Old Turkic script

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Old Turkic script
Orkhon script
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A line dedicated to Bumin Qaghan in the Ongin inscription
Script type
Alphabet
Period
8th to 10th centuries[1]
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LanguagesOld Turkic
Related scripts
Parent systems
Child systems
Old Hungarian
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.Orkh Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.(175), ​Old Turkic, Orkhon Runic
Unicode
Unicode alias
Old Turkic
U+10C00–U+10C4F
Template:Infobox writing system/ipa-note

Lua error in Module:Location_map at line 526: Unable to find the specified location map definition: "Module:Location map/data/Asia" does not exist. The Old Turkic script (also known variously as Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script, Turkic runes) was the alphabet used by the Göktürks and other early Turkic khanates from the 8th to 10th centuries to record the Old Turkic language.[1]

The script is named after the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia, where early 8th-century inscriptions were discovered in an 1889 expedition by Nikolai Yadrintsev.[2] These Orkhon inscriptions were published by Vasily Radlov and deciphered by the Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893.[3]

This writing system was later used within the Uyghur Khaganate. Additionally, a Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century Yenisei Kyrgyz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old Hungarian alphabet of the 10th century. Words were usually written from right to left.

Origins

Many scholars, starting with Vilhelm Thomsen (1893), suggest that the Old Turkic script is derived from descendants of the Aramaic alphabet in particular via the Pahlavi and Sogdian alphabets,[4][5][6] or possibly via Kharosthi used to write Sanskrit.[7][8][9] It has also been speculated that tamgas (livestock brands used by Eurasian nomads) were one of the sources of the Old Turkic script,[10] but despite similarities in shape and forms, this hypothesis has been widely rejected as unverifiable, largely because early tamgas are too poorly attested and understood to be subject to a thorough comparison.[11] The text is most likely derived from Aramaic via the Sogdian alphabet and Syriac alphabet.[12]

Contemporary Chinese sources conflict as to whether the Turks had a written language by the 6th century. The 7th century Book of Zhou mentions that the Turks had a written language similar to that of the Sogdians. Two other sources, the Book of Sui and the History of the Northern Dynasties, claim that the Turks did not have a written language.[13] According to István Vásáry (professor of Asian studies) [hu], the Old Turkic script was invented under the rule of the first khagans and was modelled after the Sogdian fashion.[14] Several variants of the script came into being as early as the first half of the 6th century.[15]

Corpus

The Old Turkic corpus consists of about two hundred[16] inscriptions, plus a number of manuscripts.[17] The inscriptions, dating from the 8th to 10th century, were discovered in present-day Mongolia (the area of the Second Turkic Khaganate and the Uyghur Khaganate that succeeded it), in the upper Yenisei basin of central-south Siberia, and, in smaller numbers, in the Altai Mountains and Xinjiang. The texts are mostly epitaphs (official or private), but there are also graffiti and a handful of short inscriptions found on archaeological artifacts, including a number of bronze mirrors.[16]

The website of the Language Committee of Ministry of Culture and Information of the Republic of Kazakhstan lists 54 inscriptions from the Orkhon area, 106 from the Yenisei area, 15 from the Talas area, and 78 from the Altai area. The most famous of the inscriptions are the two monuments (obelisks) which were erected in the Orkhon Valley between 732 and 735 in honor of the Göktürk prince Kül Tigin and his brother the emperor Bilge Kağan.[18] The Tonyukuk inscription, a monument situated somewhat farther east, is slightly earlier, dating to c. 716. These inscriptions relate in epic language the legendary origins of the Turks, the golden age of their history, their subjugation by the Chinese (Tang-Gokturk wars), and their liberation by Bilge.[citation needed][18]

The Old Turkic manuscripts, of which there are none earlier than the 9th century, were found in present-day Xinjiang and represent Old Uyghur, a different Turkic dialect from the one represented in the Old Turkic inscriptions in the Orkhon valley and elsewhere.[16] They include Irk Bitig, a 9th-century manuscript book on divination.[19]

Alphabet

Table of characters as published by Thomsen (1893)

