 | This article shouldspecify the language of its non-English content, using{{langx}},{{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and{{IPA}} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriateISO 639 code. Wikipedia'smultilingual support templates may also be used - notably otk for Old Turkish.See why.(January 2025) |
| Old Turkic | |
|---|---|
| East Old Turkic, Old Siberian Turkic | |
 Talas Inscription 1 | |
| Native to | Second Turkic Khaganate,Uyghur Khaganate |
| Region | East Asia,Central Asia and parts ofEastern Europe |
| Era | 8th–13th centuries |
Turkic
| |
| Dialects |
|
| Old Turkic script,Old Uyghur alphabet | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | otk – Old Turkish |
otk Old Turkish | |
| Glottolog | oldu1238 |
Old Siberian Turkic, generally known asEast Old Turkic and often shortened toOld Turkic, was aSiberian Turkic language spoken aroundEast Turkistan andMongolia.[1] It was first discovered in inscriptions originating from theSecond Turkic Khaganate, and later theUyghur Khaganate, making it the earliest attestedCommon Turkic language. In terms of the datability of extant written sources, the period of Old Turkic can be dated from slightly before 720AD to theMongol invasions of the 13th century.
Old Turkic can generally be split into two dialects, the earlierOrkhon Turkic and the laterOld Uyghur. There is a difference of opinion among linguists with regard to theKarakhanid language, some (among whom includeOmeljan Pritsak,Sergey Malov,Osman Karatay andMarcel Erdal) classify it as another dialect of East Old Turkic, while others prefer to include Karakhanid among Middle Turkic languages;[2] nonetheless, Karakhanid is very close to Old Uyghur.[3] East Old Turkic and West Old Turkic together comprise the Old Turkic proper, though West Old Turkic is generally unattested and is mostly reconstructed through words loaned throughHungarian.[4] East Old Turkic is the oldest attested member of theSiberian Turkic branch of Turkic languages, and several of its now-archaic grammatical as well as lexical features are extant in the modernYellow Uyghur,Lop Nur Uyghur[5] andKhalaj (all of which are endangered); Khalaj, for instance, has (surprisingly) retained a considerable number of archaic Old Turkic words[6] despite forming alanguage island[7] within Central Iran and being heavily influenced byPersian.[8]Old Uyghur is not a direct ancestor of the modernUyghur language,[9][10] but rather theWestern Yugur language; the contemporaneous ancestor of Modern Uyghur was theChagatai literary language.[11]
East Old Turkic is attested in a number of scripts, including theOld Turkic script, theOld Uyghur alphabet, theBrahmi script, and theManichaean script. TheTurkic runiform alphabet of Orkhon Turkic was deciphered byVilhelm Thomsen in 1893.
| Front | Back | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| unrounded | rounded | unrounded | rounded | |
| Close | i | y | ɯ | u |
| Mid | e | ø | o | |
| Open | ɑ | |||
Vowel roundness is assimilated through the word throughvowel harmony. Some vowels were considered to occur only in the initial syllable, but they were later found to be in suffixes.[12] Length is distinctive for all vowels; while most of its daughter languages have lost the distinction, many of these preserve it in the case of /e/ with a height distinction, where the long phoneme developed into a more closed vowel than the short counterpart.
| Labial | Dental | Post- alveolar | Velar | Uvular | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| voiceless | voiced | voiceless | voiced | voiceless | voiced | voiceless | voiced | voiceless | voiced | |
| Nasal | m | n | ɲ | ŋ | ||||||
| Stop | p | b | t | d | tʃ | k | g | q | ɢ | |
| Fricative | s | z | ʃ | |||||||
| Tap/Flap | ɾ | |||||||||
| Approximant | lɫ | j | ||||||||
Old Turkic is highly restrictive in which consonants words can begin with: words can begin with/b/,/t/,/tʃ/,/k/,/q/,/s/,/ɫ/ and/j/, but they do not usually begin with/p/,/d/,/g/,/ɢ/,/l/,/ɾ/,/n/,/ɲ/,/ŋ/,/m/,/ʃ/, or/z/. The only exceptions are𐰤𐰀 (ne, "what, which") and its derivatives, and some early assimilations of word-initial /b/ to /m/ preceding a nasal in a word such as𐰢𐰤 (men, "I").
