|
The
Turkic Languages in a Nutshell
A
revised taxonomic description
with comment and illustrations
based upon
linguistic and historical analysis
Special
appreciation to Yusuf B. Gürsey for reviewing this web page
and
providing
many valuable remarks and corrections at sci.lang
Version 6.52
04/2009
(first online) > 10/2009 (major update) > 11/2010 (classification
rearranged) >
10-12/2011 (minor corrections) > 03-04/2012
(corrections,
fonts changed, classification update, English transcription remarks,
songs, references
added) > 05/2012 (Chulym, Khwarezmian, Nogai, Kumyk, Karaim, Sibir
Tatar, Baraba
added or rewritten)
|
The origins of Bulgaro-Turkic
languages
A draft of the Bulgaric and Turkic migration
from 1000 BCE to 1000
CE,
an older version (2008)
Historically attested
later migrations of Turkic peoples
between 500
and 1200 CE (2012) |
The
Turkic language group is a closely related phylogenetic
cluster of
languages further related to the Mongolic and Tungusic language
groups
in the first place [see, for instance, Hugjiltu (1995)[5]
and herein (2009)[4]],
and more distantly, to the tentatively proposed Altaic family in general
[e.g.
Starostin (1991)[8]].
The
total number of modern Turkic ethnicities exceeds 50, especially if
large dialect-languages
and notable ethnic groups with individual self-appellations are counted.
Another
correct name for the group could be Bulgaro-Turkic, because of
the early
separation of the Bulgaric branch from the rest of the stem, therefore Bulgaric
and Turkic can rather be used as names of two sibling taxons,
even though
that usage is not generally-accepted. According to the present
glottochronological
study,[2]
the Bulgaric
languages apparently branched off from the Turkic languages at a rather
early
period of time, most likely c. 1100-900 BC, which is considerably
earlier than
normally cited elsewhere.[10][10a][10b]
The discrepancy can be attributed to the improper usage of Starostin's
glottochronological
formulas in other studies, although the exact date cannot be calculated
with precision
due to possible lexicostatistical fluctuations and the uniqueness of
Chuvash,
which provides some basis for statistical errors.
The location of
the Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic
homeland is also still controversial, but was most likely confined to
the area
in northeastern Kazakhstan along the middle course of the Irtysh
River
/ir-TISH/ and its drainage basin, including the Ishim /ee-SHIM/, which
can be
inferred from the position of the Bulgaro-Turkic center-of-gravity point
and geolexical
corroborative studies [see herein (2009-2012)[3]].
The combined results of this investigation and archaeological finds
suggest
that the Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic people inhabited the forested steppeland
of West
Siberia during the classical Bronze Age period (c. 2000-1000 BCE),
thus
apparently matching certain cultures from the Andronovo horizon.
The
geolexical
analysis [herein (2012)[3]
partly based on the materials collected in SIGTY, Lexis (2002)[9]]
suggests that they lived on the open habitat with deciduous groves
(birch, willow,
aspen, linden), occasional marshland, saline areas and lakes with
various fish,
waterfowl and small mammal fauna, particularly beavers. Terms denoting
taiga or
desert ecozone have not been preserved. They were well familiar with
crop cultivation
(millet, barley, Spelt, possibly flax), cattle and horse breeding, dairy
products,
horse harnessing and riding, precious metals and copper working.The
spread and active migration of Bulgaric and Turkic languages apparently
began
between 900 and 200 BCE, which matches the onset of the Iron Age in West
Siberia
and therefore could be connected with the widespread introduction of
iron technology,[3]
though the details of this process are still hypothetical. | |
The
geographical tree
of Turkic languages (2012) |
The
glottochronological tree
of Turkic languages (2012) |
On
the present classification of Bulgaro-Turkic languages
Turkology
is probably one of the oldest branches of historical linguistics, at
least judging
from the fact that the earliest sketch of Turkic dialects was drawn by
Mahmud
al-Kashgari c. 1073, years before the first Crusade. There were many
previous attempts to build a consistent classification of the Turkic
languages
[see, for instance, Baskakov (1969)[7]
for historiographic details], the most prominent ones being those
of Rémusat
(1820), Balbi (1847), Berezin (1848, 1857), Ilminskiy (1861), Vámbéry
(1885), Radloff (1882), Katanov (1894), Aristov (1896), Müller (1896),
Foy
(1903), Korsh (1910), Winkler (1921), Samoylovich (1922), Rahmati
(1922), Bogoroditskiy
(1934), Ligeti (1934), Batmanov (1947), Räsänen (1949), Malov (1951),
Baskakov
(1952, 1969, 1988), Benzing (1959), Menges (1959), Tekin (1980),
Johanson (1998),
Schoening (1999), Dyachok (2001), Anna Dybo (2006), Mudrak (2002, 2009),
ASJP (2009). Accordingly, the high complexity of building up the Turkic
classification
can be seen from the mere fact that a slightly different version was
published
about every 5 years for the past 200 years or so. Whereas some of these
were just
superficial attempts without much justification, others were part of
a lifetime work.
The classical Baskakov's classification,[6][7]
first presented in 1952 (then republished in 1969, 1988), was widely
accepted
in the Soviet/Russian Turkology at least until the 2000's, and seems to
have strongly
affected even some of the western approaches. It did not include,
however, any
lexicostatistical study, and most of its conclusions were based on
phonological
and some grammatical observations alone. In his books, Baskakov used
expressions
like "a complex system isogloss" by which he apparently understood a
vague conglomeration of traits, which marks his classification as rather
phenetic
in nature.
As to other recent works, Anna Dybo's research (2006)[10a]
is purely lexicostatistical based on Swadesh-100, and Mudrak's
classification
(2002, 2009)[10b]
is phono-morphostatistical.
The
present taxonomic system was rebuilt nearly from scratch with very
little reference
to other theoretical publications, and is not directly based on any
previous classification
system; consequently, it may differ from earlier works in several
aspects. It
tries to investigate phonetical, grammatical, and lexical features, as
well as
the known geography, history and archaeology. Speaking in biological
terms, it
can also be seen as an attempt at a cladistic phylogeny which tries to
differentiate
between plesiomorphies and shared innovations.
All
the linguistic argumentation and other theoretical studies concerning
the present
classification are provided in The
Internal Classification and Migration of Turkic Languages
(2009-2012),
a separate online article. The lexicostatistical research with possible
dates
can be found in
The Lexicostatistics and Glottochronology of the Turkic
Languages
(2009-2012). And the research into the homeland
position in
The
Proto-Turkic Urheimat & The Early Migrations of the Turkic Peoples
(2012).
The present taxonomic
description
does not address any rare or obsolete languages, for which no lexical
data were
found either because of access difficulties or the nearly complete
absence thereof
(e.g. "Hunnic"), therefore by no means should this publication be
viewed as exhaustive. The total number of Turkic languages and major
dialects
exceeds 50, and it is difficult to mention and describe all of them.
Consequently,
the present series of articles has mostly been focused on getting all
the major
subgroups together in the proper order, something that was particularly
hard to
accomplish considering the close proximity of most Turkic sub-branches
and their
posterior interaction.
It
should
also be noted that this particular page was inspired by the
comprehensive work
on the numerals of the world conducted by Mark
Rosenfelder.
The nine nouns listed below were carefully chosen
to visually
demonstrate the maximum phonological differences across the Turkic
languages,
unlike the numbers which simply run from 1 to 10. Font colors tend to
mark phonologically
similar lexemes, except the black color that stands for "unclassified",
or gray that marks an "internal lexical replacement or borrowing". You
should not pay much attention to the colors, these are mostly auxiliary
and were
used to analyze the material at the initial stage, but were not removed
afterwards,
since they still help to pick up similar phonetic elements. |
|
On
the mutual proximity of Turkic languages
The
lexicostatistical proximity map
of Turkic languages (2012) |
A frequently asked
question concerns
the mutual intelligibility between Turkish and other Turkic languages.
The question
has been explored, for instance, by Talat Tekin (1979).[22]
Of course, no two languages can be entirely "mutually intelligible",
let alone the subjectivity of this concept, so by mutual intelligibility
we understand
mutual lexical proximity under standardized conditions. In any case, it
turns
out that Turkish is pretty much a western language and therefore is
rather distant
from other Turkic subgroups. Of major Turkic languages, it exhibits
close proximity
only to Azeri and some of the lesser Seljuk languages (such as Gagauz,
to which
it is particularly close), sharing with them most grammar and vocabulary
(cf.,
say, the relatedness of Spanish and Portuguese). There's much less
mutual intelligibility
with Turkmen than one could expect from their common Oghuz descent in
historical
records. On the other hand, Uzbek and Uyghur, despite being even further
geographically,
still share lots of familiar Old Turkic, Persian and Arabic words with
Tukish
and can be learned with some effort as any two in-group languages, for
instance
like English
and Danish. The intelligibility of Turkish with the languages that
had limited
contact with Oghuz tribes and the Arabo-Persian world, such as Kazakh
and Kyrgyz,
let alone the languages located to the east of the Altay Mountains,
seems to be
very poor or zero. However, many similar words and typical idioms (for
instance,
such as the local variants of var/bar/pur "there is" and yok/jok/s'uk
"there is not", to name just one of the most frequently used ones) can
be picked up even as far as Sakha and Chuvash, whereas the fundamentals
of basic
grammatical structure are largely similar in all the Turkic languages.
Based
on the meticulous lexicostatistical study of 215-word Swadesh lists,[2]
we can make conclusions concerning the actual mutual proximity of Turkic
languages
(see the clickable map above). Outside (1) Chuvash and (2) Sakha, which
have been
notorious for centuries for their independent positions, there are
several internal
lexical clusters or intelligibility islands: (3) Oghuz-Seljuk, (4)
Great-Steppe,
(5) Altay-Khakas, (6) Yugur (not measured herein because of the scarcity
of lexical
materials but clearly different) and (7)Tuvan, although (3a) Turkmen and
(4a)
Karachay-Balkar likewise seem to be rather detached from the rest. Note
that in
the real speech, the value for the subjective intelligibility will
normally be
much lower than the figures in the map obtained for the
standardized lexical
lists. For instance, 50% in the diagram will approach zero in a real
idiomatic
fluent speech of a native speaker, because of many additional effects.
On the
other hand, the abundance of shared Arabic and Russian borrowings will
procure
to the intelligibility in formal speech even between distant languages. |
A
note on the Silk Road and the Central Asian Bridge
One
can better understand the migation of Turkic languages after
familiarizing with
the geography of the Silk Road and the concept of the *Central
Asian Bridge. During the Middle Ages, people could not use flying
carpets.
Any kind of travel or ethnic migration could only proceed along narrow,
geographically
suitable pathways extending between deserts and mountain ranges and
forming a
natural, permanent network of migration routes. Basically, in Central
Asia, a
considerable part of this network became known as the Silk Road. The
Silk Road
is often considered merely from the economic perspective, although it
also played
a critical military, cultural, demographic, and linguistic role being an
absolutely
unique, vital artery which conveyed and maintained life in Eurasia for
many generations.
The Huns, the Turks, the Mongols, the Gipsies, whoever passed through
Central
Asia, could only travel along this natural migratory system;
consequently, the
distribution and classification of peoples in Asia is in fact nearly
predetermined
by the geographical structure of its routes and adjacent areas. That's
especially
true of the Turkic, Mongolic, and Iranian peoples who have lived by and
off the
Silk Road for hundreds of years. The Silk Road was also a streaming jet
of genes
running in the opposite directions that contributed to the exchange of
the human
DNA in Eurasia. It also carried infections, such as plague, in both
directions,
and brought tea, paper, compass, gunpowder, and other inventions to
Europe causing
it to rise from the Middle Ages into the era of art, reason, technology,
as well
as fierce firearm warfare. | |
A
note on clan societies
The
social
structure of Turkic (and other Eurasian) tribes has been based on
patrilineal
clans. In Europe, the clan structure has been well-known for Celtic
tribes.
In many way, clans [Scottish Gaelic clann, Old Irish cland
"tribe,
offsping"] [Also cf. semantically similar English kin, Old
English
cynn "relatives, family"]
worked in the same way as modern European surnames, which are apparently
nothing
but remnants of the Indo-European clan structure. Until the 20th century
and sometimes
later, the Turkic clans dictated many rules and laws of social living.
Each man
was supposed to know his family tree down to the 7th (Bashkir, Kazakh)
or at least
the 4th (Altayans?) generation. Each clan had a guardian spirit that
could be
interacted with through a shaman (kam) and some specific
sacrifices. A
clan often had a legendary progenitor, whose story had been passed down
in oral
tradition, and who had often in turn been connected to a totem animal.[23b][25]
Moreover, a clan often possessed a cattle tamga
(Mong. "brand"), which apparently correspond historically to the
European
coats of arms. We assume herein that the Turkic clan structure can be
seen as
a model for many societies of the Bronze and Iron Age, including
Indo-European.
Naturally,
a clan members were considered brothers and sisters who had many social
responsibilities
and could not intermarry either entirely (Altayans) or until a certain
generation.
Even today many Turkic society members often regard themselves as part
of a large
social family as opposed to the Western individualistic worldview.
Marriages were
often arranged by parents at a very early age — sometimes even at the
cradle
— with a member of a specific neighboring clan. The memory of cradle or
children's
marriages seems to be reflected in modern life when we say that "people
are
destined for each other". Though generelly the marriage customs varied.
For
instance, in other cases, the young man could choose his bride, and the
marriage
was accompanied by paying the bride price (qalïn) to the bride's
family.
Furthermore, judging at least by the detailed Genghis Khan's story,[23a]
in the case of the Mongols, wives and concubines could be obtained by
force as
war trophies. Alien clans could also be integrated into a local society,
which
explains why we find, for instance, Kipchak clans as far apart as the
Altai Mountains
and the Black Sea, and which also explains why people with different DNA
haplogroups
could be part of a society speaking the same language.
The
names of Turkic languages and clan names often seem to be connected. As
it has
been attempted to show in [On the origins of Turkic ethnonymy],[1]
the name of the strongest and richest clan was often passed to the
confederacy
of clans, and sometimes, after a thousand years or so, to the name of
language.
Taking the example of the Smiths in English, we could make a
reconstruction of
a certain male, apparently a blacksmith, that lived in England during a
certain
period before the 10th century, and if the English clan structure were
fully developed,
the English language could presently be called something like "Smithish"
or "Smithonian". Sometimes, such language naming was done almost
deliberately
in the course of the 20th century, for instance the failure to realize
that the
word Kypchak functioned basically just as a family name resulted in its
rather
unfounded extrapolation in Baskakov's classification [see below].
Moreover, in
practice the Smith family name was probably reinvented and readopted
many times,
so not all the Smiths are related to each other; by the same token, this
analogy
explains that not anyone who is called a Tatar or Kypchak has in fact
anything
to do with the original progenitor of Tatars or Kypchaks. In
many cases, trying to find the original meanings of Turkic ethnonyms
seems to
be quite pointless, since they often do not contain any more meaning
than, say,
Archer, Hawkins or Green, so unreasonable ethnonymic guessing is a
constant source
of errors and folk etymologies.
As
Radloff explained in the 1860's,[23b]
the 19th century's Kazakh social structure — which is apparently a
typical
representation of early Turkic societies in general — was built in the
following
way. At the basement of the social pyramid, there were 6-10 families
forming an
aul (a village) that used the same geographic pattern of
migration throughout
the year. The head of the aul was usually the oldest and the richest man
to which
the most aul members were personally related. At winter camps, several
auls formed
a larger gathering, where the judicial power belonged to a bey,
the richest
alderman that was able to settle any conflicts or disputes between
different auls.
Several clan subdivisions of this type formed a full clan, where the
internal
matters were usually settled by a council of beys. At times, a group
could branch
off from the rest of the old clan and receive the name of its new ruling
bey,
thus forming a new clan. Finally, to defend from external enemies or to
invade
them and capture their pastures, cattle or slaves, a number of clans
could be
united into a horde (an army) headed by an electable khan. The
rulers and
the ruling clans were known as ak sök "white bone", whereas
the common people were kara kalk "black people" or kara sök
"black bone". | |
Notes on transcription
The
UTF
encoding, let alone the IPA signs, were avoided right from the beginning
for reasons
of compatibility, consequently the present system of transcription and
transliteration
may seem slightly unusual.
ü,
ö
is used as in Turkish or German; ï is a back vowel similar to
the Russian
letter or the Turkish ; ê is mostly schwa as
in "about",
but in some languages may denote a different sound; N is the
nasal /ng/;
x is usually a velar similar to the Russian
or Spanish
or stronger; sh as in English; zh as in
"treasure"
or less palatalized; ð (in Bashkir, Turkmen) as in "this"; ß
as in "thump"; s' (in Chuvash) is a palatalized form of /s/
similar
to the Russian b> with the
soft
sign at the end or a soft /s/ to some extent similar to the Japanese
;
d' is a palatalized /d/ in Altay Turkic similar to the very light
pronunciation
of in English; J is a sound similar to in
"Jack"
or a strongly palatalized /d'/;
q
and G are respectively voiceless and voiced deep velars (or
even uvulars);
[Note that is the
traditional
way to denote the voiceless "throaty" sound in English, usually of
Arabic,
cf. "Quran", or Turkic origin, cf. "Nissan Qashqai"; even
though this sound must have been the original Proto-Turkic phoneme, it
seems to
be falling out of use throughout the Turkic history, being slowly
replaced by
/k/ and /g/ from Russian, Greek and other western languages. In other
words, the
/k/:/q/ distinction is in fact often non-phonemic: the /q/ is usually
pronounced
in /qa/, /qu/, /qo/, /qï/, but moved forward allophonically in /ke/,
/ki/.
Moreover, younger Russian-influenced speakers may replace it by /k/ or
attenuate
it in all the cases.];
*P/B
(in
Tuvan, Tofa, Proto-Turkic) is a way to denote reconstructed phonemes
probably
intermediate between /p/ and /b/ as in Mandarin or some Mongolic
languages;
D- (in Yugur, Tuvan) is a reconstructed phoneme probably
intermediate between
/t/ and /d/ as in Mandarin; -D- (in Old Turkic, intervocal) is a
reconstructed
phoneme that was probably similar either to the Spanish intervocal -d-
or the interdental English /ð/; *S (in Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic) is a
reconstructed
phoneme with much surrounding controversy, probably similar either to
the palatalized
/s'/ as in Chuvash or the Japanese /sh/ or the Russian /sch/ or even the
English
/J/; *R (in Proto-Turkic) is a reconstructed trill, probably a
mixture
of /r/ and /z/ as in Czech; *L (in Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic) is a
reconstructed
palatalized lateral fricative similar to the one in modern Khalkha
Mongolian, essentially a mixture of /l/ and /s/; *H marks
intense aspiration
or a similar reconstructed phoneme; ' after vowels (in Chuvash)
marks stress;
the pronunciation of certain other phonemes may in fact be unconfirmed,
unattested
or unknown.
