traveller as a gift woodwork
-a:ğu:/-e:gü:	üçegü içegü	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
-daş/-deş	kadaş yerdeş	kinsman compatriot
-mış/-miş	altmış yetmiş	sixty seventy
-gey	küçgey	violent
-çak/-çek and -çuk/-çük	ğırçak	spindle-whorl
-k/ (after vowels and -r) -ak/-ek (the normal forms)/-ik/-ik/-uk/-ük(rare forms)	ortuk	middle partner
-dak/-dek and(?) -duk/-dük	bağırdak beligdek burunduk	wrap terrifying nose ring
-ğuk/-gük	çamğuk	obectionable
-mak/-mek	kögüzmek	breastplate
-muk/-a:muk	solamuk	left-handed (pejorative?)
-nak	bakanak	"frog in a horse's hoof" (from baka frog)
-duruk/-dürük	boyunduruk	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

See also

• Old Turkic script
• Proto-Turkic
• Orkhon Turkic language

References

• Ö.D. Baatar, Old Turkic Script, Ulan-Baator (2008), ISBN:0-415-08200-5
• M. Erdal, A Grammar of Old Turkic, Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 8 Uralic & Central Asia, Brill, Leiden (2004), ISBN:90-04-10294-9.
• M. Erdal, Old Turkic word formation: A functional approach to the lexicon, Turcologica, Harassowitz (1991), ISBN:3-447-03084-4.
• 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.
• L. Johanson, A History of Turkic, in: The Turkic Languages, eds. L. Johanson & E.A. Csato, Routledge, London (1998), ISBN:0-415-08200-5
• M. Erdal, Old Turkic, in: The Turkic Languages, eds. L. Johanson & E.A. Csato, Routledge, London (1998), ISBN:978-99929-944-0-5

Further reading

• Noten zu den alttürkischen Inschriften der Mongolei und Sibiriens (1898)
• Marcel Erdal (1 January 2004). A Grammar Of Old Turkic. BRILL. ISBN 90-04-10294-9. https://books.google.com/books?id=l4yGbSQcrBoC&printsec=frontcover&dq=qarakhanids+inherited+islam+uyghurs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjf58br3K7JAhWCdx4KHcORAZcQ6AEITzAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false. 

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