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`[1]

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.

## Contents

* 1 Sources
* 2 Writing systems
* 3 Phonology
* 4 Nominal suffixes
* 4.1 Denominal
* 4.2 Deverbal
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 Further reading
* 8 External links

## 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

Main article: Social:Old Turkic script

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.[2]

The script is named after the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia where early 8th-century inscriptions were discovered in an 1889 expedition by Nikolai Yadrintsev.[3]

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

1. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Old Turkic". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/oldu1238.
2. ↑ Scharlipp, Wolfgang (2000). An Introduction to the Old Turkish Runic Inscriptions. Verlag auf dem Ruffel, Engelschoff. ISBN 978-3-933847-00-3.
3. ↑ Sinor, Denis (2002). "Old Turkic". History of Civilizations of Central Asia. 4. Paris: UNESCO. pp. 331–333.

## 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 language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

|

* 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

* v
* t
* e

Turkic languages

Proto-language|

* Proto-Turkic

Common Turkic|

| Arghu|

* Khalaj

|

Karluk|

* Äynu1
* Ili Turki
* Uyghur
* Uzbek
* Extinct
* Middle Turkic
* Khorezmian
* Chagatai

Kipchak|

| Ponto-Caspian|

* Crimean Tatar
* Karachay-Balkar
* Karaim
* Krymchak
* Kumyk
* Urum
* Extinct
* Kipchak
* Cuman

|

Aralo-Caspian|

* Siberian Tatar
* Karakalpak
* Kazakh
* Kyrgyz
* Nogai
* Extinct
* Fergana Kipchak

Uralo-Caspian|

* Bashkir
* Tatar
* Extinct
* Old Tatar

Oghuz|

* Azerbaijani
* Gagauz
* Khorasani Turkic
* Qashqai
* Rumelian Turkish
* Salar
* Turkish
* Turkmen
* Extinct
* Pecheneg2
* Old Anatolian Turkish
* Ottoman Turkish

Siberian|

* Altai
* Chulym
* Dolgan
* Khakas
* Shor
* Tofa
* Tuvan
* Yakut
* Western Yugur2
* Extinct
* Orkhon Turkic
* Old Turkic
* Old Uyghur
* Fuyu Girgis
* Dukhan

Oghur|

* Chuvash
* Extinct
* Khazar2
* Bulgar

* 1 Mixed language.
* 2 Classification disputed.

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