Old Turkic being a synharmonic language, a number of consonant signs are divided into two "synharmonic sets", one for front vowels and the other for back vowels. Such vowels can be taken as intrinsic to the consonant sign, giving the Old Turkic alphabet an aspect of an abugida script. In these cases, it is customary to use superscript numerals ¹ and ² to mark consonant signs used with back and front vowels, respectively. This convention was introduced by Thomsen (1893), and followed by Gabain (1941), Malov (1951) and Tekin (1968).[citation needed]

Vowels, with Yeniseian variants
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Consonant sets, with Yeniseian variants
Back
vowels 		Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter
Front
vowels 		Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter
Others Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter
Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter Template:Letter

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A colon-like symbol (Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+205A ⁚ Script error: No such module "Unicode data".) is sometimes used as a word separator.[20] In some cases a ring (Page Template:Mono/styles.css has no content.U+2E30 ⸰ Script error: No such module "Unicode data".) is used instead.[20]

A reading example (right to left): 𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃 transliterated t²ñr²i, this spells the name of the Turkic sky god, Täñri (Script error: No such module "IPA".).

Variants

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Examples of the Orkhon-Yenisei alphabet are depicted on the reverse of the Azerbaijani 5 manat banknote issued since 2006.[21]
Oldest known Turkic alphabet listings, Ryukoku and Toyok manuscripts. Toyok manuscript transliterates Turkic alphabet into the Old Uyghur alphabet. Per Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Кызласов, Игорь Леонидович [in русский] (1994). Рунические письменности евразийских степей. Восточная литература РАН. ISBN 978-5-02-017741-3.

Variants of the script were found from Mongolia and Xinjiang in the east to the Balkans in the west. The preserved inscriptions were dated to between the 8th and 10th centuries.

These alphabets are divided into four groups by Kyzlasov (1994)[22]

The Asiatic group is further divided into three related alphabets:

  • Orkhon alphabet, Göktürks, 8th to 10th centuries
  • Yenisei alphabet,
    • Talas alphabet, a derivative of the Yenisei alphabet, Kangly or Karluks 8th to 10th centuries. Talas inscriptions include Terek-Say rock inscriptions found in the 1897, Koysary text, Bakaiyr gorge inscriptions, Kalbak-Tash 6 and 12 inscriptions, Talas alphabet has 29 identified letters.[23]

The Eurasiatic group is further divided into five related alphabets:

  • Achiktash, used in Sogdia 8th to 10th centuries.
  • South-Yenisei, used by the Göktürks 8th to 10th centuries.
  • Two especially similar alphabets: the Don alphabet, used by the Khazars, 8th to 10th centuries; and the Kuban alphabet, used by the Bulgars, 8th to 13th centuries. Inscriptions in both alphabets are found in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and on the banks of the Kama river.
  • Tisza, used by the Pechenegs 8th to 10th centuries.

A number of alphabets are incompletely collected due to the limitations of the extant inscriptions. Evidence in the study of the Turkic scripts includes Turkic-Chinese bilingual inscriptions, contemporaneous Turkic inscriptions in the Greek alphabet, literal translations into Slavic languages, and paper fragments with Turkic cursive writing from religion, Manichaeism, Buddhist, and legal subjects of the 8th to 10th centuries found in Xinjiang.

Sample text

Transcription of part of Bilge Kağan's inscription (lines 36-38).[24]

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Unicode

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The Unicode block for Old Turkic is U+10C00–U+10C4F. It was added to the Unicode standard in October 2009, with the release of version 5.2. It includes separate "Orkhon" and "Yenisei" variants of individual characters.

Since Windows 8 Unicode Old Turkic writing support was added in the Segoe font.

