Orkhon

Old Turkic script
Type	Alphabet
Spoken languages	Old Turkic
Time period	8th to 13th centuries
Child systems	Old Hungarian script
ISO 15924	Orkh
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Orkhon tablet

Inscription in Kyzyl using Orkhon script

A copy of Göktürk (Orkhon) Epigraph in Ankara, Turkey

Orkhon script

The Old Turkic script (also Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script; Turkish: Orhun Yazıtları, traditional Chinese: 鄂爾渾文字; pinyin: È'ěrhún Wénzì) is the alphabet used by the Göktürk and other early Turkic Khanates from at least the 8th century to record the Old Turkic language^[1]. It was later used by the Uyghur Empire. Additionally, a Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century Kyrgyz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old Hungarian script of the 10th century. The alphabet was usually written from right to left.

The script is named after the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia, where early 8th century inscriptions were discovered in an 1889 expedition by Nikolay Yadrintsev.^[2] These Orkhon inscriptions were published by Vasily Radlov and deciphered by the Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893. These inscriptions are the earliest known texts in any Altaic language.^[2]

Because of similarities to the angular shapes of the runic alphabet, the letters of the Orkhon script have been referred to as "Turkic runes" or described as "runiform".

Examples of the Orhon-Yenisei alphabet are depicted on the reverse of the Azerbaijani 5 manat banknote issued since 2006.^[3]

Origins

Alternative possibilities include derivation from tamgas, suggested by W. Thomsen in 1893, from the Chinese script. Turkish inscriptions dated earlier than the Orkhon inscriptions used about 150 symbols, tamgas at first and then gradually refined into an alphabet.

At Noin-Ula and other Hun burial sites in Mongolia and region north of Lake Baikal, the artifacts displayed over twenty carved characters. Most of these characters are either identical or very similar to the letters of the Turkic Orkhon script.^[4]

Corpus

The inscription corpus consists of two monuments which were erected in the Orkhon Valley between 732 and 735 in honour of the two Kokturk prince Kul Tigin and his brother the emperor Bilge Kağan, as well as inscriptions on slabs scattered in the wider area.

The Orkhon monuments are the oldest known examples of Turkic writings; they are inscribed on obelisks and have been dated to 720 (for the obelisk relating to Tonyukuk), to 732 (for that relating to Kültigin), and to 735 (for that relating to Bilge Kağan). They are carved in a script used also for inscriptions found in Mongolia, Siberia, and Eastern Turkistan and called by Thomsen "Turkish runes".^[5] They relate in epic language the legendary origins of the Turks, the golden age of their history, their subjugation by the Chinese, and their liberation by Bilge.^[5] The polished style of the writings suggests considerable earlier development of the Turkish language.^[5]

Table of characters

Old-Turkic Alphabet (Classic age)

Using			Symbols		Transliteration and transcription
vowels					A		/a/, /e/
					I		/ɯ/, /i/, /j/
					O		/u/, /o/, /w/
					U		/ø/, /y/, /w/
consonants	harmonized	with: (¹) — back, (²) — front vowels			B¹	/b/	B²	/b/
					D¹	/d/	D²	/d/
					G¹	/g/	G²	/g/
					L¹	/l/	L²	/l/
					N¹	/n/	N²	/n/
					R¹	/r/	R²	/r/
					S¹	/s/	S²	/s/
					T¹	/t/	T²	/t/
					Y¹	/j/	Y²	/j/
		only (¹) — Q only (²) — K			Q	/q/	K	/k/
		with all vowels			-Ç		/tʃ/
					-M		/m/
					-P		/p/
					-Ş		/ʃ/
					-Z		/z/
					-NG		/ŋ/
	clusters	+ vowel			IÇ, ÇI, Ç		/itʃ/, /tʃi/, /tʃ/
					IQ, QI, Q		/ɯq/, /qɯ/, /q/
					OQ, UQ, QO, QU, Q	/oq/, /uq/, /qo/, /qu/, /q/	ÖK, ÜK, KÖ, KÜ, K	/øk/, /yk/, /kø/, /ky/, /k/
		+ consonant			-NÇ		/ntʃ/
					-NY		/ɲ/
					-LT		/lt/, /ld/
					-NT		/nt/, /nd/
word-divide symbol					none
(-) — word endings only

A reading example: — inscription (RTL)

T²NGR²I — transliteration

/teŋri/ — transcription

teñri / tanrı — record with modern Turkic alphabet

the skygod or the eternal blue sky indicating the highest god — ancient meaning

The God — modern meaning

Variants

This section's factual accuracy is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page. (November 2008)

Reverse side of Azerbaijani manat showing the old Turkic script.

