Not to be confused with Proto-Turkic language or Turkic languages.
For the form of Turkish spoken in what is now modern Turkey during the 11th-15th centuries, see Old Anatolian Turkish. For the form used in the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE), see Ottoman Turkish.
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Old Turkic
East Old Turkic
Region
East Asia, Central Asia and parts of Eastern Europe
Era
8th–13th centuries
Language family
Turkic
Common Turkic
Siberian Turkic
South Siberian
Old Turkic
Dialects
Orkhon Turkic
Old Uyghur
Writing system
Old Turkic script, Old Uyghur alphabet
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Either: otk – Old Turkish oui – Old Uyghur
Linguist List
otk Old Turkish
oui Old Uyghur
Glottolog
oldu1238
Old Turkic (more exactly East Old Turkic, in order to distinguish from West Old Turkic) is the earliest attested form of the Common Turkic languages, first found in Second Turkic Khaganate then in Uyghur Khaganate inscriptions. In marked contrast to Middle Turkic, the geographic extent of (East) Old Turkic is rather confined, being limited mainly to East Turkistan (Old Uyghur) and Mongolia (Orkhon Turkic).[1] In terms of the datability of extant written sources, the period of Old Turkic can be dated from slightly before 720 AD to the Mongol invasions of the 13th century. Orkhon Turkic and Old Uyghur are considered to be dialects of East Old Turkic, Orkhon Turkic being the earliest attested dialect of (East) Old Turkic. There is a difference of opinion among linguists with regard to Karakhanid Turkic (spoken in Kara-Khanid Khanate), some (among whom are Omeljan Pritsak, Sergey Malov and most importantly Marcel Erdal) classify it as another dialect of East Old Turkic, while others prefer to include Karakhanid among Middle Turkic languages;[2] nonetheless, Karakhanid is extremely close to Old Uyghur so much so that a single grammatical description will fit both of them.[3] East Old Turkic and West Old Turkic together comprise the Old Turkic proper.[4] East Old Turkic is the oldest attested member of the Siberian Turkic branch of Turkic languages, and several of its now-archaic grammatical as well as lexical features are extant in the modern Yellow Uyghur, Lop Nur Uyghur[5] and Khalaj (all of which are endangered); Khalaj, for instance, has (surprisingly) retained a considerable number of archaic Old Turkic words[6] despite forming a language island[7] within Central Iran and being heavily influenced by Persian.[8] Old Uyghur is not a direct ancestor of the Modern Standard Uyghur language[9] (also called New Uyghur[10]); the contemporaneous ancestor of Modern Uyghur was one of the Middle Turkic languages, later giving rise to Chagatai literary language (although Modern Uyghur does retain some features of Old Uyghur whereas Chagatai almost did not influence the spoken vernacular[11]).
Old Turkic is attested in a number of scripts, including the Old Turkic script, the Old Uyghur alphabet, the Brahmi script, and the Manichaean script. The Turkic runiform alphabet of Orkhon Turkic was deciphered by Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893.
Old Turkic often refers not to a single language, but collectively to the closely related and mutually intelligible stages of various Common Turkic languages spoken during the late first millennium.
^Rachewiltz, Igor de; Rybatzki, Volker (31 May 2010). Introduction to Altaic Philology. BRILL. p. 17. ISBN 9789004188891.
^Rachewiltz, Igor de; Rybatzki, Volker (31 May 2010). Introduction to Altaic Philology. BRILL. p. 19. ISBN 9789004188891.
^Erdal, Marcel (September 2004). A Grammar of Old Turkic. BRILL. p. 8. ISBN 9789047403968.
^Robbeets, Martine; Savelyev, Alexander (27 May 2020). The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages. Oxford University Press. p. 106. ISBN 978-0-19-880462-8.
^The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages. p. 413.
^Robbeets, Martine; Savelyev, Alexander (27 May 2020). The Oxford Guide to the Transeurasian Languages. Oxford University Press. p. 112. ISBN 978-0-19-880462-8.
^Ragagnin, Elisabetta (May 2020). "Major and Minor Turkic Language Islands in Iran with a Special Focus on Khalaj". Iranian Studies. 53 (3–4): 573–588. doi:10.1080/00210862.2020.1740881. S2CID 218924277.
^Johanson, Lars; Csató, Éva Á. (29 April 2015). The Turkic Languages. Routledge. p. 280. ISBN 9781136825279.
^Dwyer, Arienne M. (2007). Salar. Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. p. 49. ISBN 9783447040914.
^Studies in Asian Historical Linguistics. BRILL. 19 July 2021. p. 209. ISBN 9789004448568.
^Khalid, Adeeb (January 1999). The Politics of Muslim Cultural Reform. University of California Press. p. 188. ISBN 9780520920897.
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in the OldTurkic alphabet in the early 8th century in the Orkhon Valley in what is modern-day Mongolia. They were erected in honor of two Turkic princes...
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several medieval states: the First Turkic Khaganate, the Western Turkic Khaganate, the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, Old Great Bulgaria, the First Bulgarian...
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Orkhon Turkic (also Göktürk), is the first stage of OldTurkic, known as the oldest Turkic literary language preceding Old Uyghur. It is generally used...
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Old Uyghur (simplified Chinese: 回鹘语; traditional Chinese: 回鶻語; pinyin: Huíhú yǔ) was a Turkic language which was spoken in Qocho from the 9th–14th centuries...
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classified under the OldTurkic category, rather than Middle Turkic, as it is contemporary to the East OldTurkic languages of Orkhon and Old Uyghur. Eastern...
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