TheOld Turkic script (also known variously as Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script) is thealphabet used by theGöktürks and other earlyTurkickhanates during the 8th to 10th centuries to record the Old Turkic language.[13]
The script is named after theOrkhon Valley inMongolia where early 8th-century inscriptions were discovered in an 1889 expedition byNikolai Yadrintsev.[14]
This writing system was later used within theUyghur Khaganate.[15] Additionally, aYenisei variant is known from 9th-centuryYenisei Kirghiz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in theTalas Valley ofTurkestan and theOld Hungarian alphabet of the 10th century. Words were usually written from right to left. Variants of the script were found in Mongolia andXinjiang in the east and theBalkans in the west. The preserved inscriptions were dated between the 8th and 10th centuries.
There are approximately 12case morphemes in Old Turkic (treating 3 types ofaccusatives as one); the table below lists Old Turkic cases followingMarcel Erdal’s classification (some phonemes of suffixes written in capital letters denotearchiphonemes which sometimes are dropped or changed as per (East) Old Turkicphonotactics):
| Case Suffixes | Examples | Translation | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nominative | ∅ (unmarked) | köŋül-∅ | heart |
| Genitive | -nIŋ | Tämürniŋ | Tämür’s |
| Accusative I (Pronominal Accusative) | -nI | bunï | this |
| Accusative II (Nominal Accusative) | -Ig/-Ug[a] | kïzlarïg, Karlukug | girls, Karluk |
| Accusative III[17] | -(I)n | oglïmïn | my son’s |
| Dative | -ka[b] | ordoka | to palace |
| Directive / Allative[c] | -gArU[d] | ävgärü | towards home |
| Locative | -tA/-dA | ävdä, suvlukta | in house,in vessel |
| Directive-Locative / Partitive-Locative | -rA | asra[e], bašra[f] | below,at/towards/on head |
| Ablative | -dIn/-tIn-dAn | kaŋtïn | from father |
| Equative-Lative | -čA[g][h] | tükägüčä | up to/till end |
| Instrumental | -In/-Un | okun | with arrow |
| Comitative[i] | -lXgU[j]-lUgUn[k] | iniligü | together with young brother |
| Similative | -lAyU | yultuzlayu | like star(s) |
Old Turkic (like Modern Turkic) had 2 grammatical numbers: singular and plural. However, Old Turkic also formed collective nouns (a category related to plurals) by a separate suffix-(A)gU(n) e.g.tayagunuŋuz ‘your colts’.[22] Unlike Modern Turkic, Old Turkic had 3 types of suffixes to denote plural:[23]
Suffixes except for -lAr is limitedly used for only a few words. In some descriptions,-(X)t and-An may also be treated as collective markers.[24]-(X)t is used for titles of non-Turkic origin, e.g.tarxat ←tarxan 'free man' <Soghdian,tégit ←tégin 'prince' (of unknown origin).-s is a similar suffix, e.g.ïšbara-s 'lords' <Sanskritīśvara. -An is used for person, e.g.ärän 'men, warriors' ←är 'man',oglan ←ogul 'son'.
Today, all Modern Turkic languages (except forChuvash) use exclusively the suffix of the-lAr type for plural.
Finite verb forms in Old Turkic (i.e. verbs to which a tense suffix is added) always conjugate for person and number of the subject by corresponding suffixes save for the 3rd person, in which case person suffix is absent. This grammatical configuration is preserved in the majority of Modern Turkic languages, except for some such asYellow Uyghur in which verbs no longer agree with the person of the subject.
