Talk:Altay Sarsenuly Amanzholov

Maligning a prominent scholar
We should not be maligning a scholar, for a number of reasons:


 * Pan-Turkist => A. Amanjolov is not and can't be a Pan-Turkist, it is a libel in a bad taste. Being a rector of a major university in a totalitarian state, A. Amanjolov can't step out of line prescribed by the government without a risk to his position, at the very least. Kazakhstan government does not supprt, officially or clandestnely, the idea of Pan-Turkism about creating a super-state with a super-government, which is called Pan-Turkism. Neither the scholar A. Amanjolov is involved in politics, the sphere of which Pan-Turkism belongs. Neither the scholar A. Amanjolov ever published, among his 300+ publications, anything even remotely resembling Pan-Turkist views. I do not believe that maligning a scientist without any cause is consistent with WP policies.


 * Sun Language Theory => Most likely, A. Amanjolov even does not know about existence of that theory, or that it ever existed. In my case, for the first time I've heard about it from you, and in a most libelous content at that. This must be some kind of a standard smear content used to milign opposition. None of the A. Amanjolov life-long work or the mass of his publications warrants this kind of malignment. Once again, I do not believe that maligning a scientist without absolutely any cause is consistent with WP policies.


 * If you know scholarly references that link A. Amanjolov with the libelous statements found in this WP article, they should have been given. But even then, repeating such poisonous slandering would had to be treated with discretion. Disagreements exist and can be treated civilly, it is only natural. These malicious statements should be promptly removed with apologies. Barefact 00:28, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Turko-Sumerian connection
Turko-Sumerian connection is not a political ballgame, and if it is, it does not belong to the article devoid of politics and to the scholar devoid of politics. The Turko-Sumerian connection was suggested by scientists far remote from Turkology, and was addressed by a number of Turkic and non-Turkic scholars, as any other scientific subject should be addressed. A. Amanjolov, a life-time scholar in Turkic philology, addressed this subject of scientific study, and that does not diminish his credentials any more than if he addressed ancient, say, Iranian languages. The Sumero-Turkic correspondencies lists now roam around 400 words, they are well known, and they would never achieve this level without contribution of a small army of scholars (and laymen too, who by accident discover that their mama calls something in a dialect of a long-dead language). Unless the author of the article wants to give A. Amanjolov a credit for his contribution in this or that field, the Papa-Knows-Better attitude does not belong to any article about a scholar, or even a poor layman. It is not civil. Barefact 00:50, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
 * Thats all OR. Sumerian is considered a language isolate by all published sumerians scholars of the west today.  At one time Sumerian was related to Dravidian, Basque, Turkic, Indo-European and dozens of language.  But that is not the case anymore.  Note you have been pushing a lot of OR ever since you arrived.. From Ossetian being non-Iranian to your recent claims on Khwarazmian Aramaic.  These sort of articles are considered OR .  --alidoostzadeh 02:59, 22 March 2007 (UTC)


 * This article is about Category:Living people|A. S. A. S. Amanzholov, not about your views on Turko-Sumerian Connection. Turko-Sumerian Connection is a separate subject, and you can discuss it in the related place. The factual material of the article should state that Amanjolov worked and contributed to the study of the problem, and published his work on the subject. No defamatory or libelious POV are in good taste. Barefact 08:30, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
 * we are stating A.S.A "worked on the problem", and we are stating his opinions put him on the fringe of linguistic mainstream. No "libelious POV" is involved. dab (𒁳) 10:08, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

False reference
The citation " "at least in 3500 BC the Turks are found in the eastern part of Turkey" (Tuna 1997, p.49)." is false, the reference is taken from A.Amanzholov, "History and Theory of the Old Turkic script", p. 286, which refers to Tuna 1997, p.49, and reads "5. One of the major problems in the theory of the Altai languages, the anachronism in examples related to l2 ~ š, r2 ~ z, requires corrections on this question in the opposite direction". I have deleted the false and derrogatory quotation. Barefact 02:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose you know best, Nalik, since this article is entirely dependent on your translations of Amanjolov (I don't have direct access to his books). Btw, please stop with the  "Türkic" spelling. This is your idiosyncratic translation from the Russian. The term in English is Turkic. thanks, dab (𒁳) 10:52, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Sumero-Turkic section
Since this part turned out to be controversial and lack of sources, it would be better to move that section to the talk page for discussion. Please, see Biographies of living persons. Regards. E104421 11:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Unsourced controversial sections
The following parts is removed from the article due to Biographies of living persons.

Sumero-Turkic
In chapter 9 of his 2003 book on the Old Turkic script, Amanzholov presents "more than twenty indisputable lexical coincidences between the Sumerian and Turkic languages that ascend to a Proto-Turkic language or a status of the language even before the migration of the 'Sumerians' to the Mesopotamia", a statement that is untenable in mainstream historical linguistics, and reminiscent of the Sun Language Theory, equating e.g. Sumerian UTU "Sun" with a reconstructed Proto-Turkic *ütü "to singe, sear". Consistent with the "Sun Language Theory", Amanzholov concludes that "Proto-Turks" migrated to Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC, giving rise to Sumer, the world's first literate civilization. After listing his proposed Sumerian-Turkic cognates, Amanzholov bemoans that he had been couselled against publishing these sensational findings in his PhD thesis of 1970, and that they had been stolen by Oljas Suleimenov who published them as his own in his Asia (Alma-Ata, 1975), and who later had to officially renounce the hypothesis, since Sumero-Turkic unity was "forbidden in Soviet Turkology".

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Amanzholov found himself free to pursue the Sumero-Turkic cause, communicating with Turkish author O. N. Tuna, who had published the same hypothesis in Turkey , where the authorities were more friendly towards pseudohistorical discoveries to the effect that "at least in 3500 BC the Turks are found in the eastern part of Turkey" (Tuna 1997, p.49).

Old Turkic alphabets
Somewhat less out-of-touch with mainstream chronology, Amanzholov also insists on reading two inscriptions of Scythia, found in the Irtysh and Issyk kurgans and dated to ca. the 4th century BC, as "Proto-Turkic runes" (p. 306). While mainstream scholarship assumes these inscriptions to record the Scythian language, accepting the Orkhon inscriptions of the 7th century as the oldest known traces of Turkic languages, the Orkhon script is likely derived from "Scythian" variants of the Aramaic alphabet, like the Sogdian script. --

Biographies of living persons
Please, check the official Wikipedia policy on the biographies of living persons for more information. E104421 11:05, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

A. S. Amanzholov vs A. S. Amanjolov
I would like to see a discussion and reasoning for renaming Amanjolov to Amanzholov. If the use of zh to represent the English j sound is an accepted policy of WP, this needs to be stated and referenced, and applied consistently throughout the English language WP, zhest instead of jest, zhelosy instead of jelosy, hodzha instead of hodja, mazhestic instead of majestic and Amanzholov instead of Amanjolov. Otherwise, Amanjolov appear to be a legitimate undistorted translation of the Kazakh original. Barefact 19:16, 19 July 2007 (UTC)


 * According to WP:RUS and WP:CYR is he does not a have a conventional spelling in English then the spelling should be Amanzholov based on his Cyrillic name. On the other hand if he does have a conventional spelling in English then the conventional spelling should be used. I have made google check on A.S. Amanzholov and Amanjolov excluding Wikipedia. Amanzholov produces 600+ ghits, Amanjolov 300+ ghits. I think this indicates that there is no conventional spelling (if any it is Amanzholov) so Amanzholov should be the name Alex Bakharev (talk) 04:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)