Khazar language
| Khazar | |
|---|---|
| Spoken in | Southern Russia, the northern Caucasus, Pontic steppes and parts of Central Asia |
| Extinct | sometime between 1000 and 1300 CE |
| Language family | |
| Writing system | Old Turkic, Hebrew, possibly others |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | zkz |
Khazar was the Turkic language spoken by the Khazars, a semi-nomadic Turkic people from Central Asia. It is also referred to as Khazarian, Khazaric, or Khazari. The language is extinct and written records are almost non-existent.
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[edit] Classification
The linguistic affiliation of the Khazars has been disputed. Khazar was a Turkic language, however, different scholars take different views whether it belonged to the Oghur ("lir") or the Oghuz ("shaz", "Common Turkic") brach of the language family.
[edit] Evidence for Oghuric
Arab scholars of the Middle Ages classified Khazar as similar to, yet distinct from, the type of Turkic spoken by other Turks with whom they were familiar, such as the Oghuz Turks. They noted, however, that both the Khazar tongue and the more common forms of Turkic were widely spoken in Khazaria.
The consensus among scholars had long been and still is that the Khazars spoke an Oghuric Turkic language similar to Chuvash, Hunnish,[dubious ] Turkic Avar and Volga-Bulgarian, possibly influenced by Old Turkic and Uyghur influences, as was stated by Al-Istakhri "the language of Bulgars resembles the language of Khazars".[1] The Ogur languages are characterized by sound correspondences such as Oguric r versus Common Turkic z and Oguric l versus Common Turkic š.[2]
The capital of the Khazars was named Sarkel, which points markedly towards an Oghuric language, as the etymon connected to *sar- means 'white' only in Chuvash, while 'yellow' in the Common Turkic languages. Also, the corresponding etymon for *-kel is only found in Chuvash (meaning 'house, shelter') and is not extant in the Oghuzic branch of the language family.
[edit] Evidence for Oghuzic
The Oghuric origin hypothesis for the Khazar language has been disputed by recent scholarship suggesting that the Khazar language was a standard, "Shaz"-style Common Turkic language.[3] Given the Göktürk origin of the Khazar khagans, it is possible that Göktürk-style Old Turkic was used as a courtly language early in Khazar history, though there is no direct evidence of this.
Very few examples of the Khazar language exist today, mostly in names that have survived in historical sources. All of these examples seem to be of the "Lir"-type though. Extant written works are primarily in Hebrew.
Vékony (2004) supposed that the Khazar language was Common Turkic, based on a number of his suggested reading of inscriptions found in the territory of the former Khazar Khaganate.[4]
[edit] Kievian Letter
A Khazar word has been read[by whom?] in the Kievian Letter, interpreted as OKHKURÜM, "I read (this or it)"[citation needed] (this would correspond to Modern Turkish okurum).
Another reading (Vékony 2004) interprets the inscription as oγdiq ilik translating "We have read. Ilik."[5]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Al-Istakhri translation by Zahoder B. N. "Caspian code of the information about Eastern Europe. Gorgan and Volga area in 9-11 cc", Oriental Literature, Moscow, 1962, p. 238
- ^ Oguric is sometimes referred to as Lir-Turkic and Common Turkic as Shaz-Turkic. The glottochronological reconstruction based on analysis of isoglosses and Sinicisms points to the timing of the r/s split at around 56 BCE-48 CE, associated with "the historical situation that can be seen in the history of the Huns' division onto the Northern and Southern: the first separation and withdrawal of the Northern Huns to the west has occurred, as was stated above, in 56 BC,...the second split of the (Eastern) Huns into the northern and southern groups happened in 48 AD, from that time the Northern Huns gradually shifted to the Western Mongolia and later to the East Turkestan, to Dzungaria, and in 155 AD they migrated to the East Kazakhstan and Jeti-su, where they lived till the 5th c. AD." Dybo A.V., "Chronology of Türkic languages and linguistic contacts of early Türks", Moskow, 2007, p. 770, [1] (In Russian)
- ^ For a full discussion see Erdal (1999).
- ^ Vékony, Gábor (2004): A székely rovásírás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története [The Relics, Relations and the History of the Szekely Script]. Publisher: Nap Kiadó, Budapest. ISBN 963 9402 45 1, passim.
- ^ Vékony, Gábor (2004): A székely rovásírás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története [The Relics, Relations and the History of the Szekely Script]. Publisher: Nap Kiadó, Budapest. ISBN 963 9402 45 1, pp. 276-284
[edit] References
- Brook, Kevin Alan (2006). The Jews of Khazaria. 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
- Dunlop, Douglas M. (1954), The History of the Jewish Khazars, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
- Erdal, Marcel (1999). "The Khazar Language". In: Golden et al., 1999:75-107.
- Erdal, Marcel (2007). "The Khazar Language." The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives. Brill, 2007. pp. 75–107.
- Golb, Norman & Omeljan Pritsak (1982). Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press.
- Golden, Peter B. (1980). Khazar Studies: An Historio-Philological Inquiry into the Origins of the Khazars. Budapest: Akademia Kiado.
- Golden, Peter B. et al., eds (1999). The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives: Selected Papers from the Jerusalem 1999 International Khazar Colloquium (Handbook of Oriental Studies, Section 8 Uralic & Central Asian Studies, vol. 17, 2007). Leiden: Brill.
- Johanson, Lars & Éva Agnes Csató (ed.) (1998). The Turkic languages. London: Routledge.
- Johanson, Lars (1998). "The history of Turkic." In: Johanson & Csató, pp. 81–125.[2]
- Johanson, Lars (1998). "Turkic languages." In: Encyclopædia Britannica. CD 98. Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 5 sept. 2007.[3]
- Johanson, Lars (2000). "Linguistic convergence in the Volga area." In: Gilbers, Dicky & Nerbonne, John & Jos Schaeken (ed.). Languages in contact. Amsterdam & Atlanta: Rodopi. (Studies in Slavic and General linguistics 28.), pp. 165–178.[4]
- Johanson, Lars (2007). Chuvash. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics. Oxford: Elsevier.
- Vékony, Gábor (2004): A székely rovásírás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története [The Relics, Relations and the History of the Szekely Script]. Publisher: Nap Kiadó, Budapest. ISBN 963 9402 45 1
[edit] External links
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