Talk:Old Turkic script

scripts
Why are Mongolian and Arabic script discussions on this page? There are articles about both already. Evertype 10:39, July 25, 2005 (UTC)


 * Most likely relicts from a rename or merge. E.g. an article Old turkic alphabets was merged into this page. So it's somewhat like an article "scripts used by turkic people before using latin script". Strange mix. Either the lemma or the content has to change. --Pjacobi 10:48, July 25, 2005 (UTC)


 * I removed it once, only to have it restored. So perhaps we need a discussion about what is appropriate for this article. kwami 17:35, 2005 July 25 (UTC)
 * THis article is about the Orkhon script, not about the Arabic script or the Mongolian script, and not about Turkic writing systems in general. Evertype 17:53, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Kul Tigin monument image
Another image that might pertain to this article is this one, which says it's an image of the Kul Tigin monument that has the Orkhon script in it. I can't figure out where in the article it should go, though. Image:Kultigin_monument.jpg --76.200.138.185 20:47, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Tone of Article and Sources
This article keeps going from being flippant in tone to glorifying. Perhaps a balance could be found. It would also be useful to start stating sources in the talk page. --Son of the Tundra 09:25, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Orkhon Script and Runic Script
The historical connection between The Orkhon Script and Runic Script is not known. The similarity is quite clearly there and cannot be dismissed simply by saying that both were cast in stone. Cuneiform was also cast in stone and bears no similarity to Runes. --Son of the Tundra 09:29, 27 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Cuneiform was not cast in stone, it was pressed into clay with a stylus. Runiform scripts were not cast in stone either, they were carved. The Latin and Greek alphabets were runiform when carved in stone too: that's an artifact of the method of inscription. Runes are related to the Latin script, and Orkhon to the Sogdian, as far as we now know. The article mentioned that some letters were similar, but the claims were spurious. It gave the letter M as an example, but the letter M in Orkhon looks like a fish and nothing at all like runic M. So unless there is some source demonstrating similarities, yes we can dismiss it. kwami 18:20, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Why have you removed the see also section? Anyone researching this topic may also be interested in looking at those sections as well. Also, if you look at Old Hungarian script and runic alphabet, you will see that Orkhon and Old Hungarian are referred to as being related; and they are referred to as runiform. Why have you removed the link to http://www.turkicworld.org ? That site contains a huge amount of information on this subject and is a great place to research. --Son of the Tundra 10:05, 28 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry! That must have been an editing error when I added my ref. I have a sticky 'shift' key, and sometimes select a block of text when I only mean to insert the cursor. Maybe I was looking at the hard copy and didn't notice the highlighting on my screen. kwami 18:18, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

Hi Kwami, I'd be grateful if you could take a look at this article http://www.antalya-ws.com/futhark/index.htm and tell me what you think. It attempts to prove a connection between old Runic and Orkhon. I would certainly be very interested in reading your analysis of that paper and then perhaps discuss it with you. --Son of the Tundra 08:46, 29 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Sorry, not impressed. They take letters in Futhark and Orkhon that look superficially similar, then convert samples of written Norse into the alleged Orkhon equivalent, and see if they can make any sense of it in Turkic. That's like taking this sentence, matching the letters to their closest graphic equivalents in katakana, and trying to make sense out of it in Japanese, then claiming that proves English and Japanese share a common ancestry! There are hundreds if not thousands of crackpot decypherments like this out there. (The last debate I got in was the claim that the Micmac Indians wrote in Egyptian hieroglyphs; there were just such superficial similarities as we have here, and I ended up being called a racist because denying the connection meant I was denying the Micmac their civilization. A couple years ago in Togo I heard a lecture by someone claiming that the hieroglyphs could be read in Ewe, which proved that Togolese built the pyramids. Never mind the fact that the Ewe language didn't exist yet!)


 * The single biggest fallacy is assuming that letters must be related just because they look similar, even though you ignore their sound values. If you take handwriting variants over several centuries, you can make any script you want look like any other script. What would convince me is if you took an early Futhark k and early Orkhon k and they looked similar, then t from both and they looked similar, etc. Or else structural irregularities. (For example, both Greek and Armenian write the vowel /u/ with the letters . Just that detail indicates that there was likely some connection between the Greek and Armenian alphabets, though it doesn't prove one actually derives directly from the other.) I would consider anything else to be an "extraordinary" claim, and like Sagan said, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Going by Occam's Razor, I expect that your author is seeing animals in the clouds, and believes they're real. kwami 09:22, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Kwami, You provide some very amusing anecdotes. I do see your point though. It does seem a bit silly to try and take this sentence, as you say, and match the letters to their closest graphic equivalents in some other script, and then try to make sense out of it. Just curious though, can’t one script be derived from another without taking the sounds, i.e. just taking the shapes? On another note, the article Old Hungarian script says that it is derived from Orkhon. Does that mean that the sounds and the shapes were taken from Orkhon? Does that also apply to other scripts, for example if one can read Arabic would that mean that one would also be able to read (but not necessarily understand) other languages that use the Arabic script?--Son of the Tundra 10:09, 29 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, there are scripts like you describe. Take a look at the Cherokee alphabet, where an illiterate man used the Latin alphabet without understanding how it worked. For example, letters that look very much like 'CWY' are pronounced tsalagi ("Cherokee"). However, not only are the sounds different, but so is the structure of the script: it's a syllabary rather than an alphabet, because Sequoyah didn't understand the alphabetic principle. When illiterate people come up with their own writing systems, they're almost always syllabaries. And when they're literate, they almost always follow the values and structure of the model script. This has been the case for hundreds and hundreds of scripts. After all, they've learned that it is the correct way to write, and they don't want to be ignorant! When the sound values change, it's usually because of differences in the languages. Greek, for example, didn't have an /h/ or glottal stop, so when the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet, they used the /h/ and glottal stop for the vowels A and E. But when the two languages had sounds in common, like /k, l, r, m, s/, the letters kept their sound values.