The Turkic
languages do
not have any clearly defined rules for the dynamic stress as the
European languages
do, and the stress seems to vary depending on the intonation, but
separate words
are normally pronounced with the stress on the final syllable, e.g.
usually Tatar
/tah-TAR/. | |
Attempts
at the Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic reconstruction
Any
kind of reconstruction of a proto-language is more of an art than an
exact science,
so inevitably it should be taken with a grain of salt. As one should
understand
perfectly well, there is no such thing as the correct or
generally-accepted reconstruction,
they all are merely artificial approximations that normally cause much
unsubstantiated
argument among different authors, and in many cases are unfalsifiable.
Consequently,
Starostin's team's work typically cited for Proto-Turkic cannot be
viewed as ultimate
reality, either. For the same reason, there was some disagreement
between Yusuf
Gürsey and me (2009-10) on a number of issues in Proto-Turkic, e.g. the
problem
of the initial S*- vs. y*, the initial t-/d-, b-/m-
controversy,
the final -q in Chuvash, etc. In any case, the following brief
reconstruction
was performed to the best of my expertise and according to the outlines
in the
introduction to the main article.[1]
Listen to the audio
with Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic 1-10 numbers as they might have
sounded circa
1500 BC.
(If it doesn't open by itself, save and rename .wav to
.mp3; repetitions
reflect possible variations).
| |
|
| |
foot
|
star
|
red
| dry
| leaf | sleep | horn | liver | house |
1
|
2
|
3
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
9
|
10
|
Proto-
Turkic |
*aDax
|
*SâltâR
|
*xeRêl
| *xurGux | *Sâl-bïr-
-Gax | *uDu- | *mâïR,
*muïR | *baïr, *bawïr | *e:B |
*Pi:rê
|
*íxê
|
*üiSê
|
*tâörtê
|
*PeiL
|
*áltê
|
*Séttê
|
*sHáxêR
|
*táxêR
|
*ö:nn
|
Bulgaric
The present study[3]
suggests that the Bulgaric peoples must have migrated around the
Southern Ural
/YOO-ral/[26]
towards the middle
course of the Volga River somewhere during the Sarmatian period and the
beginning
of the Iron Age, that is c. 7th-3rd century BC.
In any case and for
all practical
purposes, one should keep in mind that the difference between Bulgaric
and Turkic
is very significant, and they should rather be viewed as separate
taxonomic groupings.
Herein, we consistently reserve the term Turkic (Proper) to refer
only
to the languages outside Bulgaric, using Bulgaro-Turkic as the
most general
term.
|
Subgroup:
Volga Bulgaric
Bulgars
/BOOL-gars/[26]
were a subgroup
of Turkic nomads that first appeared in the Caucasus c. 350 and then on
the Danube
/DAN-yoob/[26]
River
c. 475. They seem to have contributed to the creation of several
medieval kingdoms:
(0) the short-lived Old Great Bulgaria (632-671) founded by Khan
Kubrat
in the Pontic Steppe that led to the formation of the other three
affiliate states,
ruled by his sons: (1) Volga Bulgaria (670-1236)
along the
middle course of the Volga River, which finally gave rise to present-day
Chuvashia
/chu-VUSH-iya/; (2) Danube Bulgaria (670 -864), which gave
rise to
the modern Slavic-speaking Bulgaria; and finally (3) the
Khazar
Khagante /ha-ZAR, ka-ZAR/ (650-969) near the Caspian
Sea, which
disappeared, and which was famous for its Judaism.
The Khazar and
Bulgar languages
are only poorly attested in historical records. The Volga and Danube
Bulgar languages
are known in just a few inscriptions written with Greek and Arabic
characters
or Turkic runes. Khazar is only known from the inscription "oqurüm"
(I have read) and the name of the city of Sar-kel (=White House
or Tower).
Therefore, the only surviving remnant of Bulgaric languages is modern
Chuvash
descending from the language of Volga Bulgaria. | 
Khazars |
Volga Bulgars
| 
A Danube
Bulgarian |
|
|
| Chuvash | ura
ora | s'âltâr,
s'ôldôr | xêrlê | tipê
tibê | s'uls'â,
s'ôlzhâ, |
ïyha
ïyGô(n) | mây |
pêver
pôver | kil | pêrré | íkkê,
ígê
| vís's'ê
vízhê
| tâváttâ
tâvádâ | píllêk | últtâ
úldâ | s'íchê,
sízhê | sákkâr,
ságâr,
| tákhâr,
táGâr
| vúnnâ |
|
Modern
Chuvash /cha-VAHSH, chuh-VUSH/, cf. Russified pronunciation /choo-VUSH/
is still
spoken in the Chuvash Republic (capital: Cheboksary
/chehbok-SAR-eh/)
and is believed to be the direct descendant from the language of Volga
Bulgaria (ancient capitals: Bolghar and Bilar;
the latter was a large city about 2 miles across). Volga Bulgaria was
founded
c. 670, roughly between the modern cities of Kazan and Samara, near the
confluence
of the Volga and Kama /KAH-ma/[26]
River. Commanding the middle Volga, this state controlled trade between
the northern
Europe and Persia, and was similar in this respect to the Kievan Rus
/KEE-ee-van
ROOS/ that controlled the Dnepr /NEE-per/[26]
River. Volga Bulgaria was Islamized in 922 after being visited by an
Arab writer
and diplomat Ibn-Fadlan.
Curiously, his famous account inspired a modern book, whose plot was
used to make
The 13th Warrior movie starring Antonio Banderas. Volga Bulgaria
was destroyed
during the Tatar-Mongol invasion in 1236. Consequently, Middle Chuvash
has been
strongly affected by Tatar. Today, the "Devil's Tower" in the Yelabuga
/ye-LAH-booga/ town on the Kama River (fig. left below) is one of the
few standing
remnants of this long gone civilization, although the 13-14th cent.
buildings
in Bolghar (fig. right below) also preserve its spirit. In 1552, the
Russians
seized Kazan /ka-ZAN/[26]
further
affecting the Chuvash language and culture. In any case, the standalone
position
of Chuvash among other Turkic languages is rather indisputable, much of
its lexical
core is quite archaic, and it can be seen as one of the most valuable
data sources
for the purposes of Bulgaro-Turkic reconstruction. There are 1.04
million speakers
(2010),[24d]
most of them bilingual
in Russian. As an example, here's a very lovely
folk song (mp3) in Chuvash with an English
translation — note certain Slavic features in music and phonology.
Note
that most musical clips below are well-chosen and have pleasant, unusual
or enthralling
tunes, so we do recommend you listen to them as part of this ethnography
study. |
Chuvash
traditional dress (left); the reconstruction of the Bolghar City (right)
the
original Volga Bulgar tower in Yelabuga near the Kama river (left below)
the
restored buildings dating from the Golden Horde period (right below) |
|
Turkic (Proper)
The
topographic map of
the Altay-Sayan Mountains (clickable),
based
on maps
from topomapper.com |
This
taxon, named herein as Turkic Proper, excludes any Bulgaric languages.
It is also
sometimes confusingly known as common Turkic, which may have
misleading
associations with Proto-Turkic or even certain Turkic conlangs.
The
late homeland of Proto-Turkic Proper was evidently located near the
Altai-Sayan
Mountains /al-TY[26],
sah-YAHN[26]/,
most likely near northwestern ridges of the Altai between 900
BC and 300 BC. This conclusion[3]
can be drawn from the following evidence: (1) the historical
distribution of the
early Turkic tribes and the result of backtracking their migration
vectors; (2)
the location of the center-of-gravity point of the maximum language
diversification
area; (3) archaeological estimations; (4) the meticulous
glottochronological analysis.
Similar hypotheses were suggested, in fact, at least as early as the
19th century.[25]
This Proto-Turkic period seems to match the onset of the Iron Age in
West Siberia,
when iron daggers and horse riding became widespread, which might have
contributed
to the active spread of the early Turkic dialects. The
glottochronologically determined
time depth of the Proto-Turkic split, therefore, seems to be greater
than that
of Slavic or Romance (c. 1600 years ago) but more or less similar to
that of Germanic.
Apparently, there existed
three main
early Turkic dialects: (1) Eastern, that moved towards Lake
Baikal thus
forming Proto-Yakutic, (2) Central, that initially stayed near
the Altai,
(3) Southern, that migrated into Dzungaria
and Mongolia.
Despite
considerable
separation between these earliest branches, some of the Turkic languages
within
the internal subgroups may still retain a great deal of mutual
intelligibility
due to their recent diversification, common borrowings or posterior
contacts.
Linking
the early Turks to "Siberian Scythians"
After
the beginning of the Iron Age in West Siberia somewhere between 700 BC
and 300
BC, rich archaeological sites in the region of the Tian Shan, Altai and
Sayan
mountains mark the presence of the so called "Siberian Scythians"
—see the Pazyryk
/pah-zeh-RIK/ culture in the Altai Mountains, the Tagar
/ta-GAR/ culture along the upper Yenisei /YEH-ne-SEY/,[26]
the Uyuk /oo-YOOK/ culture in Tyva. These archaeological cultures
include burial
mounds, horse burials (usually regarded as typically Turkic by
archaeologists),
gold bead clothing (the Arzhan kurgan, Uyuk culture) and other gold
artifacts,
iron weapons, horse harness, chariots, petroglyphs, mummies in
permafrost, remnants
of clothing including well-preserved carpets, and other exceptional
finds. Despite
the name, no direct relatedness to the true western Scythians of
Herodotus can
be demonstrated in any possible way. The term "Scythian" as used in
this context should be understood a purely archaeological designation
describing
the mutual resemblance of the Iron Age cultures of Central Eurasia that
used similar
iron weaponry, horse harness, and particularly, the very specific
artistic style
with dynamic gold and bronze animal figurines. Therefore, based on the
temporal
and geographic coincidence, we can infer[3]
that these archaeologically attested ethnic groups could in fact
have formed
the basis for the late Proto-Turkic (Proper) unity and the early
Turkic
dialects after their initial spilt, although this is still
controversial.
Additionally, both the early Chinese records and the
anthropological and
genetic studies point to the presence of "European invaders" including
an unusually high concentration of the Proto-Indo-European R1a1
haplogroup in
the Altay-Sayan area, which matches the high R1a1 concentration in
modern Altay
and Kyrgyz people and other easternmost ethnic groups of Central Asia.
These findings
may lead to the representation of the early Turks as people of European
(Caucasian)
rather than Mongoloid descent. | |
(1)
Eastern Turkic Languages
The
reconstructed possible migration of Proto-Yakuts (clickable) |
This major grouping
includes only two known
representatives: Sakha (Yakut) and Dolgan (the northern
offshoot
of Sakha), which can be collectively called as Yakutic. The
drastic discrepancy,
that set Yakutic aside from any other Turkic languages, has been well
recognized
since the 19th century on. Most glottochronological studies [e.g.
Dyachok (2001)[10]
and herein (2009-12)[2]]
imply a very early separation of Proto-Yakutic from the main stem (at
least by
c. 200-300 BC or maybe even a few centuries earlier). However, there
seem to be
certain common features that this Eastern supertaxon shares with the
Central one.
After thorough consideration in this work, these features have been
attributed
to the secondary contact between the two supertaxa occuring soon after
the initial
Turkic split c. 400-200 BC.
| |
Subgroup
1:
YAKUTIC (EASTERN)
The
Lena migrants
|
Essentially, Yakuts are the Turkic
group resulting
from the migration along the Lena River (Anglophone: /LEE-na/,
Russophone:
/LEH-na).[26]
This has led to a
relatively recent distribution of Yakutic from the area of Yakutsk all
the way
to the Arctic Ocean. Sakha and Dolgan share many Mongolic lexical
borrowings,
and much of their vocabulary seems to come from an unknown source,
though there
are many important archaic Turkic features, as well. Russian cultural
loanwords
are also very typical. In any case, the Yakutic branch seems to be
highly deviant
in many respects, having little to do with its closest neighbors, Tuvan
or Khakas.
Generally, there isn't much doubt that the Yakutic subgroup should be
viewed as
an important, early-splitting branch of the Turkic languages. | | 
Sakha
warriors (staged) | 
A village along the
Lena |
Any
details concerning the early Proto-Yakutic migration are inevitably a
hypothetical
reconstruction, however the general outline of this migration is
becoming more
clear after the present research.[1]
Before the beginning of the common era, Proto-Yakutic must have moved
from
the Minusinsk Depression in the Altai Mountains towards Lake Baikal by
following
the upper reaches of Yenisei River that takes source in Mongolia near
Lake Khövsgöl.
Then, Proto-Yakutic people must have continued down the Irkut river
until they
reached the western shore of Lake Baikal /by-KAHL/,[26]
where the sources of Lena are located. There on the western and southern
shores
of Baikal the Proto-Yakuts apparently formed a tribal confederacy, known
as Kurykan
/koo-re-KAHN/, that supposedly existed c. 6-10th centuries,
according to archaeological
evidence and some scanty Chinese and Görkturk historical records.
The
further migration down the Lena was a much later event, most likely (but
not necessarily)
connected with the famous turmoil of the 13th century, when the
Proto-Yakuts could
have been expelled from their Baikal habitat by the invading hordes of
Buryats
and Mongols. This is supported by the evidence of a genetic bottleneck
that most
Proto-Sakha must have gone through[12a],
which may document an ancient holocaust, implying that most of
Proto-Yakuts were
exterminated during that period. However, some of them survived and fled
along
the Upper Lena towards the present-day Yakutsk. Any migration down the
Lena was
proceeding downstream, therefore being relatively effortless in terms of
geographic
constraints. The remote corners of the Lena basin were probably reached
only after
the introduction of firearms in the 17th century, and many areas of
taiga are
still uninhabited up to this day. | |
|
|
| Sakha (Yakut) | ataq | sulus | kïhïl | kura:naq | sebirdeq | utuy- | muos | bïar | Jie,
d'ie | bi:r | ikki | üs | tüört | bies | alta | sette | aGïs | toGus | uon |
|
| Yakut
/yah-KOOT/ (the usual name in Russian), or Sakha /sah-KHAH, sa-HA/
(self-appellation)
is spoken along the Lena watershed in the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic
of Russia
(capital: Yakutsk /yah-KOOTSK/), which is the largest in the
world subnational
governing body by area. Though looking big on the map, the region is in
fact covered
with dense taiga,
and
is scarcely populated, while most life is concentrated along rivers.
Historically,
the northern Yakuts were largely hunters, fishermen and reindeer
herders, while
the southern Yakuts raised cattle and horses. The city of Yakutsk
(originally
Lensky Ostrog "The Lena Fortess") was founded in 1632, when this
territory
was annexed by Russia. Religion: originally, Tengriism. C. 450 000
speakers (2010),[24d]
but most are bilingual in Russian. | | 
The Sakha
Beauty Contest | 
Oymyakon, the Pole of
Cold | 
Yakutsk in
winter |
|
|
| Dolgan | atak | hulus | kïhïl | kura:nak | hebirdek | utuy- | muos | bïar | | bi:r | ikki | üs | tüört | bies | alta | hette | agis | togus | uon |
|
| Dolgan
/dol-GAHN/ is the northernmost offshoot of Yakutic, spoken near the
Taymyr /ty-MIR/
Peninsula and other extremely scarcely populated areas of the northern
tundra.
It exposes evident Evenk influence and can be regarded as Sakha over the
local
Evenk substratum. According to Ubryatova (1985), Dolgan separated from
Sakha before
the end of the 16th century. There are c. 7000 Dolgans (2002), of which
less than
80% are actual native speakers. | |
|
(2)
Central Turkic Languages
This hypothetical major grouping
includes about
the 70% of all the present-day Turkic languages that extend from the
upper Yenisei
/YE-ne-SEY/[26]
basin in the east
all the way across the Great Steppe until the Black Sea in the west. The
supergrouping
consists of the two main subtaxa: (1) Altay-Sayan (Turkic)
and (2)
Great-Steppe (Turkic). [Note that the difference between
the spelling
of Altai Mountains and Altay (Turkic) languages; the names ending in -ai
reflect an older spelling, whereas -ay is a modern English
transliteration.]
Curiously,
most of the ethnic groups included into Central have been
historically
known as either Kyrgyz or Tatar. In some cases, these
names were
just a faulty exonym, but in other they seem to be authentic. At any
rate, Kyrgyz
and Tatar appear among the oldest ethnonyms and clan namesused by
Turkic
peoples.
The acceptable
pronunciation
is /kr-GEZ, ker-GIZ/; cf. the traditional Anglophone spelling and
pronuciation
Kirg(h)iz /keer-GEEZ/[26],
based on the Russified variant with an /ee/, but the original Turkic
phonology
is rather shorter and harder. In "Tatar", the traditional Anglophone
pronunciation is /TAH-ter/, though /teh-TAR/ is probably more clear and
authentic,
and has fewer negative historical connotations.
Just like
Yakutic, most
ethnic groups in this supertaxon have been part of the Russian Empire
since the
16th-17th centuries, so naturally most of these languages exhibit
pronounced Russian
influence particularly in the cultural and technical vocabulary. | |
Subgroup
2:
ALTAY-SAYAN (YENISEI KYRGYZ)
 An
approximate distribution
of the Altay-Sayan languages
circa
the beginning
of the 20th century
(clickable), based on maps
from the
1940-60's[12b][12c][12d] |
The Altay-Sayan
subgroup includes Altay,
Khakas, Tuvan and the languages closely elated to them. This subgroup
probably
corresponds to the descendants of the so called Yenisei
Kyrgyz, a historically important cluster of eastern Turkic
tribes that
were attested under various names in Chinese chronicles between 200-900
AD, but
which dissolved after the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. Their
territory
(particularly in Khakassia) was also mentioned under the name Kirgizskaya
Zemlitsa
"The Kirgiz Land" during the clashes with Russians in the 17th century.