Old TurkicPage Template:Citation/styles.css has no content.[1]Page Template:Citation/styles.css has no content.[2]
Official Unicode Consortium code chart (PDF)
  0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
U+10C0x 𐰀 𐰁 𐰂 𐰃 𐰄 𐰅 𐰆 𐰇 𐰈 𐰉 𐰊 𐰋 𐰌 𐰍 𐰎 𐰏
U+10C1x 𐰐 𐰑 𐰒 𐰓 𐰔 𐰕 𐰖 𐰗 𐰘 𐰙 𐰚 𐰛 𐰜 𐰝 𐰞 𐰟
U+10C2x 𐰠 𐰡 𐰢 𐰣 𐰤 𐰥 𐰦 𐰧 𐰨 𐰩 𐰪 𐰫 𐰬 𐰭 𐰮 𐰯
U+10C3x 𐰰 𐰱 𐰲 𐰳 𐰴 𐰵 𐰶 𐰷 𐰸 𐰹 𐰺 𐰻 𐰼 𐰽 𐰾 𐰿
U+10C4x 𐱀 𐱁 𐱂 𐱃 𐱄 𐱅 𐱆 𐱇 𐱈
Notes
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See also

References

Citations

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  1. ^ a b Scharlipp, Wolfgang (2000). An Introduction to the Old Turkish Runic Inscriptions. Verlag auf dem Ruffel, Engelschoff. Template:ISBN.
  2. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Sinor, Denis (2002). "Old Turkic". History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Vol. 4. Paris: UNESCO. pp. 331–333.
  3. ^ Vilhelm Thomsen, [Turkic] Orkhon Inscriptions Deciphered (Helsinki : Society of Finnish Literature Press, 1893). Translated in French and later English (Ann Arbor MI: University Microfilms Intl., 1971). OCLC 7413840
  4. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Brill, E. J. (1993). E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913-1936. Morocco - Ruzzīk. Volume 6: Brill. p. 911. ISBN 978-90-04-09792-6. Retrieved 7 August 2024.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  5. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Campbell, George; Moseley, Christopher (2013). The Routledge Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets. Routledge. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-135-22296-3.
  6. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Róna-Tas, András (1987). "On the Development and Origin of the East Turkic "Runic" Script". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 41 (1): 7–14. ISSN 0001-6446. JSTOR 23657716.
  7. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Cooper, J.S. (2004). "Babylonian beginnings: The origin of the cuneiform writing system in comparative perspective". In Houston, Stephen (ed.). The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process. Cambridge University Press. pp. 58–59.
  8. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Mabry, Tristan James (2015). Nationalism, Language, and Muslim Exceptionalism. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 109. ISBN 978-0-8122-4691-9.
  9. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Kara, György (1996). "Aramaic scripts for Altaic languages". In Daniels, Peter; Bright, William (eds.). The World's Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-507993-7.
  10. ^ Aristov, N. (1896) Notes on Ethnic Composition of Turkic Tribes and People and Population Record. ZhS 3-4, 277-456
  11. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Tekin, Talat (1965). A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic - ProQuest. UNiversity of California, Los Angeles. Retrieved 7 August 2024.
  12. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Old Turkic script" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 18 January 2024. Retrieved 28 September 2024.
  13. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Lung 龍, Rachel 惠珠 (2011). Interpreters in Early Imperial China. John Benjamins Publishing. pp. 54–55. ISBN 978-90-272-2444-6.
  14. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Tryjarski, Edward (2002). "Runes and runelike scripts of Eurasian area. Part 1". Archivum Ottomanicum. 20. Mouton: 49.
  15. ^ Sigfried J. de Laet, Joachim Herrmann, (1996), History of Humanity: From the seventh century B.C. to the seventh century A.D., p. 478
  16. ^ a b c Erdal, Marcel. 2004. A grammar of Old Turkic. Leiden, Brill. p. 7.
  17. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Vasilʹiev, D.D. (1983). Графический фонд памятников тюркской рунической письменности азиатского ареала (опыт систематизации) [Graphical corpus of Turkic Runic writing monuments in the Asian area.] (in русский). Leningrad: USSR Academy of Science. pp. 37, 45. Руника Восточного Туркестана представлена двояко: в виде рукописных текстов и как граффити на фресках и на штукатурке пещерных храмов в Турфанском оазисе. Образцы тюркского рунического письма на бумаге имеют особое значение, так как только к этой группе могут быть применены традиционные приемы и методы палеографического исследования. Эти памятники относятся к периоду расцвета древнеуйгурских городов и торговли, к периоду зарождения тюркской письменной литературы и науки. Функциональное изменение характера памятников может быть признано свидетельством возникшей потребности в более широком и утилитарном использовании рунической грамоты.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  18. ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Kultegin's Memorial Complex". bitig.kz. Archived from the original on 31 October 2025. Retrieved 2019-06-27.
  19. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Tekin, Talât (1993). Irk bitig = The Book of omens. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag. ISBN 3-447-03426-2. OCLC 32352166.
  20. ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."14". The Unicode Standard, Chapter 14.8: Old Turkic (PDF). Unicode Consortium. March 2020. p. 594.
  21. ^ Central Bank of Azerbaijan. National currency: 5 manat. (in Azerbaijani). Retrieved 25 February 2010.
  22. ^ Kyzlasov I. L.; "Writings of Eurasian Steppes", Eastern Literature, Moscow, 1994, 327 pp. 321–323.
  23. ^ Kyzlasov I. L.; "Writings of Eurasian Steppes", Eastern Literature, Moscow, 1994, pp. 98–100.
  24. ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Bilge kagan's Memorial Complex". bitig.kz. Archived from the original on 2025-12-11. Retrieved 2026-05-12.

