Old Turkic language
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This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. (June 2011) |
| Old Turkic | |
|---|---|
| Region | Central Asia |
| Era | broke up by the 13th century |
| Language family |
Turkic
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| Writing system | Old Turkic, Brahmi, Aramaic-derived, Uyghur alphabet |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Variously: otk – Old Turkish oui – Old Uighur xqa – Karakhanid |
| Linguist List | otk Old Turkish |
| oui Old Uighur | |
| xqa Karakhanid | |
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, the Manichean alphabet, and the Perso-Arabic script.
Contents |
Sources [edit]
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 [edit]
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.
The Old Turkic words were not beginning with C, D, F, G, Ğ, H, J, L, P, R, V, Z sounds.
See also [edit]
References [edit]
- 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); RoutledgeCurzon (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
External links [edit]
- 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)
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