The Yenisei Kyrgyz
originally seem
to have inhabited the Minusinsk Depression in Khakassia
(Minusinsk /mee-noo-SINSK/
is a city near Abakan, the capital of Khakassia). This is a
geographically suitable
plain with steppes, lakes, and valleys located along the upper Yenisei
between
the Kuznetsk Alatau /kooz-NETSK AH-lah-TOU/, Western, and Eastern Sayan
ridges.
Protected by these mountains, the Minusinsk Depression has relatively
mild climate
convenient for agriculture, to the extent that even cherry and apricot
orchards
have been grown there at least since the 19th century. By proceeding
south, up
the Yenisei River, and after crossing the Western Sayan, one can arrive
into the
interconnected Tuva Depression, where the Tyva Republic is
located, and
then, by following further along the uppermost reaches of the Yenisei,
into northern
Mongolia, inhabited by very remote and frequently omitted Tuvan-related
ethnic
groups (Tsaatans /tsah-TAHN/ and Soyots /saw-YOT/).
A Genghis
Khan movie filmed
in Tuva and Khakassia (2007)
Shors
processing
leather (1913)
|
A
note on the pronuciation of Tuva and Tyva must be added: the traditional
Anglophone
pronunciation is /TOO-va/, though the name of the country itself has
been formally
changed in the 1990's to Tyva /tuh-VAH/, which is closer to the
Turkic
original, whence the modern discrepancy.
Whereas
Tuvans often still live in classical yurts, many Khakas and Altay
peoples may
have lived in dugout log huts, leading semi-settled lifestyle, suitable
for fishing,
crop cultivation and metal working. It is in fact these types of
dwellings that
are typically found in archaeological sites across West Siberia in the
Bronze
and Iron Ages.
The
Proto-Altay-Sayan
or Proto-Yenisei-Kyrgyz tribes seem to be identifiable with the Tashtyk
/tash-TIK/ archaeological culture (2nd BC-5th AD) famous for their
stunning, poignant
funerary masks showing rather European features.
Another
striking trait is the odd ethnological resemblance of Altay and Tuvan
shamans
to the North American Indians, which may be far from coincidental,
judging by
the geographical proximity of Yeniseian,
which has recently been shown to be linguistically related to Na-Dene
(see Dene-Yeniseian
superfamily). The genetic studies (conducted since 1997) too demonstrate
high
concentration of Native American mtDNA lineages in Tuvan, Soyot, Khakas,
Altay,
and Buryat population [Zakharov (2003)].
The
Yenisei Kyrgyz are said to have destroyed the Uyghur (= Gökturk) Empire
in
Mongolia and its capital Ordu-Baliq /or-DOO bah-LIK/ in 840 AD,
which caused
the final dissipation of the Orkhon /or-HON/ Turkic peoples, but led to
the rise
of the Yenisei Kyrgyz Kaganate (840-1207).
The
Altay and Khakas languages and dialects seem to be rather archaic, and
contain
relatively few non-Turkic loanwords in their basic vocabularies, except
for abundant
borrowings into cultural vocabulary from Russian. Generally, Altay and
Khakas,
along with Kyrgyz of Kyrgyzstan, may provide some example of what late
Proto-Turkic
may have sounded like. Tuvan languages, on the hand, contain too many
Mongolic
borrowings.
The Altay and
Khakas population
has been historically subdivided into over a hundred clans, known as seoks
(sö:k "bone"), which suppose patrilineal genetic descendence
from a common progenitor.
On
the
meaning of Kyrgyz (Note: any ethnonymic
remarks are
unavoidably hypothetical.)
The
word "Kyrgyz" probably originates from the name or alias of an ancient
clan progenitor. This name must have spread to several other clans and
finally
become overused and ambiguously applied to many ethnic groups of various
descent.
It is supposed herein that the word by itself seems to have the same
root as in
*kyr- "to break" or as in *kork- "to fear" and
may contain a reduplication of *kyr-kyr > *kyr-kyz with the
first -r
retained before the consonant. Words of the same phonological shape in
Turkic
of West Siberia seem to allude to terror and force, cf. Tuvan korgysh,
Khakas xorGïs, Kyrgyz korkush "fear, terror"; Kazakh qurtu
"exterminate", qïrqu "shearing, cutting"; Altai
kïr "erase", kïrkïsh "shearing", Sakha kïrgïs
"fight, destroy each other", etc. A more popular but less likely
version is that the Kyrgyz ethnonym originates from qïrq + iz
"forty +
an unknown suffix". The outdated
ethnonym
"Karagas" for Tofa(lar) may be just another way to pronounce "Kyrgyz";
moreover, note the direct retention of this ethnonym in Fuyu Kyrgyz
in
China.
However, curiously
and quite
confusingly, the modern generic self-appellation of Khakas and Altay
peoples is
Tadarlar (Tatars), probably since the days of the widespread
usage of this
term in the Russian Empire of the 18-19th century. | |
Subgroup 2a:
Tuvan-Tofa (Sayan)
The
Yenisei Kyrgyz migrants to the Sayan Mountains
The Tuvan-Tofa subgroup includes
Tuvan (proper), Todzin, Tofa, Tsaatan and Soyot. It represents
those ethnic groups that settled in the south, near the border with
Mongolia —
along the uppermost reaches of the Yenisei in the Western and
Eastern Sayan
mountains, In
other words, from the geographic perspective, Tuvans ad their siblings
can only
be seen as those Yenisei Kyrgyz people that migrated along the Yenisei
from the
Minusinsk Depression into Tuvan Depression and nearby regions. Therefore
it may also be called the Sayan subgroup.
Glottochronologically, the
Tuvan-Tofa
subgroup must have separated from Proto-Khakas and Proto-Altay by about
250 AD.[2]
The Tuvan languages and dialects are rather peculiar and exhibit many
unusual
words, including Mongolic borrowings, so, for the most part, they cannot
be understood
by the Turks of Central Asia or even their closest Khakas-Altai
neighbors. The
self-appellation Tofa or Tïva might in some way be related
to the
name of the Tuba /too-BAH/ River (allegedly formerly known as Ul)
in the
Minusinsk Depression near Abakan, though this is controversial.
Curiously,
the Tuvan archaeological sites of the Uyuk culture reveal striking round
burials
under kurgans with unique gold artifacts (Arzhan-1, Arzhan-2)[11][12]
dating to 800-600 BCE, usually identified with the rather chimerical
"Siberian
Scythians".
Note that the
Tuvan
and Tofa(lar) spelling systems may contain voiced symbols, such as
,
, , which in practice denote the so called "weak"
consonants that are normally pronounced as unvoiced in the beginning or
as semi-voiced
in the intervocal position, as opposed to , ,
, denoting
aspirated consonants. | |
|
|
| Tuvan | put | sïldïs | qïzïl | qurgag | pürü | udu- | mïyïs | pa:r | ög | pir | i:yi | üsh | tört | pesh | aldï | chedi | ses | tos | on |
|
| Tuvan
is spoken in the Tyva /teh-VAH/ (outdated: Tuva /TOO-va/)
Republic
(the capital city: Kyzyl /keh-ZEL, kuh-ZUL/), which is suitably
located
in the Tuvan Depression along the upper Yenisei between the
Western Sayan
Ridge and the Tannu-Ola
Ridge near the Mongolian border. Tuvan has also been historically
known under
the ambiguous name Uriankhai /oo-run-HI/. Tyva
was a de jure independent state between 1920 and 1944, when it was
finally fully
annexed by the USSR. Traditionally,
nomadism; horse and cattle breeding; sedentary life in towns since the
19-20th
century. Religion:
Tibetan Buddhism and still some Tengriism. About
253.000 speakers (2010),[24d]
of
which at least 60% are bilingual in Russian. | |  |
|
|
| Todzin | | | | | | | | | | birè | ìi | üysh | dört | peish | àltï | t'etï,
chetï | sèes | tòos | on |
|
| Karagas
| | | | | | | | | | birä | ihi | üis, | tört | beis, | altè | t~edè | sehes | tohos | on |
|
| Tofa | But | sïltïs | qïzïl | qurGaG | Bür | udu- | miis | Ba:r | öG | Birä | ìhi | üysh | tört | Beish | àlti | chedi | sèhes | tòhos | on |
|
| The
Karagas people were thought to be extinct in the 19th century, yet the
Tofa(lar)s
/taw-FAH, taw-fa-LAR/ in the forests of the Eastern Sayan mountains seem
to be
their direct continuation. Tofa(lar) [the -lar just being a
Turkic plural
suffix] probably separated from Tuvan by migrating along the Greater
Yenisei towards
its source. They were recently, studied in detail by Rassadin
(1980's-2000's).
Reindeer breeding and hunting in the taiga; Tengriistic shamanims and
nomadism
before the 1930s. About 760 persons, 93 formally listed as Tofa speakers
(2010),[24d]
but just 15 active speakers (2002). There are c. 1900 Todzins (2010). |  |
|
Subgroup
2b:
Khakas-Shor-Chulym
The
Yenisei-Kyrgyz migrants along the Yenisei
The
Khakas subgroup includes at least the following representatives:
(Standard) Khakas
/ha-KUS, hhuh-KAHS/ (which is basically a rather artificial literary
20th century's
koine based on Sagai) and several more true-to-life vernacular
languages, such
as Sagai /sa-GY/ proper (presently, the most commonly spoken
vernacular
Khakas, situated to the east of the Kuznetsk Alatau Mountains), Kach(a)
(Russian "kAchinskiy"; actually from the old self-appellation /qa:sh/;
now rare, though still active in the beginning of the 20th century), Kyzyl
(almost extinct), Koibal, Beltir (extinct); Mras-Su Shor, Kondom Shor
(meaning
the Shor people living along the Mrassu and Kondom Rivers near the
Kuznetsk Alatau);
Middle Chulym /choo-LIM/ (spoken in a couple of villages, in
remote northern
areas along the middle course of the Chulym River), possibly Lower
Chulym (acc.
to a local researcher, the last speaker died in 2010). According to
Baskakov's
classification (1960-80's), the subgroup may even include some of the
northern
Altai dialects.
The modern
ethnonym
"Khakas" was rather artificially created only in 1918, patterned on
the then-supposed reading of Chinese chronicles [see the discussion in
the published
correspondence by Yakhontov, Butanayev (1992)].[13]
This word is still out of use in Khakas communities, except for formal
occasions,
with the self-appellation "Tadar(lar)" being used instead; the latter
ethnonym is also generally accepted among the Altay people. The reason
why the
original generic name for Khakas appears to be lost must be connected to
the long-standing
differentiation of the Khakas subgroup.
The
Khakas peoples had traditionally practiced nomadic herding, agriculture,
hunting,
and fishing, but were mostly Russified and Westernized in the course of
the 20th
century.
| |
Khakas |
Sagai
Khakas
| azax | chïltïs | xïzïl | xuruG | pür | uzu- | mü:s | pa:r | ib | pir | iki | üs | tört | pes | altï | cheti | segis | toGis | on |
|
|
| Khakas
/hhuh-KAHS/ is spoken in the Republic of Khakassia /ha-KAHS-iya/
(capital:
Abakan /aba-KAHN/), that was annexed to Russia in 1727. It is
rather
a collection of dialect-languages originally dispersed along the
upper Yenisei
in the Minusinsk Depression, but presently surviving in its pure form
only as
Sagai in villages along the Abakan River. Formally, 72.950 who
consider
themselves "Khakas" and c. 42.000 speakers (2010),[24d]
but most of them are proficient in Russian. | | 
A traditional Khakas
wedding
(c. 1915) |  |  |
|
| Shor | azaq | chïltïs | qïzïl | quruq | | chat- | mü:s | | em | pir | iygi,
igi | üsh | tört | pesh | altï | chetti | segis | togus | on |
Shor
(2840 speakers (2010)[24d]),
further in the Kuzentsk Alatau, is a small ethnic group closely related
to Khakas
people. The Shor people that lived in forested areas between the Altai
and Kuznetsk
Alatau created peculiar songs, such as Pörü
"The wolf" (so skillfully performed by Chiltis Tannagasheva). It sounds
like this song really doesn't go well with the modern studio, being
associated
with an entirely different story of prehistoric survival.
| |
|
| Fuyü Gïrgïs | azïh | | qïzïl | | | uzi | | | ib | bïr | igi | ush | durt | bish | altï | chiti | sigis | doGus | on |
Fuyu Kyrgyz
is an often omitted and oddly located, presently nearly extinct variant
of Khakas
in northeastern China. It is now remembered only by the elderly
and only
to a very small extent. It was originally distributed to the northwest
of Harbin
along the Nenjiang River near a town called Fuyü, hence the odd
exonym;
the self-appellation is in fact Gyrgys or Xyrgys. The Fuyü
Kyrgyz
seem to have been exiled form Khakssia to Dzungaria in 1703-06 and then
resettled
to China in 1761 after the conquest of Dzungaria by the Qing Empire.
They apparently
belongs to the Khakas subtaxon (cf. namir < Khakas nanmïr
"rain";
suG "water"). They were studied by Hu, Zheng-Hua (1982), and recently
revisited by Butanayev (2005) from Khakassia. No detailed description is
available
(in Mandarin only?). Religion: originally shamanism, then Lamaism.
| |
Chulym |
|
| Chulym | azaq,
azax | chïltïs | qïzïl,
xïzïl
| xuruG | pür | uzu- | mü:s | pa:r | em
ib, uG | pir',
pär | igi,
eke | üts | tört | pesh | altï | chetti,
chittä
| segis | toGus | on |
| The Chulym
/choo-LIM/ river (the tributary of the Ob) is hidden a long way to the
north from
any Khakas or Altay areas. Local villages seem to be situated at the
very edge
of the world: there are basically hardly any human settlements to the
north of
them for a good thousand miles, nothing but taiga and marshland. In the
20th century,
Chulym was studied by Dulzon (1940-60's) and Biryukovich (1970's). After
their
formal recognition in 2001 as a separate ethnicity, the Chulym people
managed
to set up their own village festivals and teachlanguage lessons.
Precontact way
of living: fishing, millet and barley cultivation, dug-out dwellings.
Religion:
shamanism before the 18th century, presently atheic or orthodox. 355
persons, only 45 speakers (2010)[24d]
(cf. 380 speakers in the 1970's).
[Note that there exists another Chulym River, the tributary of Lake
Chany] |
| 
(1)
Pasechnoye Village at the Middle Chulym (2010): almost a one-village
country;
(2) Horsemen at the Chulym festival |
|
|
| The
existence of Melet and Tutgal variants in Middle Chulym spoken in
different
villages indicate at least several hundred years of differentiation. Lower
Chulym has been traditionally described as a "Chulym dialect",
despite
the many differences, the influence from Tomsk
Tatar and the distant location,
all of
which set it apart; it apparently went extinct in 2010. Küärik,
a third main dialect of Chulym along the lower course of the Kiya river
(a tributary
of Chulym), had disappeared in the beginning of the 20th century.[16a]
These facts suggest that Chulym was a small subgroup of languages. | |
|
Subgroup 2c:
Altay (Turkic)
The
Yenisei-Kyrgyz
migrants
to the Altai Mountains
The Altay
(Turkic) subgroup
is a complex assortment of rather poorly studied dialect-languages with
ambiguous
classification, some of which may exhibit proximity to Khakas, while
others to
the Tian-Shan Kyrgyz. The peculiarities of the lesser Altay languages
are frequently
underestimated or completely ignored.
There are now 65.500 nominal
speakers
of the Altay languages (2002), though the local dialects quickly fall
out of use.
According to Baskakov (1969),[7]
who studied some of them in vivo after the WWII, the subgroup may have
the following
structure:
The North
Altay Turkic
subtaxon includes:
(1) Kumandy /koo-MAHN-deh,
koo-mahn-DEE/ (2890
persons, c. 740 speakers (2010);[24d]
(2) Chalkan /chal-KAHN/ or Kuu /KOO/ (1180 persons,
all bilingual
in Russian; named after the Kuu ("Swan") River);
(3) Tuba
/too-BAH/ (rather intermediate between North and South, 1965 persons,
230 speakers
(2010)).
The South Altay
Turkic
subtaxon includes:
(1) Standard Altay, or Altay-kizhi
/al-TUY
kee-ZHEE/ from kizhi "person", or Altay (Proper).
There are 74.230 persons formally listed as "Altayans", c. 56.000
speakers
(2010).[24d]
Before 1948, the Altay
people were confusingly named "Oyrots" after the subgroup of Mongolic
languages due to their interaction with the Dzungarians in the 18th
century, though
Radloff (1860's) called them "Altayans".
(2)
Teleut /te-leh-OOT/ (used as standard before 1917; 2640 persons,
975 speakers
(2010)); for a typical example of the Teleut speech, see this
clip (it is probably
pretty close
to what late Proto-Turkic sounded like);
(3) Telengit /te-len-GIT/
(situated further in the mountains, thus is less affected by external
influence;
3710 persons (2010), mostly village dwellers).
Altay (Turkic) is sometimes viewed as rather intermediate between Khakas
and Kyrgyz
languages. However, much of the Altay vocabulary seems to match
Khakas,
and to a lesser extent, Tuvan, therefore, according to the
present study,[1]
Altay (Turkic) should be seen as part of the Altay-Sayan
subgroup, being
closely related to Khakas. Also, note that much of the southern
Altai Mountains
are located in eastern Kazakhstan, which may explain certain
non-Altay-Sayan features
in Altay Turkic as a result of secondary interaction with Kazakh.
