Lizheng Gate at theChengde Mountain Resort. The second column from the left is the Chagatai language written inPerso-ArabicNastaʿlīq script which readsRawshan Otturādaqi Darwāza.
As part of the preparation for the 1924 establishment of theSoviet Republic of Uzbekistan, Chagatai was officially renamed "Old Uzbek",[13][14][15][16][5] whichEdward A. Allworth argued "badly distorted the literary history of the region" and was used to give authors such asAli-Shir Nava'i anUzbek identity.[17][18] It was also referred to as "Turki" or "Sart" in Russian colonial sources.[5] In China, it is sometimes called "ancientUyghur".[19]
Late 15th century Chagatai Turkic text in Nastaliq script
In the twentieth century, the study of Chaghatay suffered from nationalist bias. In the former Chaghatay area, separate republics have been claiming Chaghatay as the ancestor of their own brand of Turkic. Thus, Old Uzbek, Old Uyghur,Old Tatar, Old Turkmen, and a Chaghatay-influenced layer in sixteenth-centuryAzerbaijanian have been studied separately from each other. There has been a tendency to disregard certain characteristics of Chaghatay itself, e.g. its complex syntax copied fromPersian.Chagatai developed in the late 15th century.[15]: 143 It belongs to theKarluk branch of the Turkic language family. It is descended fromMiddle Turkic, which served as alingua franca in Central Asia, with a strong infusion ofArabic and Persian words and turns of phrase.
Pre-classical Chagatay (the first half of the 15th century)
Classical Chagatay (the second half of the 15th century)
Continuation of Classical Chagatay (16th century)
Decline (17th–19th centuries)
The first period is a transitional phase characterized by the retention of archaic forms; the second phase began with the publication ofAli-Shir Nava'i's firstdivan and is the highpoint of Chagatai literature, followed by the third phase, which is characterized by two bifurcating developments. One is preservation of the classical Chagatai language of Nava'i, the other the increasing influence of dialects of the local spoken languages.[citation needed]
Uzbek andUyghur, two modern languages descended from Chagatai, are the closest to it. Uzbeks regard Chagatai as the origin of their language and Chagatai literature as part of their heritage. In 1921 inUzbekistan, then a part of theSoviet Union, Chagatai was initially intended to be the national and governmental language of theUzbek SSR. However, when it became evident that the language was too archaic for that purpose, it was replaced by a new literary language based on a series of Uzbek dialects.
Ethnologue records the use of the word "Chagatai" inAfghanistan to describe the "Tekke" dialect ofTurkmen.[21] Up to and including the eighteenth century, Chagatai was the main literary language inTurkmenistan and most of Central Asia.[22] While it had some influence on Turkmen, the two languages belong to different branches of the Turkic language family.
Persian literature, which Central Asian Turkic authors regarded as superior, was deliberately imitated and emulated in the creation of Chagatai literature.[23] The most famous of Chagatai poets, Ali-Shir Nava'i, among other works wroteMuhakamat al-Lughatayn, a detailed comparison of the Chagatai and Persian languages. Here, Nava’i argued for the superiority of the former for literary purposes. His fame is attested by the fact that Chagatai is sometimes called "Nava'i's language". Among prose works,Timur's biography is written in Chagatai, as is the famousBaburnama (orTuska Babure) ofBabur, the Timurid founder of theMughal Empire. ADivan attributed toKamran Mirza is written in Persian and Chagatai, and one ofBairam Khan'sDivans was written in Chagatai.
The following is a prime example of the 16th-century literary Chagatai Turkic, employed by Babur in one of hisruba'is.[24]
Islam ichin avara-i yazi buldim, Kuffar u hind harbsazi buldim Jazm aylab idim uzni shahid olmaqqa, Amminna' lillahi ki gazi buldim
I am become a desert wanderer for Islam, Having joined battle with infidels and Hindus I readied myself to become a martyr, God be thanked I am become a ghazi.
Uzbek rulerMuhammad Shaybani Khan wrote a prose essay calledRisale-yi maarif-i Shaybāni in Chagatai in 1507, shortly after his capture ofGreater Khorasan, and dedicated it to his son, Muhammad Timur.[2][25] The manuscript of his philosophical and religious work, "Bahr ul-Khuda", written in 1508, is located in London.[26]
In terms of literary production, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are often seen as a period of decay. It is a period in which Chagatai lost ground to Persian. Important writings in Chagatai from the period between the 17th and 18th centuries include those ofAbu al-Ghazi Bahadur:Shajara-i Tarākima (Genealogy of the Turkmens) andShajara-i Turk (Genealogy of the Turks). Abu al-Ghāzī is motivated by functional considerations and describes his choice of language and style in the sentence "I did not use one word of Chaghatay (!), Persian or Arabic". As is clear from his actual language use, he aims at making himself understood to a broader readership by avoiding too ornate a style, notablysaj’, rhymed prose. In the second half of the 18th century,Turkmen poetMagtymguly Pyragy also introduced the use of classical Chagatai into Turkmen literature as a literary language, incorporating manyTurkmen linguistic features.[22]
Bukharan rulerSubhan Quli Khan (1680–1702) was the author of a work on medicine, "Subkhankuli's revival of medicine" ("Ihya at-tibb Subhani"), which was written in the Central Asian Turkic language (Chaghatay) and is devoted to the description of diseases, their recognition and treatment. One of the manuscript lists is kept in the library inBudapest.[27]
Ármin Vámbéry 1832–1913,Ćagataische Sprachstudien, enthaltend grammatikalischen Umriss, Chrestomathie, und Wörterbuch der ćagataischen Sprache; (1867).