Variants of the script were found from Mongolia and Uyghurstan/Eastern Turkestan in the east to Balkans in the west. The preserved inscriptions were dated to between 7th and 13th centuries AD.

These alphabets are divided into four groups by Kyzlasov (1994)^[6]

• Asiatic group (includes Orkhon proper)
• Eurasiatic group
• Southern Europe group

The Asiatic group is further divided into three related alphabets:

• Orkhon alphabet, Göktürk, 8-10th centuries AD
• Yenisei alphabet,
  • Talas alphabet, a derivative of the Yenisei alphabet, Kangly or Karluks 8-10th centuries AD. 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.^[7]

The Eurasiatic group is further divided into five related alphabets:

• Achiktash, Sogdiana 7-10th centuries AD
• South-Yenisei, Göktürk 8-10th centuries AD
• Don alphabet, Khazar Khaganate, 8-10th centuries AD and Kuban alphabet, Bulghars, 8th-13th centuries AD, closely related, inscriptions in both alphabets found in the Pontic steppe and on the banks of the Kama river
• Tisza, Badjanaks 8-10th centuries AD

A number of alphabets are not completed, due to the limitations of the extant inscriptions. Great help in the studies of the Turkic scripts was received from Turkic-Chinese bi-lingual inscriptions, contemporaneous Turkic inscriptions in Greek alphabet, literal translation into Slavic language, and paper fragments with Türkic cursive writing from religion, Manichaeism, Buddhist and legal subjects of the 8-10th centuries AD found in Uyghurstan/Eastern Turkestan.

Oldest known Turkic alphabet listings, Rjukoku and Toyok manuscripts. Toyok manuscript transliterates Turkic alphabet into Uyghur alphabet. Per I.L.Kyzlasov, "Runic Scripts of Eurasian Steppes", Moscow, Eastern Literature, 1994, ISBN 5-02-017741-5.

See also

• Göktürks
• Old Hungarian script
• Uyghur alphabet
• Khosho Tsaidam Monuments

Notes

References

• Diringer, David. The Alphabet: a Key to the History of Mankind, New York: Philosophical Library, 1948, pp. 313–315
• Février, James G. Histoire de l’écriture, Paris: Payot, 1948, pp. 311–317
• Ishjatms, N. "Nomads In Eastern Central Asia", in the "History of civilizations of Central Asia", Volume 2, UNESCO Publishing, 1996, ISBN 92-3-102846-4
• Jensen, Hans (1970). Sign Symbol and Script. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd. ISBN 0-04-400021-9. .
• Kara, György. Aramaic Scripts for Altaic Languages. In Daniels and *Bright, eds., The World's Writing Systems, 1996.
• Kyzlasov, I.L. "Runic Scripts of Eurasian Steppes", Moscow, Eastern Literature, 1994, ISBN 5-02-017741-5
• Mukhamadiev, Azgar. (1995). Turanian Writing (Туранская Письменность). In Zakiev, M. Z.(Ed.), Problemy lingvoėtnoistorii tatarskogo naroda (Проблемы лингвоэтноистории татарского народа). Kazan: Akademija Nauk Tatarstana. (Russian)
• 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 literature Finnoise
• Vasil'iev, D.D. Korpus tiurkskikh runicheskikh pamyatnikov Bassina Eniseya [Corpus of the Turkic Runic Monuments of the Yenisei Basin], Leningrad: USSR Academy of Science, 1983

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Old Turkic script

• Old Turkic inscriptions, Texts, Translations
• Orkhon Alphabet page from Omniglot
• Gokturkish Keyboard by Isa SARI
• glyph table (kyrgyz.ru)
• list of inscriptions (tonyukuk.net)
• Bilgitay Orhun Writer (An online converter for Latin alphabet based texts to Orhun Abece.)
• Michael Everson's Proposal for encoding the Old Turkic script in Unicode