Also note
that the Altai
Republic
(capital: Gorno-Altaysk) and the Altai
Krai /al-TY KRY/(administrative center: Barnaul /bar-na-OOL/)
are geographically
connected but politically different federal subjects of the Russian
Federation
that should not be conflated. Altay peoples are mostly situated in the
Altay Republic,
whereas Altai Krai is presently almost entirely Russian-speaking. | |
|
| North
Altay (Turkic) |
|
Kumandy | ayak;
but
| zhagan;
cholbon | kïzïl | kurgak | bür | uyta-;
uyïkta | mü:s | pu:r,
bu:r | ük, uk, uu | bir | eki,
iki | üch | tört,
türt | pish
| altï | cheti | segis | togus,
togïs | on,
un |
|
| Kumandy
is spoken by merely 1000 speakers living along the Biya river. In the
word Kumandï,
-dï is a Turkic suffix marking an adjective, therefore the
original meaning
was "of Cumans, Cumanic". The Kumandy language was described by Baskakov
(1972). Just as other North Altay languages, it seem to share many
common elements
with Khakas, Chulym and Shor, e.g. (1) *S- > ch- in cheti
"seven"
and n'- as in nimïrtka "egg", cf. Khakas cheti, nïmïrxa
; (2) sug with the final -G "water, river", just as in
Khakas, (3) the archaic -dï-bïs, -dï-vïs ending in the 1st
person, plural,
past tense, instead of -d-uk, -d-ïk, as in most western Turkic
languages.
| | 
A Kumandy fisherman |
|
South
Altay
(Turkic) |
| Standard
(South) Altay | but,
put;
| d'ïldïs | qïzïl | qurgak | d'albïraq;
bür, büri,
pür(i)
| uyukta- | mü:s | bu:r,
pu:r | üy | bir | eki | üch | tört | besh,
pesh | altï | d'eti | segis | togus | on |
|
The
official written language of the Altai Republic is based on the language
of the
Altay-kizhi people. In phonology, the South Altay subgroup is
characterized by
the word-initial palatalized light /d'-/ or /J'/ as in /d'ok, J'ok/
"there
is not", /d'ol, J'ol/ "way", etc. About 56.000 speakers (2010).
| |
 |
|
| Listen
to the Altay throat singing by AltaiKai in Batïrïs
jurtaGan literally "Bigman-our yurted" — "Once upon
a time there lived our warrior (strongman)". | |
|
Subgroup 3
Great-Steppe (Turkic)
Most Turkic languages of the Great
Steppe have
been shown[1]
to belong
to the single major genetic taxon that contains the following
subdivisions: (3a)
the Kyrgyz(-Karluk) subgroup, including Kyrgyz, Kazakh,
Karakalpak
and hypothetically the unattested dialect of the Karluks; (3b) the
Chagatai
subgroup, including early medieval Chagatai, and the several
dialects of Uzbek
and Modern Uyghur; (3b) the Kimak subgroup (or
Kimak-Kypchak-Tatar subgroup),
which includes languages stemming from the Kimak Confederation and
the Golden
Horde expansion, such as Kazan Tatar, Bashkir, northern Crimean Tatar,
Nogai,
Kumyk, Karachay-Balkar. Note that the former two groups, 3a and 3b —
Kyrgyz(-Karluk)
and Chagatai — are probably more closely related to each other than to
Kimak.
The
existence of the Great-Steppe genetic unity explains why most of these
distantly
located languages usually share good mutual intelligibility with each
other, subjectively
up to 70-80% in real speech, according to reports of proficient speakers
on the
web.
The Great Steppe taxon
must stem
from the most archaic segment of late Proto-Turkic originally dispersed
in the
Kulunda /koo-LOON-da, koo-loon-DAH/ Steppe and near the Middle and Upper
Irtysh
/ir-TISH/[26]
River. This segment
had not been involved in the earliest Turkic migrations occurring right
after
the initial Proto-Turkic split, since its representatives began to
advance in
the western direction only after about 600-700 AD. Consequently, the
languages
of the Great Steppe exhibit many archaic features, but few borrowing and
innovations,
with Kyrgyz probably being the most typical example of an archaic and
physically
isolated typical Turkic language. | |
Subgroup 3a:
Kyrgyz-(Karluk)
The
Karluks and Kygyz that migrated to the Tian Shan
The
earliest migrations in this taxon were probably connected with the
settlements
in the vicinity of the Tian Shan Mountains. The latter are known as Tanrï
da: in Turkish, Tengri taG in Uyghur and Te:nger
U:l
in Mongolian meaning "heavenly (or God's) mountains", which
suggests
that the Chinese name tien shang "sky mountains" may merely be
a reinterpretation of a Turkic or Mongolic original.
The
Karluk Confederation descendants
It
should be explained that the exact origins and dialectal affiliation of
Karluks
is obscure, but herein they are viewed as an ethnic group closely
related to Kyrgyz,
which is more of an educated guess than a well-supported hypothesis.
The
Karluk /kar-LOOK/
Confederation (766 –840) was a medieval state located in the Zheti-Su
(Jeti-Su) ("the Seven Waters"), a historical region between the Tian
Shan and Lake Balkhash /bahl-KAHSH,[26]
bal-HUSH/ near the present-day Kyrgyzstan. Originally, the
Karluks
seem to be a clan from the Altai Mountains that c. 665 had migrated
towards the
Irtysh River, finally reaching the Zheti-Su by c. 700 AD. After the
famous Battle
of Talas /ta-LAHS/ in 751, when the Chinese forces were defeated by
the Arabs,
the Karluks were able to occupy Suyab, the capital of the Western
Gökturk Kaganate,
and, beginning of 766, gained control over the northern part of the Silk
Road
and the whole Zheti-Su region. They were partly converted to Islam c.
780. In
840, the Karluk Kaganate was subdued by a second migration wave of the
Yenisei
Kyrgyz (from the Altai Mountains?), further increasing their cultural
influence
in the region. By 940, their Kaganate was captured by the Karakhanids.
It
seems that after the disappearance of the Karluks, the region was
occupied by
Kyrgyz tribes, though it is entirely uncertain when and why the Kyrgyz
people
first appeared in Kyrgyzstan, with different sources citing different
opinions
on the matter. At any rate, a Turkic tribe named Kyrgyz,
apparently from
the Tian Shan region, was mentioned at least as early as 1073 by Mahmud
al-Kashgari. | |
|
| Tian
Shan Kyrgyz |
Kyrgyz
| ayaq | Jïldïz | qïzïl | qurGaq | Jalbïrak | ukta- | müyüz | bo:r | üy | bir | eki | üch | tört | besh | altï | Jeti | segiz | toGuz | on |
|
 |
| |
Kyrgyzstan
/KIR-giz-STAHN/(capital: Bishkek /bish-KEK/) is a small
mountainous country
in the Tian Shan Mountains near Lake Issyk Kul /EE-sek KOOL/,[26]
originally situated along the northeastern part of the Silk Road. The
legendary
history of the Kyrgyz people, including battles against Kitans and
Dzungarians,
are described in the Epic
of Manas /ma-NAHS/, an extremely long, orally transmitted
poem first
mentioned in the 16th century and written down in 1885. Kyrgyzstan was
integrated
into Russia in 1876, but eventually became independent in 1991.
Youngsters often
no longer speak Russian. The Kyrgyz /kr-GIZ; keer-GEEZ/ people and
langauge were
known as "Kara-Kyrgyz" before 1920s.
Religion: formally Muslims,
though, as Radloff attested (1860's)[23b],
Islam did not take much root among Kazakh, and even less so, among the
Kyrgyz
tribes of the 19th century, so both languages are relatvely free of
Arabic borrowings
and the Islamic tradition. C. 4 million speakers.
Listen to
the song
Age
18 from the 1960's peformed by Zhanetta Bobkova (2009) — a nice
voice,
and the poetry and the girl (and the numerals) — as well as another old
song:
Ömür
daira "The River of LIfe" by Kochkoro. | |
|
|
| Kazakh | ayaq | zhûldïz | qïzïl | qûrGaq | zhapïraq | ûyïqta- | müyiz | bawïr | üy | bir | eki | üsh | tort | bes | altï | zhetti | segiz | toGïz | on |
|
The Republic of Kazakhstan
/KAH-zak-STAHN/
(capital: Astana /AHS-ta-NAH/) is just that giant, eye-catching
spot on
the map of Central Asia. Despite its large size, much of central
Kazakstan's territory
is in fact semi-desert continental steppe with most population
concentrated in
the northern area along the border with Russia or near the Tian Shan
Mountains.
Note the former capital Almaty /AHL-ma-TEE/ probably from Kyrgyz Alma
To: "Apple Mountain"). Historically, the Kazakh /ka-ZAHK,[26]
ka-ZAHH/ people seem to be just those Kyrgyz nomads that spread beyond
their original
Jeti-Su homeland and the Chu river near the Tian-Shan after the 1460's,
and whose
language was afterwards strongly affected by the Noghai and Tatar
dialects of
the dissolved Golden Horde.[1]
In the 17th-18th centuries the country was divided into the three
zhüzes
(jüzes) (large confederacies of Kazakh tribes). Since the 1820's, Russians
in Kazakhstan began to use Kazakhstan's territory for coal mining,
agriculture,
nuclear tests, and launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Kazakhstan
became independent
in 1990, emerging as a huge Central Asian power with rapidly growing
economy and
relatively high level of urbanization. Kazakh and Kyrgyz are mutually
intelligible,
and the Kazakhs were even named "Kazak-Kyrgyz" or "Kaisak-Kyrgyz" ,
but usually just Kyrgyz between the 1730's and 1920's (the
self-appellation seemed
to be Kazakh, though) [see e.g. Melioranskiy (1894).[14]]
Cf. an old Kazakh saying, "Kazakh and Kyrgyz are one kin, but who in the
world made Sart? (=a Chagatai city dweller, trader, an Uzbek)." (/qazaq
qyrGyz
bir tuGan, sart shirkindi kim tuGan/) C. 12 million speakers.
Listen to
the Jalgan
ay folk song by Asemkhan from the Xinjiang autonomous region in
China where
Kazakh is also spoken — a nice and clear eastern Kazakh pronunciation
with
no trace of Russian and an admirable voice.
|
| 
Modern buildings in
Astana
(upper row): (1) The Pyramid of Peace;
(2) The Khan Shatyry
Entertainment
Center; (3) The Bayterek in the distance |
|
|
Kara-
kalpak | ayaq | zhuldïz | qïzïl | qûrGaq | zhapïraq | uyqïla- | muyiz | bawïr | üy | bir | eki | üsh | tört | bes | altï | zheti | segiz | toGïz | on |
|
| Karakalpak
/ka-RAH-kal-PAHK/[26]
from the autonomous
Republic of Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan (capital: Nukus
/noo-KOOS/) is
nearly (but not quite) a dialect of Kazakh located near the southwestern
coasts of the Aral Sea. Since the Amu Darya /ah-MOO DAR-ya/[26]
(the Oxus) inflow had been diverted for irrigation, the Aral Sea shrunk
and almost
disappeared by the 1990's causing terrible deterioration in the region.
Karakalpak
exhibits even more Nogai-Tatar influence than Kazakh. The ethnonym
literally means
"black hats" (= brave warriors). | |
The
relatedness of Kazakh and Kyrgyz
The current lexicostatistical study[2]
demonstrates that modern Kyrgyz (of Kyrgyzstan) and Kazakh (of
Kazakhstan)
are suprisingly close (circa 91-92% in Swadesh-215), probably
even
constituting a single dialectical continuum at their geographic
extremes. As mentioned
above, both ethnic groups were commonly known as Kirgiz until the
1920's.
The classical Baskakov's
classification
(1952)[6][7]
used to relate Kazakh to Nogai and the other "Kipchak" /keep-CHAHK/
languages (herein often renamed to Kimak), whereas Kyrgyz in that
classification
was locked away into a special subgrouping along with South Altay.
However,
we should take one step further and differentiate between Kazakh and
Nogai. Baskakov,
an author and coauthor of Nogai dictionaries and textbooks during the
postwar
1940-50's, seemed to view Nogai as particularly close to Kazakh, however
a closer
exaination of his classification reveals that he failed to differentiate
between
shared archaisms and innovations. There in fact turns out to be little
evidence
relating modern Nogai of North Caucasus, a rather typical Kimak
language, directly
to Kazakh, whereas most shared features are archaic retentions typical
of many
Great-Steppe languages. This does not mean however that there is nothing
in common,
and certain features, such as the /ch/ > /s/ mutations indeed seem to
be innovative.
Kazakh,
which occupies the vast steppe of Kazakhstan, must have separated from
the Kyrgyz
stem in the Zheti-Su region in the 15th century. According to the
present
study,[1]
it seems
to have been affected by a Tatar dialect of the Nogai Horde and
acquiered certain
new features which differentiated it from the Kyrgyz foundation. This
seems quite
logical, considering that the period of dispersal of the Nogai Horde
during the
2nd half of the 16th century matches the early formative days of Kazakh,
and some
of the stray Nogai clans could have intermixed with the early Kazakhs,
at least
in theory. This posterior contact could have occurred somewhere near the
Ural
(Yaik) River.
On the
other hand,
the Kyrgyz language of Kyrgyzstan, isolated in the Tian Shan mountains,
retained
more archaisms of the Altay type and probably even acquired new Altay
borrowings
during the Dzungarian invasion of the Oyrots in the 17th century.[1]
There is good phonological correspondence between Kyrgyz and South
Altay, including
some shared isolexemes, such as Kyrgyz and Standard Altay but
"leg",
Kyrgyz chong, Standard Altay d'a:n "big", etc. As a
result,
Kyrgyz speakers may find Altay languages rather intelligible.
The relatedness
between Altay, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Nogai and Kazan Tatar is a typical
example of Turkic
languages forming a dialectal continuum with many secondary seams. So,
to
rephrase the old quote, if one could take a ride in the 19th century
from
the Altai Mountains to Kazan, in each town on the way, there would be a
dialect
only slightly different from the one in the previous town. | |
|
|
The
tribes that crossed the Tian-Shan into the Tarim Basin
The
Chagatai Khanate
descendants
The
patchwork of Central
Asian languages gets particularly complex at this point. Somewhere
during the
turmoil of the Mongol invasion in the 13-14th century or shortly before
it, a
certain segment of Proto-Kyrgyz-Kazakh speakers situated at the foot of
Tian Shan
Mountains, such as Karluks, must have spread over the mountain ridges
into the
Karakhanid /ka-RAH-ha-NEED/ Khanate territory, largely displacing the
local Karakhanid
language and intermingling with it, thus creating the basis for what
soon became
known as the medieval literary Chagatai language. As a result,
the present-day
Kazakh and Kyrgyz are particularly close to Uzbek and Uyghur[1],
sharing with them about 83% of lexemes in the 215-word Swadesh list
(borrowings
excluded).
Even though the
spoken
Chagatai must have split up into western and eastern dialect about the
14-15th
century and finally transformed into the modern Uzbek /OOZ-bek[26],
ooz-BEK/ and Uyghur /ooy-GOOR/ languages of today, the written
Chagatai
was used as a common medieval Turkic lingua franca in literature and
written correspondence
until about the 19th century. | |
Chagatai |
|
| Chagatai+
| ayaq,
ayaG | yulduz | qïzïl | quruq,
quruG | yapurGan yapurGaq yapurGaG
| uyu | | baGïr | üy | bir | iki | üch | tört | besh | altï | yeti | sekiz | toquz | on |
|
Chagatai /chah-ga-TY/ is essentially
Middle
Uzbek-Uyghur, and an indirect continuation of Karakhanid.
Originally, it
was the language of the Chagatai
Khanate (c. 1230-1700) established by the Mongols to replace the
Karakhanid
dynasty — Chagatai Khan was the second son of Genghis Khan. At its
greatest extent,
the Chagatai Khanate domains spread from the Irtysh River in Siberia
down to Ghazni
in Afghanistan, and from Transoxiana to the Tarim Basin, which obviously
contributed
to the acceptance of the Chagatai language. The period of the classical
Chagatai
literature starts with the publication of Navai's
/NAH-vah-EE/ (1441-1501) poetry. After that, Chagatai lived its heyday
during
the Timurid Empire.
As a result, between 1400 and 1920,
Chagatai transformed
into a sophisticated Central Asian koine written with the Perso-Arabic
alphabet
and having many local variations. The latter are often known as Türki
/tur-KEE/
variants. As much as the Arabic script created difficulties in phonetic
interpretation,
it provided laxness for dialectal variation and cross-cultural usage.
Each dialect
user could write and reinterpret the written in his own Turkic dialect
using the
same writing system, therefore Chagatai can also be seen as a written
communciation
system rather than a real spoken language.
As
mentioned above, the early spoken Chagatai seems to have developed as a
Kyrgyz(-Karluk)
language strongly affected by Karakhanid.[1]
The number of Persian and Arabic loanwords in Chagatai was
particularly
high due two the widespread Turkic-Persian bilingualism at the time.
Consequently,
one may assume that the emergence of the early Chagatai was very similar
to the
rise of Middle English from the Danish and Anglo-Saxon interference with
multiple
French and Latin borrowings. Finally, the four different medieval
cultures (Karluk,
Karakhanid, Persian, and Arabic) mixed and blended, creating the variety
of today's
Uzbek and Uygur dialects with their distinct local flavor, as well as
the strong
recent Russian or Chinese influence. Unsurprisingly, Uzbek, which is in
fact
the modern-day Chagatai descendant, is still the most widely spoken
Turkic language
apart from Turkish and Azeri.
Listen
to Qaro
ko'zlar (Urgelai) "(Your) black eyes (My beloved one)" sung
by Uzbek singer/actress Ziyoda and styled as Babur's
/bah-BOOR/ poetry of the 16th century [Uzbek and Turkish subtitles,
though the
Uzbek ones are skewed towards Turkish], the exquisite and refined music
clip may
catch your fancy. |
|
|
|
|
| Uzbek | oyoq | yulduz | qizil | quruq | yaproq | uxla- | shox,
mûgiz | zhigar
| uy | bïr | ikkí | uch | tôrt | besh | âltí | yettí | sakkíz | tôkkíz | ôn |
|
|
The Republic of Uzbekistan (capital
Tashkent)
is mostly desert territory, with life historically concentrated only in
the fertile
Fergana Valley
and
southern oases of arable land along the Zeravshan River known as Sogdiana,
including such prominent, large, ancient cities as Khujand
(founded by Alexander the Great in 329 BC), Bukhara
/English boo-KAH-rah,[26]
Russian boo-ha-RAH, Uzbek boo-haw-RAW/(since 500 BC) and Samarkand
(since 700 BC). The Arabic name for the region was "Mawaran-nahr",
meaning
"beyond the river", the Oxus, hence also Transoxiana in Latin.
The invasion of the Karakhanid Khanate by the Mongols in 1219 led to the
establishment
of the Chagatai Ulus and the diffusion of the Chagatai language over the
Persian
substratum. Timur/
Tamerlane
/tee-MOOR, TA-mer-layn/[26]
who was born near Samarkand, was a conqueror of Central Asia, who
founded the
Timurid dynasty
(1370-1585)
and was famous for his brutality. Presently, Uzbek is a robust,
significant Central
Asian language with several internal dialects and 25 million speakers
(about
40% non-Russophone). Among its typical features is the loss of the vowel
harmony.