Sheykh Süleymān Efendi,Čagataj-Osmanisches Wörterbuch: Verkürzte und mit deutscher Übersetzung versehene Ausgabe (1902).
Sheykh Süleymān Efendi,Lughat-ï chaghatay ve turkī-yi 'othmānī (Dictionary of Chagatai and Ottoman Turkish).
Mirza Muhammad Mehdi Khan Astarabadi,Mabaniul Lughat: Yani Sarf o Nahv e Lughat e Chughatai.[33]
Abel Pavet de Courteille,Mirâdj-nâmeh : récit de l'ascension de Mahomet au ciel, composé a.h. 840 (1436/1437), texte turk-oriental, publié pour la première fois d'après le manuscript ouïgour de la Bibliothèque nationale et traduit en français, avec une préf. analytique et historique, des notes, et des extraits du Makhzeni Mir Haïder.[34]
The letters ف، ع، ظ، ط، ض، ص، ژ، ذ، خ، ح، ث، ء are only used in loanwords and do not represent any additional phonemes.
For Kazakh and Kyrgyz, letters in parentheses () indicate a modern borrowed pronunciation from Bashkir or Tatar that is not consistent with historic Kazakh and Kyrgyz treatments of these letters
Many orthographies, particularly that of Turkic languages, are based on Kona Yëziq. Examples include the alphabets ofSouth Azerbaijani,Qashqai,Chaharmahali,Khorasani,Uyghur,Äynu, andKhalaj. Virtually all other Turkic languages have a history of being written with an alphabet descended from Kona Yëziq, however, due to various writing reforms conducted by Turkey and theSoviet Union, many of these languages now are written in either theLatin script or theCyrillic script.
TheQing dynasty commissioned dictionaries on the major languages of China which included Chagatai Turki, such as thePentaglot Dictionary.
The basic word order of Chagatai is SOV. Chagatai is a head-final language where the adjectives come before nouns. Other words such as those denoting location, time, etc. usually appear in the order of emphasis put on them.
Like otherTurkic languages, Chagatai hasvowel harmony (thoughUzbek, despite being a direct descendant of Chaghatai, notably does not ever since the spelling changes under USSR; vowel harmony being present in the orthography of the Uzbek perso-arabic script). There are mainly eight vowels, and vowel harmony system works uponvowel backness.
The vowels [i] and [e] are central or front-central/back-central and therefore are considered both. Usually these will follow two rules ininflection: [i] and [e] almost always follow the front vowel inflections; and, if the stem contains [q] or [ǧ], which are formed in the back of the mouth, back vowels are more likely in the inflection.
These affect the suffixes that are applied to words.
Consonant harmony is relatively less common and only appears in a few suffixes such as the genitive.
Plural is formed by adding the suffix -لار (-lar/lär). There are two pronunciations which exist due vowel harmony rules. If the vowel of the last syllable is a front syllable ([a], [o], [u]) -lar is used. If the vowel is a back vowel ([ä], [ö], [ü]) or [i] and [e], -lär is used. In rare circumstances -lar is sometimes written as -لر, though generally the suffix -لار is used for both the pronunciations /-lär/ and /-lar/. Or in the case of Kazakh and Kyrgyz /-ler/ and /-lar/.
To be noted is that the ending varies from word to word due toconsonant harmony, which changes may be included in writing or not, so <inäk> + <ǧa> = <inäkka> but may be written as <inäkǧa>.Vowel harmony is taken into effect if the vowel of the last syllable is a front vowel the suffix attains pronunciation of -ä instead of -a.
There are seven Chagataipersonal pronouns, as there are formal and informal forms of the second person singular form. Unlike other languages these pronouns do not differ between genders. Each of these pronouns havesuffixes added to end ofverbs as conjugation.
Below are some punctuation marks associated with Chagatai.[36]
Symbol/
Graphemes
Name
English name
Function
⁘
Four-dot mark
The four-dot mark indicates a verse break. It is used at the beginning and end of a verse, especially to separate verse from prose. It may occur at the beginning or end of lines, or in the middle of a page.
❊
Eight teardrop-spoked propeller asterisk
The eight teardrop-spoked propeller asterisk indicates a decoration for title. This mark occurs end of the title. This mark also occurs end of a poem. This mark occurs end of a prayer in Jarring texts. However this mark did not occur consistently.