Old Turkic had a complex system of tenses,[25] which could be divided into six simple[26] and derived tenses, the latter formed by adding special (auxiliary) verbs to the simple tenses.
| Tense | Positive | Negative |
|---|---|---|
| ImperfectAorist | -Ur | -mAz |
| Preterite (Simple Past) | -dI | |
| Perfect Participle | -mIš | -mAdOk[a] |
| Future | -dAčI | -mAčI |
| Vivid Past | -yOk | -mAyOk |
| Imminent Future | -gAlIr |
Some suffixes are attested as being attached to only one word and no other instance of attachment is to be found. Similarly, some words are attested only once in the entire extant Old Turkic corpus.
The following have been classified byGerard Clauson as denominal noun suffixes.
| Suffix | Usages | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| -ča | anča | thus, like that |
| -ke | sigirke yipke | sinew string/thread |
| -la/-le | ayla tünle körkle | thus, like that yesterday, night, north beautiful |
| -suq/-sük | bağïrsuq | (internal) organs |
| -ra/-re | içre | inside, within |
| -ya/-ye | bérye yırya | here north |
| -čïl/-čil | igčil | sickly |
| -ğïl/-gil | üçgil qïrğïl | triangular grey haired |
| -nti | ékkinti | second |
| -dam/-dem | tegridem | god-like |
| tïrtï:/-türti | ičtirti | inside, within |
| -qı:/-ki | ašnuki üzeki ebdeki | former (being) on or above being in the house |
| -an/-en/-un | oğlan eren | children men, gentlemen |
| -ğu:/-gü | enčgü tuzğu buğrağu | tranquil, at peace food given to a traveller as a gift being like a camel stud, aggressive |
| -a:ğu:/-e:gü: | üčegü ičegü | three together being inside human body, internal organ |
| -daŋ/-duŋ | otuŋ izdeŋ | firewood track, trace |
| -ar/-er | birer azar | one each a few |
| -layu:/-leyü | börileyü | like a wolf |
| -daš/-deš | qarïndaš yerdeš | kinsman compatriot |
| -mïš/-miš | altmïš yetmiš | sixty seventy |
| -gey | küçgey | violent |
| -çaq/-çek and-çuq/-çük | ïğïrčaq | spindle-whorl |
| -q/-k (after vowels and -r) -aq/-ek (the normal forms) -ïq/-ik/-uq/-ük (rare forms) | ortuq | partner |
| -daq/-dek and(?)-duq/-dük | bağırdaq beligdek burunduq | wrap terrifying nose ring |
| -ğuq/-gük | çamğuq | objectionable |
| -maq/-mek | kögüzmek | breastplate |
| -muq/-a:muq | solamuk | left-handed (pejorative?) |
| -naq | baqanaq | "frog in a horse's hoof" (frombaqa frog) |
| -duruq/-dürük | boyunduruq | yoke |
The following have been classified by Gerard Clauson asdeverbal suffixes.
| Suffix | Usages | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| -a/-e/-ı:/-i/-u/-ü | oprı adrı keçe egri köni ötrü | hollow,valley branched,forked evening, night crooked straight, upright, lawful then, so |
| -ğa/-ge | kısğa öge bilge kölige tilge | short wise wise shadow slice |
| -ğma/-gme | tanığma | riddle, denial |
| -çı/-çi | otaçı: okıçı | healer priest, preacher |
| -ğuçı/-güçi | ayğuçı bitigüçi | councilor scribe |
| -dı/-di | üdründi ögdi alkadı sökti | chosen,parted,separated,scattered praised praised bran |
| -tı/-ti | arıtı uzatı tüketi | completely, clean lengthily completely |
| -du | eğdu umdu süktü | curved knife desire, covetousness campaigning |
| -ğu:/-gü | bilegü kedgü oğlağü | whetstone clothing gently nurtured |
| -ingü | bilingü etingü yeringü salıŋu | being in the know being prepared disgusted sling |
| -ğa:ç/-geç | kışgaç | pincers |
| -ğuç/-güç | bıçgüç | scissors |
| -maç/-meç | tutmaç | "saved" noodle dish |
| -ğut/-güt | alpağut bayağut | warrior merchant |
| Proto-language |  | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Common Turkic |
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