Before 1924, the Uzbeks used to be known as "Sarts" (originally, townspeople,
or city dwellers as seen by nomads in the north) and the Uzbek
language
as Sart tili.[25]
|
| 
Left
to right: (1) Chai-khana (tea house) visitors (an early true color
photo, c. 1911!,
true color photography by Prokudin-Gorski);
(2) downtown Samarqand today; (3) a pilaf
dish (4) The Emir of Bukhara (c. 1911!);
(5) Uzbeks as excellent
market traders
(present-day) |
|
Here is a modern blissful love song Chegaralar
bormu qaysarliklaringä? "Are there any limits
to your stubborness? " The song is performed in the 1970's style,
farcically
recreating everyday life in the Soviet Union. Moreover, watch a clip (in
English)
with an
Uzbek family near the Zeravshan Mountains stillliving in the old
ways.
|
|
Khwarezm [Uzbek: /hhaw-RAZM/;
Russophone:
/hhaw-REZM/; the odd English spelling come from Persian] is a historical
oasis
civilization in Central Asia that deserves special mention. It was
located in
the lower course of the Amu Darya (Oxus) River, on the border of
Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan,
and Karakalpakistan (=the autonomous republic of Uzbekistan). The rise
and demise
of Khorezm have been connected to the instability of the Amu Darya
(Oxus) riverbed
that in its upper course flows through the Kara
Kum ("Black Sand") and Kyzyl
Kum ("Red Sand") deserts. In 1598, the Amu Darya had turned off
from the Caspian Sea to the north thus leading to the formation of the
Aral Sea
as it was known until the 1990's, when it dried up again, partly due to
another
change of the Amu Darya course that turned to Lake
Sary-Kamysh ("Yellow Reed"). The dry Amu Darya riverbed is known
as the Uzboy. The
Khwarezmian
language of East Iranian stock has been spoken in the area until the
8th-13th
century, but was mostly eradicated by the Arab and then finally by the
Mongol
invasion. Khwarezm was famous for a number of early scholars. Muhammed Al-Khwarezmi
(=from Khwarezm) (780-850) was a famous Arabic-writing mathematician,
who introduced
the decimal positional numbers to the Western world and whose name is
commemorated
in the word "algorithm". Al-Biruni (973-1048) was a polymath, known
as the founder of Indology, and a contemporary of Avicenna
(980-1037) from Bukhara. Avicenna, too, visited Köhne-Urgench
(Turkmen: "Old Urgench" /oor-GENCH/), the capital of Khwarezm,
established
as early as about the 5th century BC. During the Karakhanid rule in the
12-13th
century, the main language in the area was the Khwarezmian dialect of
Karakhanid
that used the Arabic script and that must have been gradually supplanted
by Uzbek
Chagatai. After the bloody massacres of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane
invasions and
the drying of the Uzboy river, the capital was transferred from Old
Urgench to
Khiva /hee-VAH/. Khiva
was taken
by the Russian troops in 1873, which led to the abolition of slave
trade, though
Khorezm still retained some independence until 1924. Presently, Khiva,
with its
beautiful old town, is turned into pretty much an open-air museum. A Khorezmian
(Oghuzic) dialect of Uzbek is spoken in the area. As a sample,
listen to Här
görgende yurek tik-tik urmei-mi? lit. "At every glance
the-heart, tick-tick, doesn't-beat-does-it?" by Feruza
(careful, you may fall in love with this woman). |
|
(1)
The Kunya Arka City Wall, Khiva (founded in 1688, restored in the 19th
century);
(2) Al-Khwarezmi monument; (3) The unfinished Kalta-Minar minaret
(1855), Khiva;
(4) A street in Khiva; (5) Khiva in the 19th century, unknown artist;
(6) The
capture of Khiva, a fragment of painting by Vereschagin (1870's); (6)
the ruines
of Old Urgench, where al-Biruni and Avicenna could have met; with the
60-m minaret
(the 1320's) and the Tekesh Mausauleum (the 13th century)
|
|
|
| Uyghur | ayaq | yultuz | qizil | quruq | yopurmaq | uxla- | müNgüz | beGir | öy | bir | ikki | üch | tört | bæsh | altæ | yættæ
| sækkiz | toqquz | on |
|
| Uyghur
/ooy-GOOR/ is the eastern descendant of Chagatai spoken in the Xinjiang
/sin-JANG/
Uyghur Autonomous Region of China (capital: Urumchi
/oo-ROOM-chee[26],
oo-room-CHEE/) situated along the edges of the Taklamakan /tak-LAH
ma-KAHN/ Desert.
The Silk Road here has always been ethnic running water, and Chagatai
was blended
into the earlier 9th century's Kara-Khoja (Old Uyghur), as well as into
Persian
and Chinese adstrata. Uyghur is typically characterized by long vowels
and the
dropping of the syllable final -r (karGa > ka:Ga
"crow").
Before the 1920s, all Chagatai-speaking Muslims in the region were known
under
different names, such as Kashgar (in the west); Moghols (the ruling
class), Sarts
(merchants and townspeople), Taranchis (farmers), etc, whereas the
designation
of "Uyghurs" was artificially created only in 1921. C. 9
million
speakers. | |
(1) A street in Kashgar /kush-GAR/; (2) Uyghur women at the mosque
|
|
|
Both
Uyghur and Uzbek are languages with pronounced dialectal
differentiation. Uyghur,
for instance, seems to embrace several closely related dialect-languages,
such as Ili /ee-LEE/ in the northeast, Lop (Luobu, Lobnor,
Lopnur)
in the east, the central dialect (Turfan, Kashgar), the southern
Khotan
(Hotan) dialect; a special position belongs to Äynu.
|
|
|
Subgroup
3b:
Kimak
The Kimak Kaganate descendant
Kimak
dialects of the Golden Horde (clickable)
|
According
to the well-attested historiographic legend, described c. 1030 by Gardezi
in his work Zayn-al-Akhbar where he seems to cite another older
book by
Ibn
Khordadbeh (820-912), the Kimak /keh-MAHK/ Confederation
initially
consisted of seven original clans, including Kimak (Proper), Tatar,
Kypchak, Bayandur, Imi, Lanikaz, and Ajlad. Hence, the expression
The
snake has the seven heads cited by Mahmud al-Kashgari in 1073. These
seven
tribes must have inhabited areas near the southern edge of the Altai
Mountains
around Lake Zaysan /zy-SAHN/ and the upper course of the Irtysh River.[1]
Kimak or Kimek is also called Yemek or Imek in Arabic sources, but the
difference
among these usages is rather obscure (e.g. it may have arisen due to an
error
in copying the Arabic script, though Kumekov[15]
cites different opinions).
The
Kimak
Kaganate
(743-1210) [see, for instance, Kumekov (1972)[15]]
was a great pastoral nomadic Tengriistic clan confederacy near the upper
course
of the Irtysh River. This Kaganate had initially been part of the
Göktürk-Uyghur
Empire. The Kimak population was semi-nomadic and relatively urbanized,
with over
a dozen towns scattered along the upper Irtysh River, such as Imakiya
/ee-ma-KEE-ya/ (which is Arabic for the adjective "Kimak (Imak)"
[City]).
These towns were marked on the map produced by the Arab geographer Al
Idrisi (1099-1165).
The towns
had markets and temples, and were visited by Chinese merchants taking
part in
the Silk road trade; their inhabitants used the runic Orkhon script
writing. This
Kimak civilization is now rarely mentioned by historians, albeit it
seems to be
an influential cultural and political formation in Southwest Siberia.
Archaeology
and migrational analysis suggest that somewhere after 850 AD, the Kimaks
began
to spread down the Irtysh towards the Tobol River /te-BAWL/, and finally
all the
way to the Southern Ural. By the 900's AD, they must have reached the
Volga River
(called Itil /ee-TEEL/ in Turkic, originally from Bulgaric),
where they
were vividly described by Ibn-Fadlan in 922 as "al-Bashkird". By 1068,
the Kypchak tribes began to migrate further into the fecund Pontic
pastures robbing
the Kievan Rus towns. Here, they became known as the Polovtsy /PAW-lov-tsee/or
Polovtsians to Kievan Russians, Cumans /koo-MAHNS/
to Byzantianes and Hungarians, and Kifchak < Qypchaq
/kep-CHUK/
to Arabs. During the 12-14th centuries, this westernmost Kypchak dialect
was recorded
along the Black Sea coast in a medieval textbook known as the Codex
Cumanicus.
On
the origin of the word Polovtsian: The word Polovstian
is
mostly familiar through the theme song Polovtsian Dances (an
engaging modern rock version) from the 1890 opera Prince Igor
by Alexander
Borodin, which was remade into the Stranger in Paradise (1953)
[note that
the wiki ogg files may block any other sound files from being played in
the back/foreground].
The 19th century's opera had been based on The
Tale of Igor's Campaign (of 1185), one of the most famous
works of
the early East Slavic literature that integrates many Turkic motifs. The
etymology
of the word should probably be interpeted as "those who inhabit pol'e
(Russian 'the field')" > "fielders", though the traditional
interpretation from Vasmer's etymological dictionary [referenced to
Sobolevsky
(1886)] is apparently incorrectly based on the Old Russian and pesently
unknown
polovê "light yellow", which has no meaningful connection
to Turkic tribes.
Polovtsian statues
near Izyum,
Ukraine
|
The
Kimak-Kypchak ethnic groups left large geographic traces on the map of
Eurasia
(e.g. the whole giant Ponto-Kazakh
steppe
was once designated as Cumania (in Latin), Desht-i-Qipchaq
(in Persian),
Kipchak steppe or Polovtsian Land (in Russian), etc). The
Kipchaks
are also remembered for their stone statues that used to be very
typical
of their culture.
Because
the westernmost
Kimak descendants were addressed as "Kifchak" in Arabic sources, the
name Kipchak was passed into the 20th century's classifications, however
it seems
to be poorly founded in other respects. Despite the fact that Kypchak is
a frequent
clan name among many Turkic peoples, it looks like the Kypchaks
constituted only
a relatively small part of the original Kimak confederacy and were
attested mostly
in the area adjacent to the Kievan Rus, therefore the term "Kypchak"
for all of the Great-Steppe tribes seems to be an overextrapolation
typical of
the Russian historiographic tradition promoted by Baskakov's
classification. Nearly
nowhere in his late booklet (1987),[15a]
which was supposed to cover the subject in detail, did Baskakov address
the issue
of the origin, early development and migration of Kypchaks; apparently,
to him
"Kypchak" was just a suitable name for Turkic languages of the Soviet
Union in general, except for Oghuz, Khakas and other strongly
differentiated branches,
which is the reason why we tried to abandon the term in the present
classification
by differentiating between Kimaks and the Great-Steppe tribes.
The
name Tatar /TAH-ter,[26]
ta-TAR/ was first firmly attested in 732 on the Kül-Tegin monument and
then mentioned
by al-Kashgari (1073). At first
glance,
the ethnonym Tatar as used for the whole Kimak subgroup would be
more revealing
and reasonable than any other, especially considering that the
above-mentioned
legend and some earliest Chinese records suggest that the ethnonym Tatar
had been
used even before the period when the Kimaks became prominent, and
therefore, most
Kimaks had in fact originally been referred to as Tatars.
However,
by the 19th century, Tatar became an abused misnomer, because of
its overuse
in the Russian Empire's ethnographic tradition and because of the
further association
with the Greek Tartarus by European historians. The Russian exonym Tatary
/ta-TAR-ee/
or Latin Tartari was ambiguously applied to all the Turkic
speaking population
of the Tsarist Russia, even including Azerbaijanis. This persistent
vague overuse
of this term (cf. the Latinized name of Tartaria or its
Anglophone variant
Tartary for the whole Siberia, or "Tatars" for Mongols, Tungusic
peoples, etc.) resulted in its ostracization by the beginning of the
20th century.
Consequently, it fell out of ethnographic use and is now largely being
avoided
both by turkologists and Turkic population (except for the reference to Kazan
Tatars, Sibir Tatars and some of the lesser ethnic
groups).[1]
Kazan Tatar people are
still the
largest and the most influential of the Kimak ethnicities. During the
Soviet period
many of the non-Kazan communities were taught Kazan Tatar as a common
standard,
which might have resulted in the contamination of local languages.
After
the Mongol invasion of the 13th century, the descendants of the original
Kimak
migrants were apparently integrated into the Ulus of Jochi. Jochi
was actually
the eldest son of Genghiz Khan, who had inherited the western part of
his empire
in 1226, but died just months later, so the name of his empire was
purely formal,
and, in historiography, the Ulus of Jochi rather became known as the Golden
Horde (1240-1502) (capital: Sarai
Batu (Berqe) /sa-RY ba-TOO/ on the Volga River). It was a
predominantly
Tatar Khanate ruled by a nominally Mongol elite that was formally
Islamized only
in the 14th century.[25]
At the
time when being a Mongol signified power, the original Mongol descent
was probably
claimed by many families, so it is reasonable to assume that the
Mongolian participation
in the Golden Horde population was rather insignificant, whereas most
local clans
were in fact of purely Kimak-Kypchak-Tatar background.
After
the 250 years of rule by Mongolian dynasties, this Golden Horde Empire
broke up
into several important "Tatar" khanates, including the Khanate of
Kazan /ka-ZAHN/ (hence Kazan Tatars), the Khanate of Crimea
/kry-MEE-ah/[26]
(hence Crimean Tatars), the Khanate of Astrakhan /AHS-tra-kan/
(hence Astrakhan
Tatars), the Qasim /ka-SIM/ Khanate (hence Mishar
/mee-SHAR/ Tatars),
and the Uzbek Khanate (hence the modern name of Uzbeks). This
diversification
process finally procured to the crystallization of modern
Kimak-Kypchak-Tatar
languages and dialects. As a result, another acceptable term for this
Kimak linguistic
subgroup in general could be the languages of the Golden Horde,
taken that
it were the Kimak descendants rather than pure Mongols who actually
inhabited
the Golden Horde area.
During
the
reign of the Ivan the Terrible (1533-1584), the Russian armies defeated
and annexed
the Kazan and Astrakhan Khanates and moved eastward beyond the Urals,
where they
attacked another Tatar state, the Tengriistic Khanate
of Sibir /see-BIR/(1495-1582) (capital Siber, or Qashlyk
/kush-LIK/) located
on the lower Irtysh River and ruled by Kuchum Khan. This task was
accomplished
by Yermak
/yer-MAHK/,
a Cossack leader, sometimes depicted in the Russian historiography as
something
of a Siberian Columbus. Curiously, Irmak means "river" or yermek
"to scorn" in Turkish and some other Turkic languages, which implies
that Yermak himself might have been of Turkic origin. This is supported
by a local
Baraba legend, recorded by Dmitriyeva in the 1950-60's,[16d]
which say that Yermak had grazed the cattle for Kuchum Khan before they
disagreed
and he came back with an army from Ivan the Terrible [also see Sibir
Tatar
below].
All the Kimak
languages exhibit
considerable mutual intelligibility among themselves, for instance Kazan
Tatar
and Bashkir are still strikingly close (95% in Swadesh-215, borrowings
excluded).[2]
Moreover, being part of the Great-Steppe taxon, the Kimak languages are
also closely
related to Kazakh-Kyrgyz (80% in Swadesh-215, borrowings excluded) and
Uzbek-Uyghur
(78%).
The typical
phonological features
shared by Kimak members include: (1) the partial loss of the original
*S-
as in Kazan Tatar yoldïz, Nogai yuldïz, Bashkir yondoð "star";
Kazan Tatar yafraq "leaf", yul road, yïlan "
snake", yörek "heart", but the partial retention of
*S- in /Ji-/ as, for instance, in Kazan Tatar Jir
"earth",
Jil "wind", often with allophonic distribution across different
dialects; (2) the presence of the /-w-/, /-w/ after a vowel as in
awuz
"mouth", tau "mountain"; (3) the /-t-/ > /-l-/ mutation
in suffixes and endings, as in Kazan Tatar yoqla-, Nogai uykla-,
Bashkir yoqla- "to sleep", as opposed to Kyrgyz ukta-.
| |
 |
|
The
battlefield of Igor Svyatoslavich with the Polovtsians (Cumans) in 1185,
painting
by Viktor Vasnetsov (1880)
| –– |
The
siege
of Moscow
by Mongol Khan Tokhtamysh in 1382,
painting by
Vasily Smirnov
( the 1880's)
| –– | The
conquest of the Sibir Khanate by Yermak in 1582,
painting by Vasily
Surikov
(1895) | |
|
The Relatedness
between Kimak
and Oghuz
Even though
the Kimak
languages are closely related to Kyrgyz(-Karluk), they furthermore share
certain
features with the Oghuz /aw-GOOZ/ languages, also named herein Oghuz-Seljuk
/sel-JOOK/. The persistent usage of the innovative *tüGel instead
of the more archaic e(r)mes "not" in both language groups is
particularly notable. This phenomenon can possibly be explained[1]
as the result of the Oghuz-Kimak interaction near Lake Zaysan. It can
even be
surmised that the Kimaks had in fact originally been those
Kyrgyz(-Karluk) clans
located in the Altai Krai, near the southern edge of the Altai Mountains
and the
Tarbagatai Ridge, that were linguistically and culturally affected by
the early
Oghuz confederacies (such as Toquz Oghuz) situated to the south of that
area c.
600-700 AD. Subsequent linguistic interaction between Aral Oghuz and
Ural Kimaks
cannot be excluded either.
Despite
some mutual linguistic exchange, with only 68% of shared words in
Swadesh-215
on average (borrowings excluded),[2]
the present-day Kimak and Oghuz languages are far from "mutually
intelligible",
therefore learning, say, Turkish or Azeri is not sufficient to
understand Kazan
Tatar and vice versa. | |
The Kimaks that stayed near the Irtysh River
Siberian
Tatars |
| |
| |
Baraba
(Tatar)
| ayaq | | kïzïl | | yapraq | yoqla- | | pawïr,
paGïr | üy | bir
pir | iki
äki | üts
öch | tört | päsh
pêsh
bêsh
| altï | yädi,
yêdi | säGiz,
segiz | toGïs
toGiz | on
un |
|
Baraba Tatars, Tomsk Tatars and
Tobol-Irtysh
(or just Sibir) Tatars is the historical Turkic
population of
West Siberia.