.
Period (full stop)
The period is a punctuation mark placed at the end of a sentence. However, this mark did not occur consistently in Chaghatay manuscripts until the later period (e.g. manuscripts on Russian paper).
" "
Quotation mark
Dialogue was wrapped in quotation marks, rarely used for certain words with emphasis
___
Underscore
Dash: mostly with red ink, occurs on the top of names, prayers, and highlighted questions, answers, and important outline numbers.
Whitespace
Can indicate a stanza break in verse, and a new paragraph in brows.
-
Dash
Rare punctuation: used for number ranges (e.g. 2–5)
--
Double dash
Rare punctuation: sets off following information like a colon, it is used to list a table of contents
( )
Parentheses
Marks a tangential or contextual remark, word or phrase.
:
colon
Colons appear extremely rarely preceding a direct quote. Colons can also mark beginning of dialogue
...
Ellipsis:
Ellipsis: a series of dots (typically 3) that indicate missing text.
^Grenoble, Lenore (2003).Language Policy of the Soviet Union. Kluwer Academic Publishers. p. 143.ISBN1-4020-1298-5.
^"Chaghatay Language and Literature".Encyclopedia Iranica.Ebn Mohannā (Jamāl-al-Dīn, fl. early 8th/14th century, probably in Khorasan), for instance, characterized it as the purest of all Turkish languages (Doerfer, 1976, p. 243), and the khans of the Golden Horde (Radloff, 1870; Kurat; Bodrogligeti, 1962) and of the Crimea (Kurat), as well as the Kazan Tatars (Akhmetgaleeva; Yusupov), wrote in Chaghatay much of the time.
^Sertkaya, Ayşe Gül (2002). "Şeyhzade Abdurrezak Bahşı". In Hazai, György (ed.).Archivum Ottomanicum. Vol. 20. pp. 114–115.As a result, we can claim thatŞeyhzade Abdürrezak Bahşı was a scribe lived in the palaces of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and his son Bayezid-i Veli in the 15th century, wrote letters (bitig) and firmans (yarlığ) sent to Eastern Turks by Mehmed II and Bayezid II in both Uighur and Arabic scripts and in East Turkestan (Chagatai) language.
^abEckmann, János (1966). Sebeok, Thomas A. (ed.).Chagatay Manual. Uralic and Altaic Series. Vol. 60. Indiana University Publications. p. 4.
^Vaidyanath, R. (1967).The Formation of the Soviet Central Asian Republics: A Study in Soviet Nationalities Policy, 1917–1936. People's Publishing House. p. 24.
^McHenry, Robert, ed. (1993). "Navā'ī, (Mir) 'Alī Shīr".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 8 (15th ed.).Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. p. 563.
^abClark, Larry, Michael Thurman, and David Tyson. "Turkmenistan." Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan: Country Studies. p. 318. Comp. Glenn E. Curtis. Washington, D.C.: Division, 1997
^Balabanlilar, Lisa (2015).Imperial Identity in the Mughal Empire. Memory and Dynastic Politics in Early Modern South and Central Asia. Bloomsbury Publishing. pp. 42–43.ISBN978-0-857-72081-8.
^Bodrogligeti, A.J.E. (1993–1994). "Muḥammad Shaybānī Khan's Apology to the Muslim Clergy".Archivum Ottomanicum.13: 98.
^Bodrogligeti, A.J.E. (1982). "Muhammad Shaybanî's Bahru'l-huda : An Early Sixteenth Century Didactic Qasida in Chagatay".Ural-Altaische Jahrbücher.54: 1 and n.4.
^A Turkic Medical Treatise from Islamic Central Asia: A Critical Edition of a Seventeenth-Century Chagatay Work by Subḥān Qulï Khan. Edited, Translated and Annotated by László KÁROLY. Brill’s Inner Asian Library. Volume 32. Editors: Michael DROMPP; Devin DEWEESE; Mark C. ELLIOTT. Leiden. 2015
^[1]; Qahhar, Tahir, and William Dirks. “Uzbek Literature.” World Literature Today, vol. 70, no. 3, 1996, pp. 611–618.JSTOR40042097.
^МОЛЛА МУСА САЙРАМИ: ТА'РИХ-И АМНИЙА (Mulla Musa Sayrami'sTarikh-i amniyya: Preface), in: "Материалы по истории казахских ханств XV–XVIII веков (Извлечения из персидских и тюркских сочинений)" (Materials for the history of the Kazakh Khanates of the 15–18th cc. (Extracts from Persian and Turkic literary works)),Alma Ata, Nauka Publishers, 1969.(in Russian)
Bodrogligeti, András J. E. (2007) [2001].A Grammar of Chagatay. Languages of the World: Materials. Vol. 155. München: LINCOM Europa.ISBN978-3-89586-563-3.
An introduction to Chaghatay by Eric Schluessel, Maize Books; University of Michigan Publishing 2018 (A self study, open access textbook with graded lessons)