Sources

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  • Diringer, David. The Alphabet: a Key to the History of Mankind, New York, NY: Philosophical Library, 1948, pp. 313–315.
  • Erdal, Marcel. 2004. A grammar of Old Turkic. Leiden & Boston: Brill.
  • Guzev, V.G., Kljashtornyj, S.G. The Turkic Runic script: Is the hypothesis of its indigenous origin no more viable? Rocznik Orientalistyczny, T. 49, Z. 2 (1994), wyd. 1995 [19]
  • LFaulmann, Carl. 1990 (1880). Das Buch der Schrift. Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn. Template:ISBN Template:In lang
  • Février, James G. Histoire de l'écriture, Paris: Payot, 1948, pp. 311–317 Template:In lang
  • Ishjatms, N. "Nomads in Eastern Central Asia", in the "History of civilizations of Central Asia", Volume 2, UNESCO Publishing, 1996, Template:ISBN
  • Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Jensen, Hans (1970). Sign Symbol and Script. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. ISBN 0-04-400021-9.
  • Kyzlasov, I.L. "Runic Scripts of Eurasian Steppes", Moscow, Eastern Literature, 1994, Template:ISBN
  • Malov, S.E. 1951, Pamjatniki Drevnitjurkskoj Pisʹmennosti (Памятники Древнитюркской Письменности), Moskva & Leningrad. Template:In lang
  • Muxamadiev, Azgar. (1995). Turanian Writing (Туранская Письменность). In Zakiev, M. Z.(Ed.), Problemy lingvoėtnoistorii tatarskogo naroda (Проблемы лингвоэтноистории татарского народа). Kazan: Akademija Nauk Tatarstana. Template:In lang
  • Róna-Tas, A. 1991. An introduction to Turkology. Szeged.
  • Tekin, Talat. A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic. Indiana University Uralic and Altaic Series, vol. 69 (Bloomington/The Hague: Mouton, 1968)
  • Thomsen, Vilhelm. Inscriptions de l'Orkhon déchiffrées, Suomalais-ugrilainen seura, Helsinki Toimituksia, no. 5 Helsingfors: La société de littérature Finnoise [1] Template:In lang
  • Vasilʹiev, D.D. Korpus tjurkskix runičeskix pamjatnikov Bassina Eniseja [Corpus of the Turkic Runic Monuments of the Yenisei Basin], Leningrad: USSR Academy of Science, 1983 Template:In lang
  • von Gabain, A. 1941. Alttürkische Grammatik mit Bibliographie, Lesestücken und Wörterverzeichnis, auch Neutürkisch. Mit vier Schrifttafeln und sieben Schriftproben. (Porta Linguarum Orientalium; 23) Leipzig: Otto Harrassowitz. Template:In lang

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