Presently, Baraba,
/ba-RAH-ba/ are a tiny spot of village dwellers that originally
inhabited the
area around large Lake Chany /chah-NEE, chah-NEH/, along the Om River
(hence,
the name of the large and important Siberian city of Omsk, founded in
1716) and
the adjacent Baraba Steppe. The Baraba people were first attested by
1595, and
then described by the Messerschmidt
-Strahlenberg
expedition in 1721,[16]
the
famous field study that, among other discoveries, led to the early
establishment
of the Altaic family by Strahlenberg. The Baraba legends mention their
relatedness
to the Khanate
of Sibir
(1495-1582)[16d]
and the Samoyedic population,[16]
which seems to be quite reasonable, some specific features relate
Tobol-Irtysh
Tatar to Baraba. However, the unique grammatical differences (e.g. the bara-tï-n
("you go") type of the present tense ) and the lack of
certain
Kypchak-Kimak-related features (e.g. the -ar future instead of
the -achaq
future)[16d]
lead to a suggestion that Baraba might
be the remnant of the early Great-Steppe tribes that had inhabited the
Baraba
and Kulunda Steppe between the Ob and Irtysh Rivers before 500-700 AD
and then
intermingled with the Kimaks.
Also, note
the possible existence of Chulym/Baraba interaction (cf. üts : üts
"three").
The Baraba language seems to have been contaminated by Kazan Tatar
during the
20th century. The ethnonym Baraba does not mean bar-ba "don't go"
or similar, as it is usually explained in folk etymology, but is
probably related
to the legendary clan progenitor Baram.[16d][1]
Economy: settled, non-nomadic population that lived in wooden homes,
practiced
crop cultivation, animal husbandry, hunting, fishing.[16e]
Religion: originally shamanism, then Islamized.
About 4000 persons are cited,[16f]
but few actual native speakers. | | 
A
Baraba woman (c. 2005)
Clickable, based
on an
ethnographic atlas (1964)[12b]
|
|
|
Tobol-Irtysh
Tatar
| ayaq | yoltos | qïsïl | qoro | yapraq | yoqla- | möyes | pawïr | | | ike
| öts
| türt | pish
| | | | | |
The
Tobol-Irtysh (or Sibir) Tatars have lived near the cities of Tobolsk
and Tyumen
[tyoo-MEN]
as well as further along the lower Irtysh River in West Siberia. They
are the
remnant of the Khanate
of Sibir (1468-1607), therefore the terms "Sibir" and
"Tobol-Irtysh"
may often be used interchangeably. The toponym Sibir was first
mentioned
in the 13th century in the History of Mongols. The Tumen Khanate, which
was the
predecessor of the Sibir Khanate, first appeared in historical records
in 1468,
during the decline of the Golden Horde. In 1582, the main Sibir Khanate
settlement
known as Sibir, or Sïbïr (or Isker, or Kashlyk
[=winter camp]) was taken by the army of Yermak sent by Ivan the
Terrible, making
the then-ruling Kuchum Khan and his people flee to the steppe. The
settlement
soon became depopulated and the fortress of Tobolsk was founded instead
in 1587
about 10 miles away, as one of the earliest Russian outposts beyond the
Urals.
Throughout the 20th century, Tobol-Irtysh Tatar was considered to be as
merely
a "dialect" of Kazan Tatar, so apart from a couple of dissertations,
very few publications on Sibir Tatar seem to exist,[16b][16c]
even though its phonological, grammatical and lexical differences
clearly require
separate description. The /ch/ > /ts/, /sh/ > /s/ mutation is
among the
immediately notable features, which reminds of the /sh/ > /s/ change
in Kazakh
and Nogai. Population: c. 6700 persons (prob. counted with Baraba and
Tomsk) (2010).[24d]
| | 
(1) The fortress of
Tobolsk
(c. 2010); (2) The Sibir town on a European map (1562); (3-4) At the
Isker Festival
of Sibir Tatars (2010) |
|
On the origins of toponym Siberia:
the word Siberia as the name of the northeastern Eurasia seems to
be an
18th century's extrapolation from "Sibir Khanate" > "West Siberia"
> "all of Northeast Eurasia", which replaced the older and just as
vague designation of (Great)
Tartary of the 17-18th centuries. The latter was formed from
Greek Tartarus,
a murky place beneath the earth, so deep that an anvil takes nine days
to fall
there. Consequently, until about the middle of the 19th century, Ta(r)tars
meant nearly any of the Siberian aborigines, initially associated with
the demons
of Tartarus, especially duing the turmoil of the 13-14th centuries.
Before that,
in antiquity and the Middle Ages, the name Scythia or similar had
been
in use. |
|
The
Kimaks that spread to the Great Steppe |
|
| Kazan
Tatar | ayaq | yoldïz | qïzïl | korï | yafrak | yoqla- | mögez | bawïr | öy | ber | ike | öch | dürt | bish | altï | Jide,
zhide | sigez | tugïz | un |
|
|
The Republic of Tatarstan (capital: Kazan
/ka-ZAHN/)[26]
is a federal subject
of Russia, located along the Middle Volga. The Kazan Khanate (1438-1552)
emerged after the dissolution of the Golden Horde, which had formed when
the Mongol
armies (probably along with Tatar tribes) attacked
and destroyed Volga Bulgaria in 1232-36, presumably causing intense
Chuvash-Bulgar
dissipation. The Kazan Khanate was later conquered
by the troops of Ivan the Terrible in 1552 and became part of Russia —
in
fact, the famous Saint
Basil's Cathedral on Red Square was built to commemorate the capture
of Kazan.
The Tatar participation in the Mongol invasion is still remembered in
the Russian
language culture (cf. sayings: "An uninvited guest is worse than a
Tatar";
"Mamai/the Tatars went over it" as about raising havoc; "the
Tataro-Mongol
Yoke", etc). Moreover, cf. English "tartar" as "fierce, brutal",
etc. Consequently, the Tatar appellation and languageseems to,
unfortunately enough,
have a rather low social status. Historical autonyms: "Bolgar",
"Kazanlï".
Religion: Sunni Islam. Over 4.2 million formally listed speakers
(2010),[24d]
more than 70-90% bilingual in Russian. | |  |
 |  |
| The
Kazan Kremlin, today as if 500 years ago; The Qolsharif Mosque
(inaugurated in
2005) (above) is the largest mosque in Russia |
|
|
|
| Bashkir | ayaq | yondoð | qïðïl | koro | yaprak | yoqla- | mögöð | bawïr | üy | ber | ike | ös | dürt
| bish | altï | yete | higeð | tuGIð | un |
|
| Bashkir
/bash-KIR/ is spoken in the Republic of Bashkortostan (capital: Ufa
/oo-FAH/[26])
situated in the western
part of the Southern Ural Mountains and adjacent to Tatarstan.
Essentially, Bashkir
isjust a sort of Urals variety of Tatar with about 95% of
matches in Swadesh-215
between Kazan Tatar and Bashkir. Note some of the shared phonological
innovations
in vowels typical only of this cluster: Kazan Tat. ber < *bir;
dürt
< *tört; un < *on. 1.15 million speakers (2010) | |  |  |
Bashkir horsemen
(staged)
| 
A true photo c.1910 |
The deviant Bashkir phonology (ch
> s, s
> h, z > ð) is sometimes explained by the absorption of a Ugric
substratum.
Curiously, Bashkirs might at least partly descend from Proto-Hungarians
(Magyars
/ma-JAR/) of the Hungaria
Magna and the other closely-related Ugric tribes (as well as
possibly from
Bulgaric). Proto-Hungarians were mentioned as still speaking Hungarian
c. 1235
by Friar
Julian,[1]
but apparently wee later linguistically assimilated by the Tatars during
the expansion
of the Golden Horde, which seems to date the emergence of the Bashkir
dialect
to after the 13th century. Between 1220 and 1234, the Bashkirs were
fighting the
Mongols, preventing their expansion to the west, but then voluntary
joined the
Moscovy in 1557.
The ethnonym "al-Bashkïrt" by itself had appeared
very early on, being first mentioned in the Arab sources c. 840 and then
attested
by Ibn-Fadlan near the Emba /EHM-ba/ River and the confluence of the
Volga and
Kama in 922. Therefore, there is some terminological discrepancy: as a
language
similar to Kazan Tatar, Bashkir seems to refer to a relatively recent
phenomenon,
whereas its historical attestation as a reference to the Ural and the
Middle Volga
tribes is much older.Judging
by the
rather unreasonable proximity of Bashkir and Kazan Tatar languages,
which must
have almost necessarily involved some secondary interaction, Bashkir may
have
been afterwards affected by the Kazan Tatar immigration to the Ural
Mountains,
especially taken that the Ural Bashkirs had certain historical freedoms
and suffered
less feudal opression.[1]
Nomadic animal husbandry until the 18th century. Religion: Islam since
the 950s,
but mostly non-religious since the Soviet period. Population: 1.3
million speakers,
most of them bilingual in Russian. Listen to Kiler
keshe, kemder bar "Someone's coming, someone's there (at the
gate)" with the typical sights of the Southern Ural. |
|
|
North
Crimean Tatar
| ayax,
ayaq | Jïldïz | qïzïl | quru | Japrax,
Japraq | Juqla- | müyüz
| bavur; Jiger | u:y | bir | eki | u:ch;
us, | dürt,
dört,
tört | besh | altï | yedi
| sigiz | tohuz | on |
|
| The
Crimean Khanate (1441-1783) with the capital of Bakhchy-Saray
/buhh-CHEE
sa-RY/ ("The Garden Palace") (rightmost figure) was a Kypchak
post-Golden-Horde
state situated in the Crimean Peninsula and the Pontic Steppe. The
Khanate maintained
massive slave trade with the Ottoman Empire making raids into the
Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth and Russia. The northern Crimean dialects should not
be confused
with Crimean Turkish in the south, and Middle Crimean, which is a
mixture
between the two. After the 1920's there were attempts to build "a
mutually
intelligible" literary language, however, the actual dialectical
situation
in the Crimea is rather complicated. And although the pure dialects may
still
survive in vivo, not enough field work on them has been done. Crimean
Tatars are
famous for being resettled to Uzbekistan and persecuted by Stalin as
"Nazi
collaborators", though they mostly returned by the mid-1980's; C.
260.000
Crimean Tatars in Crimea, 170.000 elsewhere. | | 
A battle of Crimean Tatars
with Poles-Lithuanians
in the 17th
century
a painting by Kossak
c. the 1870's | 
Crimean Tatars
(c. the
1820's)[24c]
| 
Succession home of
the Crimean
Khans |
|
|
| Karaim
| ayax | yïldïz,
yulduz | qïzïl | | yaprax | yuxla-
yukla- | münguz | | üy | bir | eki | its | dyert,
dyort' | bes'
biesh | altï | yedi | segiz | toGuz | on |
|
|
|
| Crimean
Karaites /KA-re-ite/[26]
are
a rather odd and presently very small branch of adherents of Karaite
Judaism,
which is based on the reading of the Tora itself rather than its
interpretations.
The exact origins of Karaites are obscure, though they seem to be
descendants
of a Jewish sect (probably originally from the Ottoman Empire) that, by
the 13th
century, must have switched to a Polovtsian dialect spoken in the
Crimean Peninsula.
Being socially and religiously detached from the rest of the Turkic
communty,
this language must have branched off from the main stem in the same way
as Ladino,
Yiddish and other Judaic languages. It is usually known as Karaim,
meaning
in Hebrew "those who read (the scriptures)", though the terms Karaite
and Karaim are frequently conflated. The connection with Khazars has
been speculated
as early as the 19th century but is poorly corroborated. In 1392, a part
of the
Crimean Karaites were relocated to Lithuania thus forming the branch of Trakai
(Lithuanian) Karaim. During the WWII, the Karaites were saved
from extermination
after managing to demonstrate their formal dissociation from Judaism.
Karaites
were literate and many were quite influential despite their small
population.
Presently, only c. 600 persons in the Crimea (2002), 257 in Lithuania
(1997),
c. 1000 in other countries. Self-appellations: Qïrïm qaraylar, Qaray,
etc. | | 
Crimean
Karaite women (staged) | 
Karaites in the 19th
century[24c]
|
|
Kumyk
| ayaq | yulduz | qïzïl | qaq | yapraq | uykla- | müyüz | | üy | bir | eki | üch | dört | besh | altï | yetti | segiz | toGuz | on |
The Kumyk /koo-MIK, koo-MEK/ people occupy the steppeland along
the northwestern
coast of the Caspian Sea in Dagestan, which is probably one of the most
ethnically
complex federal unities in the world. Neither Kumyk, nor Nogai own their
formal
autonomy. The Kumyk origins are unclear, though their geographical
position and
notable dialectal differentiation indicates they arrived to the Caspian
before
the Nogais, that is before the mid-16th century, which is supported by
the foundation
of Shamkhalate of Tarki in the 1440's. Considering that Tarki
Village near Makhachkala,
the capital of Dagestan, has often been associated with the legendary Samandar
of Khazars (formed along the Silk Road and destroyed in 969), the direct
descendancy
from Khazars has often been claimed. Historical economy: agriculture,
fishing,
settled living in villages. Printed books since the mid-19th century.
Religion:
Sunni Islam. Population: 502.000 persons, 426.000 speakers (2010).[24d]
Self-appellation: qumuq. Dialects:
Hasavyurt and Buynaksk (Standard Kumyk), Kaytaksk, Podgorny, Tersk.
| | 
(1) Khalimbek-Aul
Village;
(2) An aproximate map: Nogai (light blue), Kumyk (dark blue) |
|
| Nogai | ayaq | yuldïz | qïzïl | qaq,
kurï
| yapïrak | uykla- | müyiz | bawïr | üy | bir | eki | üsh | dört | bes | altï | yeti | segiz | togiz | on |
Nogai (Noghai) /naw-GUY,
nuh-GUY/) are
presently scattered in the steppeland of the Northern Caucasus in
Chechnya, Stavropol
Krai, Dagestan and Karachay-Balkaria. The name Nogai is derived from the
alias
of Nogai Khan, a Mongol general, literally meaning "dog" in most
Mongolic
languages. The Nogai people are the remnants of the Nogai
Horde (c. 1392-1639), a loose nomadic confederacy that was
centered in
Saray-Juk
(Russophone:
Saraychik) near the
Ural (Yaik)
River delta. It also covered the Lower Volga and probably some of
the Astrakhan
Khanate (1466-1556). The end of the Nogai Horde is connected
with the
poorly documented Russo-Tatar wars during the reign of the Ivan the
Terrible.
When the Russian army took Kazan (1552) and Astrakhan (1556), Devlet
Giray Khan
of the Crimean Khanate retaliated by destroying Moscow in 1571, however
the local
renegade Cossacks destroyed Saray-Juk in 1580, which was the end of the
Nogai
supremacy along the Ural River(Turkophone: Yaik) and the Volga
(Turkophone: Itil).
As a result, somewhere during this turmoil, c. 1552-1554, part of the
Nogai tribes
began migrating towards the steppes near the Northern Caucasus,
particularly the
Kuban /kyoo-BAN/[26]
region, which resulted in the formation of the Lesser Nogai Horde along
the Kuban
River.[15b]
In 1683, these Kuban
Nogais were attacked by the Dzungarians from Mongolia (= Kalmyks) and
then by
the army of Suvorov in 1782-83. It is plausible to assume that some of
them were
Russified and became part of the Kuban Cossacks in the 18-19th century,
though
a good many were exiled first towards the Black Sea and then finally
deported
to the Ottoman Empire.[25]
All
the details of this dispersal and exodus are now difficult to
reconstruct. Presently,
there are 103.000 persons, 87.000 speakers (2010)[24d]
[see the map above].
Watch the Nogai Dombïra
song with Nogai-Turkish subtitles and some bloody battle scenes from the
Mongol
movie (2007), a must if you really understand the Turkic culture; as
well as the
same song in a another clip featuring its strikingly talented performer,
Arslanbek
Sultanbekov himself. In a similar fashion: Menim
Nogayïm "My Nogai", Ne
kaldï? "What is left?" (the latter one, about the Dzungarian
invasion of Nogais and Kazakhs), coming from the very heart of the
ancient strife. | |
| 
(1)
The modern reconstruction of Saray-Juk; (2) The Saray-Juk archaeological
site;
(3) Nogai men (2012); (4) A German map from 1549 with "Nogai Tartars"
placed along the Lower Volga, Saray-Juk can be seen at the bottom,
though it should
be at the Yaik River on the right; (5) Nogai girls (1881) |
|
| Karachay-Balkar
(North Caucasus) |
|
| Karachay | ayaq | Julduz | qïzïl | qurGaq
| chapraq | Juqla- | müyüz | bawur | üy | bir | eki | üch | tört | besh | altï | Jeti
| segiz | toGuz | on |
|
Karachay-Balkar
/KAH-ra-CHUY bal-KAR/ is spoken in the Karachay-Cherkess Republic
(capital:
Cherkessk /cher-KESK/) and the Kabardino-Balkar Republic
(capital: Nalchik
/NAHL-chik/). The two republics were created rather artificially in
1922. The
other two ethnic groups from these republics (the Cherkeses and
Kabardins) are
of unrelated North Caucasian origin (but related to each other). The
Karachay-Balkar
people must have been present in the Caucasus at least since the Mongol
invasion
c. the 1220's, having settled there probably a few centuries earlier,
when the
Kypchaks (Cuman-Polovtsians) were moving into the Pontic steppeland.
Nonnomadic
population; Islamized only by the 18-19th century. In 1943, they have
been forcibly
resettled to Kazakhstan by Stalin, which led to mass starvation, but
returned
after 1957. Karachay-Balkar has many mutations at several levels, and a
few Kabardino-Cherkes
borrowings in the basic vocabulary. There are two main dialects, which
among other
features, differ in the pronunciation of *S as follows: (1) the
Karachaylï + Malqar
Taulu (< from tau-lu "mountain-ous") pronounce /J-/, /ch-/
and (2) the rest of Malqarlï pronounce /dz-, z-/, /ts-/. C. 300.000
speakers (over
80% bilingual in Russian). 305.000 speakers; 218.000 persons listed as
Karachay
and 113.000 as Balkar (2010).[24d]
| | 
A modern tower
in Kabardino-Balkaria
| 
A modern photo
| 
This photo c. 1910 |
|
(3)
Southern Turkic Languages
This
major
grouping includes Turkic languages that were initially spreading to the
south
of mountain systems that have been collectively nicknamed herein[3]
as the Great Eurasian Barrier: in Mongolia, Dzungaria, Tarim
Basin, Tian-Shan
and other adjacent regions. The grouping consists of the two subgroups:
(1) Yugur-Salar,
which herein is considered separately from most other Turkic languages,
its exact
genetic position still being a matter of controversy; (2) Orkhon-Oghuz-Karakhanid,
which includes Orkhon Old Turkic of Mongolia, Old Uyghur of the
eastern Tarim
Basin, Karakhanid of the western Tarim Basin, as well as any of the
medieval or
modern Oghuz-Seljuk languages.
|
|
Subgroup
4:
Yugur-Salar
The
Turks that migrated to West China
The
Ganzhou Kingdom descendants |
Yugur and Salar are the two peculiar
Turkic
languages located in the historical region near the Tibet, known as the Hexi
Corridor /heh-SEE/, where the Silk Road was coming out of the
Chinese
territory.
The exact
linguistic origin
of Yugur and Salar is difficult to determine, however, most of their
features
either point towards the Orkhon-Karakhanid subgroup or even set
Proto-Yugur completely
apart from the rest of the Turkic languages, making them a separate
major branch
of Turkic Proper. In any case, the mutual relatedness between Yugur and
Salar
is rather evident:[1]
both languages share similar verbal paradigms with largely absent
personal endings
as well as a system of similar innovative verbal tenses, which clearly
indicates
their common descent, considering such grammatical features are rarely
borrowed.
|
Yugur
|
|
(West) Yugur
| azaq | yuldïs | Gïzïl | quruG | lahpzhïq
< Mong. | uzu- | moNïs | BaGïr | yü | bïr
pïr | shigï
shïkï | ush | dört
dürt
türt
| bes | ahldy | yidy,
yeti,
tshïtï | saGïs | doGïs | on,
un |
|
| Yugur
/yoo-GOOR/ people are a small ethnic group, which are sometimes said to
have
migrated into southwestern China (Sunan Yugur Autonomous County)
after
c. 850 AD from other Uyghur oases probably to avoid Islamization. There,
on the outskirts of China, they established the prosperous Ganzhou /gun-JOW,
kun-CHOW/ Kingdom (870-1036 AD) with the capital near present-day
Zhangye
/jung-YEH/ and the Silk Road based economy. The exact classification
of Yugur
is unclear, but it seems to be a "mixed" language based on the
ancient
Turkic substratum with some Mandarin-Mongolic-Tibetan influence. Yugur
is characterized
by the loss of verbal conjugation; the archaic ire copula;
multiple loanwords;
the Mandarin consonant system (which means that , ,
are pronounced as semi-voiced, whereas , ,
as pre- or post-aspirated). Religion:
Tibetan Buddhism,
traces of shamanism. Only c. 4500 speakers remaining (2000). |
|  |  |
|
|
| The Oilyg
Yugurs are nomadic cattle breeders in the steppes, the Taglyg —
in the mountains. The Yugurs like to wear their traditional red hats.
The self-appellation is Sarïg Yogïr (Yellow Uyghur).
Additionally, note
the most commonly accepted names in other languages: (West) Yugur
in English,
sarï-yugurski in Russian, Sarï Uygurca in Turkish. The
Yugur people
are not to be confused: (1) with the Mongolic-speaking Shera-Yugurs, or
Eastern
Yugurs (c. 2800 speakers), who by the way wear a different hat style; or
(2) with
the Yughu (the Sinicized Yugurs losing their ethnic roots). |
|
|
| Yellow Uighur (?) | | | | | | | | | | pêr
per | îshke
ïshqï | ush
wïsh | tört
t'ört | pes
pes | altï
a'ltï | yekhtî
yïtï | saqïs
sa:qïs
| toqus
toqïs | on |
|
| "Yellow
Uighur" is not usually mentioned as a separate language, yet some
sources,
such as Tenishev (1966), cite contradictory data; these inconsistencies
could
be due to a dialectal split in Yugur or even due to the existence of
another Yugur
language, which would be quite natural considering the time status of
this subgroup.
This evidence has been preserved here for later consideration. |
|
| Salar
|
|
| Salar
| aya:x | yûldus | qizil | kuru,
kurï | yäRfax,
yahpax | uxla- | moNus,
muNaz | paGïr | oy | pir,
bir
| ishki,
ichki
| ush,
uch
| tö't,
t'o't | pesh,
besh
| alJi,
altï
|
yiJi,
yittï
| sekis,
se:kïs
| toqos,
to:Gos
| on,
un |
|
|
Salar /sa-LAR/ is a language of
controversial
classification. According to legends, the Salar people are said to have
moved
into Xunhua /shoon-HWAH/ Salar Autonomous County in western China,
approximately
the same location as the Yugur people. The migration is said to
originate from
Samarqand, Uzbekistan or the Khorasan Province, occurring c. 1370, in
other words,
during the rise of Tamerlane. It could have been accomplished by
traveling along
the Silk Road. Traditional Turkology usually describes Salar as "Oghuz",
however there is a conspicuous absence of any typical Oghuz-Seljuk
innovations.
Moreover, the striking phono-semantic mutations, the grammatical
similarity to
Yugur (including the loss of conjugation), and the strong Chinese
influence (e.g.
native numbers no longer in use, phonological adaptations, the sporadic
use of
"shï" as copula, etc.) also tend to contradict this grouping.
By no means should Salar be mindlessly viewed as just "Oghuz"—
rather it seems to be the outcome of creolized transition from the
local Middle
Yugur substratum to one of the closely located Turkic languages such as
the early
Chagatai or late (Toquz) Oghuz, additionally with some Chinese and
probably
even Dongxiang and Tibetan influence.[1]
Religion: Islam. C. 100.000 ethnic Salars, but the language is now
mostly spoken
only by the elder. Listen to this lovely
traditional Salar song. | |
|
|
Subgroup
5:
Orkhon-Oghuz-Karakhanid
The
Oghuz-Orkhon-Karakhanid
languages must have separated from the rest of the Turkic stem very
early on,
most likely circa 400 BC, when part of the Proto-Turkic continuum
infiltrated
beyond the Tian-Shan-Altai-Sayan mountain barrier into Dzungaria, following
the upper reaches of the Kara-Irtysh River. In Dzungaria, they must
have soon
split up into the three main branches: (1) the tribes that spread to the
east,
towards the Gobi Desert, circumventing the Mongolian Altai, formed the
Orkhon
Old Turkic of the Eastern Göktürk Kaganate; (2) the tribes that
stayed near
Dzungaria apparently formed the basis of Proto-Oghuz and then
probably
Proto-Yugur in the Hexi Corridor, though the latter assumption is
poorly
supported by specific evidence; (3) finally, the tribes that spread to
the west
towards the Tarim Basin initially formed Kara-Khoja (Old Uyghur) and
Karakhanid, and then much later contributed to the formation of Khalaj.
Hence, the subgroup's tripartite name used in this publication.[3]
Only
the representatives of the Orkhon taxon in Mongolia, specifically the
founders
of the Göktürk Kaganate, seemed to have been originally known as Turks
(apparently, reconstructed from the Orkhon Old Turkic script as Türüq[17]
or Türq), whereas other early Turkic clans originally had
different clan
names, such as Kyrgyz, Tatar, Oghuz (to name just a few among the
earliest attested).
Just like western surnames, such
as Johnson,
Peterson, etc, the name Tür(ü)q most likely initially referred to
the hypothetical
clan founder, which is supported by early legends, recorded in the Oghuz-namah,
as well as the prehistoric Turkic tradition of clan naming.[1]
Consequently, the males of that clan formerly traced their ancestry and
family
histories to that legendary progenitor. When the Türüq clan
became prominent
by the 550 AD, the name began to spread with its political influence and
seems
to have been adopted by several clans in Central Asia, such as the
Karakhanids
of the Tarim Basin, the Oghuz Turkmen near the Kopet Dag and the Turks
of Anatolia,
though the exact details of this ethnonymic and genetic history are
obscure.
|
The
Turks that moved to Mongolia
The
descendants of the Göktürk Kaganate
Orkhon |
|
Orkhon
Old Turkic
| adaq | yultuz | qïzïl | quruG | yapurGaq | uDï- | müñüz | baGïr | eb | bir | iki,
eki | üch | tört | besh | altï | yeti | säkiz | toquz | on |
|
| Long
before the era of Mongols, there existed a Eurasian Empire centered in
Mongolia
that was nearly just as great and just as powerful as that of Genghis
Khan /JEN-gis,
CHEN-gis, not GEN-gis/. It was known as the Göktürk
Kaganate (552-744 AD), and it controlled the Silk Road as far
west as
the Black Sea. European historians rarely mention this empire, probably
because
the Göktürks ("Blue or Celestial Turks") have not reached western Europe
directly. Still, their influence on Central Asia was profound. The Eastern
Kaganate (capital: Ordu-Baliq
/or-DOO ba-LIK/ with the population of about 100.000) was centered in
the sacred
and fertile Orkhon
Valley
/or-HON/. Curiously, Genghis Khan's capital Karakorum
was afterwards located in the very same place: only 10 miles away from
the Ordu-Balïq
ruins, probably because, just like the Turkic peoples, the Mongols
believed in
the divine force emanating from the Orkhon Valley and mythical Mount
Ötüken. The
Western Kaganate, which existed until 659, was ruled from the
Silk Road
outpost city Suyab
in
today's Kyrgyzstan. The Göktürk Empire was overrun first by the Chinese
(659-681),
and then by the Old Uyghurs (not to confuse with the present-day ones)
who founded
the Uyghur Kaganate (744-840). However, these seem to be changes just in
the ruling
dynasties, not language or culture. Finally, after a period of political
decline,
Ordu-Balïq and other eastern cities were razed by the Yenisei Kyrgyz in 840.
The collapse of this empire probably affected the spread of many Turkic
languages,
pushing them further to the west. The Gökturks-Uyghurs used the Old
Turkic (Okhon-Yenisei)
runiform alphabetic script
(attested since the 720s).[17]
It
was carved on stone obelisks thus preserving the Old Turkic language in
detail. | |
 |  |  |
| From
a Genghis Khan film (2007) |
| The
ruins of Ordu-Balïq |
|  |
 |
| Orkhon
River (Mongolia) |
| |
|
|
|
The
Turks that moved to the Tarim Basin
Kara-Khanid
— Kara-Khoja |
|
Kara-
Khanid | aðaq | yulduz | qïzïl | quruG | yapurGa:q | uðï- | müNüz | baGïr | ev,
äv | bi:r | ekki |
üch
| tö:rt
|
be:sh
|
altï
| yeti,
yetti |
säkkiz,
sekkiz
|
toqu:z
| o:n |
|
During
the downfall period of the Göktürk (Uyghur) Kagante in 840 AD or even
earlier,
some of the Turkic tribes migrated towards the Tarim /tah-REEM/[26]
Basin setting up: (1) a confederacy of decentralized Buddhist states
called
Kara-Khoja (Kocho) (capital: Besh-Balik) in the oases, where Old
Uyghur
(türk uyGur tili) was spoken, and (2) the Kara-Khanid
Khanate (845-1212) located further to the west in the
Tian Shan
Mountains, where Karakhanid dialect was spoken. The first capital of the
Karakhanid
Khanate was established in the city of Balasagun
/ba-LAH-sa-GOON/ located near Lake Issyk-Kul (present-day Kyrgyzstan) in
the same
region as the Western Turkic Kaganate with its capital Suyab, which
implies that
the western Gökturk and Karakhanid population must have been connected.
After
some time, the Kara-Khanid capital was moved to Kashgar in the Tarim
Basin. The
Kara-Khanid Khanate was converted to Islam in 934. Karakhanid and Old
Uyghur languages
were eventually displaced by Chagatai after the 13th century.
We
should also
mention
Mahmud al-Kashgari
( = "from Kashgar") (c. 1029-1102?), the famous Arabic-speaking
Turkologist
(a son of a city mayor related to the Karakhanid dynasty), who in
1072-74 wrote
the Diwan Lughat al-Turk "The Compendium of Turkic dialects",
a comprehensive 700-page dictionary of the Karakhanid Turkic language
and other
dialects, which was a very, very professional and illustrative work of
its time.
| |
Figs: left to right,
examples
of the Karakhanid architecture:
(1) A decoration with swastikas; (2)
Burana
Tower, Balasagun;
(3) Aisha Bibi Mausoleum, Taraz, Kazakhstan;
(4) Mausoleum
in Uzgen, western
Kyrgyzstan;
(5) a Karakhanid Minaret, Bukhara (1127) |
|
The
Turks that moved further into Iran
Khalaj
|
|
| Khalaj | hada:q | yulduz | qïzïl | qurruG | – | yat-
<*Azeri | – | jigar,
-G- | häv | bi: | äkki,
æk.ki | ü:ch, üsh | tö:rt | be:sh,
biesh | alta, al.ta | ye:tti,
yætti | säkkiz
sæk.kiz | toqquz,
toq.quz | o:n,
uon |
|
Khalaj /ha-LAHJ/ (not to be confused
with a
Northwest Iranian language of the same name) is a poorly classified
Turkic language
in western Iran near Tehran, which is famous for several unusual
features, such
as (1) the initial h- where other languages have only vowels, (2)
the intervocal
-d- as in hadaq "foot" and (3) the retention of long
vowels
as in Turkmen a. Khalaj had been first mentioned in a legend recited by
Mahmud
al-Kashgari, and then was discovered and studied in vivo first by
Minorsky (1906)
and finally by Doerfer (1978), who nearly went to the extent of viewing
Khalaj
as nearly one of the most basic and early-diversified Turkic languages
ever. However,
according to other studies, such as Mudrak (2002-08)[10b]
and herein[1]
Khalaj
should be tentatively classified as a relatively late offshoot of the
Karakhanid
expansion, which is supported at least by (1) the post-Karakhanid
sonorization
pattern; (2) the presence of intervocalic -D- (as in aDaq)
in Orkhon-Kharakhanid;
(3) the lack of profound historical changes in Khalaj
glottochronologically consistent
with an earlier separation from the main stem. Therefore, Khalaj is
nothing but
the living continuation of southern Karakhanid, as suggested as early as
Minorsky
(1906), whose archaic features are easily explained by the early
separation of
Orkhon-Oghuz-Karakhanid substem as a whole.
Khalaj has also been
strongly
affected by Azeri or other local Seljuk languages, as well as the
Iranian adstratum.
Economy: agriculture, nomadic sheep breeding. Presumably, c. 42 000
speakers,
mostly bilingual in Farsi. | |
|
|
Subgroup
5c:
Oghuz-Seljuk
The
Turks that migrated to the Aral-Caspian region
| The
Oghuz-Seljuk subgroup, which includes languages closely related
to Turkmen,
Azeri and Turkish, has been usually known as just Oghuz. This
subgroup
is characterized at least by the following typical features: (1) the
specific
voicing pattern as in tört > dört; yetti > yedi especially
in the
initial consonants; (2) the m- > b- mutation as in
müNüz >
*büNüz > buynuz "horn" ; (3) the loss of the final -G
as in *quruG > Guru and the intrevocalic -G- as
in the suffixes -Gan > -an, -Ga > -a (4) the
tendency to form
the -yor-/yar- present tense as in Turkish bil-i-yor-um "I
know"; (5) the use of the verb i- with the -mïsh
past participle to form the audative mood, etc. Some of these
features
were mentioned as early as 1072 by Mahmud
al-Kashgari as part of his brief description of the Oghuz language.
That shows
that by 1000 AD Karakhanid and Oghuz were already quite different
languages with
a notable temporal separation, therefore it is reasonable to surmise
that their
diversification must have occurred at least c. 500-600 AD or even
earlier.
|
|
Oghuz (Turkmenistan) |
|
| Oghuz | ayaq | | | | | | | | äv | *bir | *iki | *üch | *dört | *besh | *altï | *Jedi | *sekiz | *dokuz | *on |
|
The
ethnonym Oghuz /aw-GOOZ/ most likely goes back to a personal name
of a
legendary progenitor, described in several versions of the oral legends
collected
in the Oghuz-nama ("The Oghuz Narratives"), with the earliest
known record by Rashid al-Din dating to the end of the 13th century. The
name
or alias itself may presumably have meant öqüz "bull, ox"
implying
force and vigor. The earliest known Oghuz people were a tribal
confederacy of
the 6th century residing near the Orkhon Göktürks and subjugated by
them. At the
time, they were already regarded as a tribe different from Tür(ü)k,
Tatar and
Kïrgïz. The ethnonym was first attested as Altï Oghuz (The Six
Oghuz) in a Yenisei inscription, and then as the Toquz Oghuz (The
Nine
Oghuz), Sekkiz Oghuz (The Eight Oghuz) in the Orkhon writings in
Mongolia,
and as the Üch Oghuz (The Three Oghuz) near Kyrgyzstan. These
numbers
apparently meant nothing but the number of tribal units participating in
a military
confederacy, and therefore were quite situational.[1]
By 775, the Oghuz tribes were found near Talas in Sogdiana, so we may
assume they
have arrived there as part of a mass migrations to the Western Göktürk
Kaganate.
Eventually, they seem to have traveled along the Syr-Darya /SIR DAR-ya/[26]
(Yaxartes) River towards its delta in the Aral Sea where they formed the
Transoxanian
Oghuz confederacy with its capital Yangi-Kent and a ruler
titled yabgu
(=prince). There in the Transoxanian steppeland, they were witnessed by
several
Arab travelers, including a vivid description by Ibn-Fadlan in 922.
Mahmud al-Kashgari
(1072) mentioned several Oghuz towns, some of which have been
rediscovered by
archaeologists; he also explicitly stated that "Turkmen" and "Oghuz"
meant essentially the same, which implies that the modern-day Turkmen
people must
be the direct descendants of the Transoxanian Oghuz. On the other hand,
the name
Turkmen apparently could initially be applied to any Islamized
Turks.
The Oghuz dialect-language of the 11th century is documented in
Al-Kashgari's
writings mostly as unconnected words and phrases. In the course of the
12th century,
the Transoxanian Oghuz tribes apparently migrated towards the Kopet-Dag
Mountains
or dissipated, most likely due to the Kypchak expansion to the west.
According
to a poorly supported hypothesis, they could also be connected to the Pecheneg
raids into the Kievan Rus, but the origins of the latter are highly
controversial.
| |
The remnants of
Juvara, an
Oghuz city discovered by archaeologists near the Aral Sea in 2008
|
An early Turkmen yurt c. 1911 (!), true color photography by Prokudin-Gorski |
|
|
Turkmen
(Teke) | ayaG | yïldïð | Gïðïl | Gurï | yapraG | uqla- | buynuð;
shox | baGïr | öy | bir | iki | üch | dört | besh | altï | yedi | ßekið | dokuð | on |
|
Turkmenistan (capital Ashgabad /ush-ga-BAHD/, built from a
village
only in 1918) is in fact a thin strip of arable land situated between
the Karakum
/ka-RAH KOOM/[26]
("Black Sand")
Desert and the Kopet Dag mountain range. When Russia took control of
Turkmenistan
in the 1880's, the Transcaspian Railway was built along the path of the
Silk Road.
In 1948, Ashgabad was destroyed by an earthquake. In the 1950s, the
Qaraqum Channel,
the largest in the world irrigation system, was established diverting
the waters
of the Amu Darya towards Ashgabad, but contributing to the collapse of
the Aral
Sea. There are c. 7 million Turkmen people, of which 2
million live
in Afghanistan and Iran.
| |
A Turkmen bride | 
Ashgabad Trade Center | 
The Turkmen people:
man
and wife, c. 1905 |
The Seljuk Monument
|
|
|
A Turkmen girl
|
The Arch of Independence, Ashgabad
|
Oil & Gas
Ministry
|
A choban
| 
A Turkmen village in
Afghanistan | 
Seljuk Sultan Sanjar
Mausoleum,
1157 AD, Merv |
Turkmen carpets
|
|
One
of the most notable phonological features of Turkmen is the
pronunciation of
and as the interdental /ß/and /ð/ as in English, as well as
the
retention of long vowel, as in /ot/ "grass" vs. /o:t/ "fire".
The latter phenomemon is called "primary long vowels" and supposedly
goes back
to Proto-Turkic.
The dialectal diversification in Aral-Caspian Oghuz
has resulted
in the formation of many variants of Turkmen. Standard Turkmen is based
on the
Teke dialect. Other major dialects include Yomud (north
and west
of Turkmenistan), Ersarin (along the Amu-Darya), Salyr
(along the
Iranian border), Saryq (along the Murgab River), Chovdur
(Dashoguz
area, along the Amu-Darya), Trukhmen (Stavropol Krai, Russia). Of
all the
ex-Soviet republics, Turkmenistan seems to have the highest percentage
of non-Russophones
(80%) [wiki]. |
|
The
Turks that migrated to Iran and Anatolia
The
Seljuk Empire descendants
Seljuk
|
| The
Great
Seljuk Empire
(1037-1077) was founded by the Seljuk Dynasty that goes back to the
legendary
founder Seljuk /sel-JOOK/ (c. 931-1038), whose clan had split off
from
the Oghuz confederacy c. 985 and traveled from the Aral Sea region
southwards
along the Syr-Darya River, where it converted to Islam. Under
Seljuk's grandson Togrul Beg, the Seljuk people migrated into
eastern Persia
and by 1055 expanded their control all the way to Baghdad. In 1071, they
won the
important
Battle
of Manzikert, which neutralized Byzantine and led to the
foundation of
the Turkic Sultanate
of Rum (1077-1307) in Anatolia. | |  |  |  |
| Artist's
impression of the Battle of Manzikert (1071) |
Seljuk (Oghuz)
archer
| The
Entry of Mahomet II into Constantinople (1453), painting by Benjamin
Constant
(1876) |
|
The
advance of the Turks caused the Byzantine emperors to desperately seek
protection
in Europe, thus contributing to the initiation of Crusades. It should be
stressed
that the first Crusades did not fight against Muslims, rather they were
directed
against the Turkic threat from the East. The Seljuk language of this and
the later
period, written in Arabic script, is
known
as Old Anatolian Turkish. The Turkish (Ottoman) Empire
begins to
rise by 1300, and to flourish with the capture of Constantinople in 1453,
the year marking the final collapse of the Byzantine Empire. The Turkish
language
from the 16th to 20th century is called Ottoman Turkish.
A
rather typical feature of Turkish and Azeri is a particularly high level
of long
synthetic agglutinating constructions procured by one-word orthography,
that can
also be found in other Turkic but probably not to the same extent, e.g.
/anla-ya-ma-mïsh-tïr/
"s/he could not really understand" or doktordu "s/he was
a doctor", which can make the impression of nouns being conjugated. |
|
|
Qashqai
| | | g.ïzïl | | | yat- | | | | bir | ikki | üch | dört | bä'sh | | | | | on |
|
| The
Qashqai /kush-KUY/ people have traditionally been nomadic pastoralists
who lived
around Shiraz in southern Iran and who had probably arrived there with
the Seljuk
invasion. Presently, they mostly dwell in settled households. The
Qashqai people
are renowned for their magnificent pile carpets and other woven wool
products.
Population: over 1-1.5 million. | |  |
| (1)
A Qashkai wedding; (2) Old ways still prevailing among nomads; (3) A
Qashqai child |
|
|
| Azeri | ayag | ulduz | gizïl | Guru,
Gax | yarpag | yat- | buynuz | baGïr | ev | bir | iki | üch | dörd | besh | altï | yeddi | sekkiz | doqquz | on |
|
| The
Azerbaijani /AH-zehr-by-JAHN-ee/ people (the abbreviated
substandard: Azeri)
are the descendants of the Oghuz-Seljuk tribes that conquered Persia by
1055 but
did not migrate to Anatolia. They gradually Turkicized the northwestern
Persian
and the South Caucasus population near the southwest coast of the
Caspian Sea.
After a series of Russo-Persian wars (1812, 1826-28) Iran lost some of
its northern
territories to Russia, which finally became independent in 1991 as the Republic
of Azerbaijan (capital: Baku /ba-KOO/).[26]
The north Iranian provinces also bear similar names (East Azerbaijan,
West
Azerbaijan), akin to the name of Atropates, a satrap who ruled this
region
of ancient Persia. Azerbaijani differs to some extent from Turkish (86%
in Swadesh-215,
borrowings excluded), though both languages are still largely mutually
intelligible.
Religion: Shi'a Islam. 7.5 million speakers in Azerbaijan + c.
15-20
million in Iran, though many of them now speak Russian or Persian as
their
2nd language. Here is the famous Azeri song Dashlï
gala ("Stone fortress"). |
|
 | 
|  |
| |
Aida Makhmudova as an
Azeri
princess (2005) |
Baku (above);
Urmiyye fruit
market (Iran) |
| |
|
|
| Turkish | ayak | yïldïz | kïzïl | kuru | yaprak | uyu- | boynuz | kara
jiGer;
baGïr
"chest" | ev | bir | iki | üch | dört | besh | altï | yedi | sekiz | dokuz | on |
|
| The
Ottoman Empire
(c.1299-1922) was named after Osman I (1258-1326) who extended the
frontiers of
Seljuk settlement towards the edge of the Byzantine Empire, although
Constantinople,
its capital, would finally be captured by the Turks only in 1453.
Slave
trade and low literacy rate were part of the Ottoman society for
centuries. The
Ottoman Empire entered WWI through the Ottoman-German Alliance in 1914,
and was
ultimately defeated. The occupation of Izmir in 1919 by the Greek troops
promoted
the establishment of the Turkish national movement under the leadership
of
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who is seen as the crucial
historic figure
and the founder of the Republic of Turkey (capital: Ankara /AHN-kara,
AN-kara/[26]).
An admirer of the
Enlightenment, he sought to transform the anachronistic Ottoman
Empire
into a modern, democratic, secular nation-state. A Latin alphabet
instead of the
Arabic Ottoman script was introduced to increase literacy, and the
Turkish language
reform was initiated to exclude excessive Arabic and Persian borrowings.
| |  |  | 
Figs.: views of
Istanbul,
except left below: Izmir |
The
language
reform succeeded in excluding several thousand words, though
replacing them
with sometimes contrived neologisms. C. 70 million speakers.
In
phonology,
the velar-uvular /G/ is normally entirely omitted in western dialects,
e.g. daG
> da: "mountain". The 1st person pronoun *men "I"
has evolved into ben, an almost unique feature in Turkic
languages.
Nothing
can express the Turkish soul better than a good old quaint Türkü song,
such as those performed by Burchin: Dane,
dane (dialectal) "Your mole is like a little seed — Is there
anything sweeter than the beloved one?"; Gönül
daGï "Soul mountain — come stealthily"; Neredesin
sen? "Where are you?". |
|
|
South
Crimean
Tatar
| ayag,
ayaq,
ayax | yïldïz | qïzïl,
xïzïl | quru,
xuru | yapraq,
yaprax | yuqla-,
yuxla- | boynuz | qara,
xara
Jiger | ev | bir | eki | u:ch | dört | besh | altï | yedi | sekiz | doquz | on |
|
| The
Turkish migration to the Crimean Khanate during the 15-18th c., when it
was nominally
subject to the Ottoman rule (1478-1774), led to the development of the
so called
southern dialect of Crimean Tartar that was essentially "Crimean
Turkish".
Presently, probably dissolved and intermingled with the northern and
central Crimean
Tartar. |
|
|
| Gagauz | ayaq | yïldïs | qïzïl | quru | yapraq | uyu- | buynus | baGïr | ev,
yev | bir | iki | üch | dört | besh | alti | yedi | sekiz | dokuz | on |
|
| Gagauz
/gagah-OOZ/ (apparently from Gök Oghuz > Gökouz in
Turkish pronunciation) is the westernmost Turkic language spoken mostly
in Gagauzia,
a small Autonomous Territorial Unit, formed in 1994 and located in Moldova,
between Romania and Ukraine. Gagauzia includes only 2 towns and 27
villages. The
Gagauz moved to this region from Bulgaria after the Russo-Turkish war
(1806-1812),
though their origins in Bulgaria are poorly understood. Presumably, they
could
have been the followers of the Seljuk Sultan Kaykaus II (1236-1276) from
Anatolia
or Turkified Bulgarian Christians. Just like Azeri, Gagauz is mutually
intelligible
with Turkish to a notable extent. Religion: Orthodox Christianity.
Population:
c. 250.000. | |
|
|
| |
References
1.
The
Internal Classification and Migrations of the Turkic Languages
(2009-2012)
2.
The
Lexicostatistics and Glottochronology of the Turkic Languages
(2009-2012)
3.
The
Proto-Turkic Urheimat & The Early Migrations of the Turkic Peoples
(2009-2012)
4.
Notes on Mongolic/Tungusic Correspondences, (2009)
5.
Hugjiltu,
Sound Comparisons between Turkish and Mongolian,
Inner Mongolia
University // Infosystem Mongolei (1995)
6.
Nikolay Baskakov,
K voprosu o klassifikatsii tyurkskikh yazyakov (On
the
matter of the classification of Turkic Languages) // Izvestiya AN
SSSR, Otdeleniye
yazyka i literatury, vol. 11/1, Moscow (1952)
7.
Nikolay Baskakov, Vvedenije v izuchenije tyurkskikh jazykov (An
introduction
into the study of Turkic languages, Moscow (1969)
8.
Sergey
Starostin, Altajskaja problema i proiskhozhdenije
japonskogo
jazyka (The Altaic Problem and the Origins of the Japanese Language);
Moscow
(1991) (It includes excellent, detailed 100-word Swadesh lists for all
the Altaic
languages, with just few occasional errors; note that the web version
may be abbreviated)
9.
Sravnitelno-istoricheskaja grammatika tyurkskikh jazykov. Leksika. (The
Comparative
Historical Grammar of the Turkic Languages. Lexis.); editorial
board: E. Tenishev
et al; Moscow (2002) (Many lexical examples concerning the life of
Proto-Turks)
10.
M. Dyachok, Glottchronologija
tyurkskikh jazykov (The Glottochronology of the
Turkic Languages),
Materials of 2nd Scientific Conference, Novosibirsk (2001)
10a.
Anna Dybo, Lingvisticheskije kontakty rannikh tyurkov. Leksicheskij
fond. (Linguistic
Contacts of the Early Turks: the Lexical Fund), Moscow (2007) (It
includes
a lexicostatistical analysis with trees, and an analysis of early
borrowings into
Proto-Turkic)
10b.
Oleg Mudrak, Klassifikatsija tyurkskikh jazykov i dialektov s
pomosch'ju metodov
glottokhronologii na osnove voprosov po morophologii i istoricheskoj
fonetike
(The classification of the Turkic languages and dialects based on the
glottochronological
methodology with a morphological and phonological questionary);
Moscow (2009)
(only 100 paper copies; however, there exists a lecture at youtube and
brief summaries.)
11.
Chugunov,
K., Nagler A., Parzinger, H. The
Golden Grave from Arzhan // Minerva, vol. 13, No 1
(2002)
12.
Mike Edwards, Siberia's
Scythians, Masters of Gold // National Geographic
(June 2003)
12a.
Brigitte Pakendorf, Contact in the Prehistory
of the
Sakha, Linguistic and Genetic Perspective (2007)
12b.
Atlas narodov mira (The Atlas of the Peoples of the World), Moscow (1964).
12c.
Khakassko-russkij slovar, composed by N.
Baskakov, A. Inkizhekova-Grekul (1953)
12d. Oyrotsko-russkij slovar, composed by N.
Baskakov, Toskhakova (1947)
13.
A
series of articles concerning the origins of the ethnonym "Khakas"
by S. Yakhontov, V. Butanayev, S. Klyashtornyij //
Ethnograficheskoje obozrenije
(1992) (in Russian).
14.
Kratkaja grammatika kazak-kirgizskogo jazyka (The brief
grammar of the
Kazakh-Kirgiz language), composed by P. Melioranskij,
Sankt-Peterburg (1894)
15.
Kumekov, B.E., Gosudarstvo kimakov IX-XI vv. po arabskim istochnikam
(The Kimak
State of the 9-11th century according to the Arab sources), Alma-Ata
(1972)
15a.
Baskakov, N.A., Sovremennyje kypchakskije yazyki (The modern Kypchak
languages),
Nukus (1987)
15b.
Trepavlov, V.V., Malaja Nogajskaja Orda. Ocherk Istorii (The Lesser
Nogai Horde.
A histrical essay.) Malaja
Nogajskaja Orda. Ocherk Istorii (The Lesser Nogai Horde. A histrical
essay.)
// Tyurkologicheskij sbornik 2003-2004: tyurkskije narody v drevnosti
i srednevekovye,
Moscow (2005)
16.
Messerschmidt, D.G., Forschungreise
durch Sibirien (Dnevnik puteshestviya iz Tobolska, The diary of the trip
from
Tobolsk), (1721-1725)
16a.
Marzhanna Pomorska, Middle Chulym Noun Formation, Krakow (2004)
(in English)
16b.
Dialekty zapadnosibirskikh tatar (The dialects of West Siberian Tatars),
Akhatov
G. Kh.; avtoreferat dissertatsii (a thesis summary); Moscow (1964))
16c.
Govory sibirskikh tatar yuga tymenskoj oblasti (The dialects of the
Siberian
Tatars of South Tyumen Oblast), Alishina, Kh. Ch.; avtoreferat
dissertatsii
(a thesis summary); Kazan (1992)
16d.
Dmitriyeva, L.V., Yazyk barabinskikh tatar (materialy i
issledovanija) (The
language of the Baraba Tatars (materials and studies)); Leningrad
(1981)
16e.
Myagkov, D. A., Traditsionnoje khozyajstvo barabinskikh tatar vo
vtoroj polovine
XIX veka – pervoj polovine XX (The traditional economy of the Baraba
Tatars
from the second half of the 19th to the 1st half of the 20th century),
avtoreferat
dissertatsiji (a thesis summary), Omsk (2009)
16f.
Abakirov, M.Sh., Etnodemograficheskaya situatsiya u barabinskikh
tatar Novosibirskoj
oblasti (The ethnodemographic situation of the Baraba Tatars in
Novosibirsk Oblast);
(2007)
17.
Türik
Bitig, a site dedicated to Orkhon-Yenisei inscriptions
(translated
into English)
18.
Lars Johanson, Eva A. Csato, The Turkic languages, London, New
York (1998)
19.
Mahmud al-Kashgari, The Compendium of the Turkic Dialects (c.
1073) (translated
by Robert Dankoff and James Kelly (1982))
20.
Classifications of Turkic Languages by various authors (in Russian) etheo.org
Classifications of Turkic Languages by Baskakov (1969)
(in Russian),
etheo.org
21.
200-word
Swadesh lists for Turkic languages (composed by many
people
including the author of this publication, also see a more elaborated
version of
Swadesh-215 in #2)
22.
Talat Tekin, Türk
Dilleri Ailesi (The Turkic Language Family) //
Genel
Dilbilim Dergisi, Vol. 2, pp. 7-8, Ankara (1979) (in Turkish)
23.
Frier Iohn de Plano Carpini, The
long and wonderful voyage of Frier Iohn de Plano Carpini
(1245-46
23a.
The Secret History of the Mongols, Genghis Khan's anonymous royal
writer,
c. 1227
23b.
Aus Sibirien. Lose Blätter aus meinem Tagebuche (From Siberia: Torn
pages
from my diary), Wilhelm Radloff, Leipzig, 1893
24.
Sevda Sulejmanova, Istorija tyurkskikh narodov (The history of the
Turkic peoples),
Baku (2009)
24a.
Sevan Nishanyan. C,ag^das, Türkc,enin
Etimolomogic Sözlügü (The Modern Ethymological Dictionary of Turkish)
(2002-12)
24b.
The
Encyclopedia
Iranica
24c.
Description ethnographique des peuples de la Russie; Pauli,
Fyodor Khristoforovich;
Saint-Petersburg (1862)
24d.
Okonchatelnyje itogi vserosijskoj perepisi naselenija 2010 goda (The
final results of the population census of Russia (2010))
25.
Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, Saint Petersburg (1906)
26.
Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language. Second College
Edition,
Editor-in-Chief: David Guralnik, Prentice Hall Press (1986)
|
2009-03/2012
(c)
|
|
Хорошая информация здесь, я хотел бы поделиться с вами своим опытом получения ссуды для расширения моего швейного бизнеса здесь, в Малайзии. Это было действительно тяжело для моего бизнеса из-за моей небольшой кратковременной болезни, тогда, когда я выздоровел, мне понадобился фонд, чтобы снова создать его, чтобы начать работу, поэтому я наткнулся на г-на Бенджамина, консультанта по кредитам в Службе финансирования. Он спросил меня моего бизнес-проекта, и я сказал ему, что у меня уже есть One, и мне просто нужна ссуда в размере 200 000,00 долларов США, он дал мне форму для заполнения, и я сделал также, он спросил меня о моем действующем удостоверении личности через несколько дней. Они сделали перевод, и моя ссуда была предоставлена. Я действительно хочу поблагодарить их за усилия, а также постараюсь передать это всем, кто ищет бизнес-ссуды или другие финансовые вопросы. Свяжитесь с господином Бенджамином. Электронная почта: 247officedept@gmail.com. Он также доступен в WhatsApp Contact: + 1-9893943740.
YanıtlaSil