 * Unlike Runic, Orkhon is consonant-based, and tends to drop out vowels, so that sabımın "my word" was spelled, and ešid "listen" as , missing an entire syllable! (Vowels do tend to be written in final syllables.) This is similar to the Aramaic-derived scripts of SW Asia, but not very much like Runic. It implies that either Orkhon was a gradual development out of the Aramaic family, or else that whoever invented it was literate in one of those scripts, such as Sogdian. Likewise, Runic clearly comes from the Latin family. So a connection between them is improbable, and would require some good evidence to be convincing.


 * You're right, though, a script could be borrowed without paying any attention to sound values, like Cherokee. The question is, how would you ever prove it? In the case of Cherokee, Sequoyah immitated the little details of the Latin letters, such as the serifs and little bulbs at the ends of the lines, plus we have historical records, and we know that he invented his script in a sea of Latin-alphabet literacy. However, the little serifs etc. could have been a cultural influence after the script was invented. If Cherokee and Latin were only preserved in crudely written notes, from different continents and written centuries apart, it would be very difficult to show that they were related, or to decide whether Cherokee came from Latin, Cyrillic, or Hebrew, or from the Japanese kana syllabary.


 * As for Hungarian runes, we can't prove they're related to Orkhon. But a relationship looks promising: the Hungarians had strong Turkic cultural influence, so the opportunity was there, and they likely would have looked to the Turks for their ideas rather than, say, the Germans or Slavs. Also, many of the letters with similar sound values also looked similar, although there is so much variation that it's a bit of a guessing game. For example, one form of /s/ looked like an I in both scripts, /n/ like a reversed C, /i/ like a Γ, /d/ like an x or a +, etc. There's about as good a connection between Old Hungarian and Orkhon as there is between Orkhon and Sogdian - not a great match, but good enough to make a reasonable hypothesis. kwami 22:37, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

You might look at my article "The Mystery of the Szekely Runes: Provenence of a script" in the Occasional Papers of the Epigraphic Society, Vol. 19, p. 184-? if you can get your hands on it at your library. It summarizes the state of knowledge on the development of the Szekely/Hungarian "runes" at the time I wrote the article. Doc Rock 11:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I found an interesting links through "Omniglot": http://www.antalya-ws.com/futhark/FUTHP3E.HTM and http://www.antalya-ws.com/futhark/FUTHP4E.HTM

It is about relationship between turkic runes and oldest found runestones found in Sweden. I think that it's obvious enough that basis for Futhark alphabet was taken from Orkhon runes. This can be explained as cultural influence of turkic civilization during turkic migration circa 300-400 AD. Example of Cherokee alphabet shown by Kwami is good, but we must remember that the fact that norse and turkic symbols have different pronounciation DOES NOT mean that this two alphabets are completely unrelated. Another example is the script of now extinct Khitan (or Liao in chinese) people. Script for Khitan language is obviously derived from chinese Hanzi. It has same symbols. Now what we see? Some of the symbols really have same meaning as in Chinese ieroglyphs but some of the symbols changed their meaning, "mountain", for example, became "gold", "north" became "time", ieroglyph that could've mean "package" in chinese became number "3". Not to mention that this languages(chinese, khitan) were from absolutely different language families. Same thing is about Jurchen script that is also related to chinese. Let's take Chinese numerical symbol of 10.000, chinese pronounciation will be MAN,BAN, maybe WAN, in Jurchen it will be TUMAN, it is clear that word TUMAN has altaic origin since it is used in modern russian language and means "fog". Another example is the word dragon, in Jurchen it sounds as MUDUR, in written Jurchen it's actually 2 another chinese characters that have no relation to the chinese symbol for Dragon. The word Panther will sound as YARHA, while in Japanese pronounciation it will sound as HYOU or HOU (chinese-influenced).

I just want to say that no one have right to say that Norse and Turkic runes are unrelated or same before deep study of this subject. Many so called "historians" always try to deny clear facts, simply because they can't admit that fundamental doctrines of their views on history can be exposed and considered to be false. We must look at facts as they are and stop making theories and look sober on the things.
 * They are related, in that both descend from Phoenician. But that is a distant relation and their similarity is accidental; neither influenced the other directly. -- Evertype·✆ 09:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Z
Am I only one who finds that orkhon letter "Z" resembles roman & greek letter 'Z'? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.200.186.130 (talk) 11:35, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Sogdian
This alphabet is not a form of Sogdian alphabet. Here some letters and their origins:

→ B came from Balık (Fish in Turkish) → Y came from Yay (Bow in Turkish) → Oq or Ok came from Ok (Arrow in Turkish) → Ök came from Ök (Ram in old Turkish) but that letter is vertical version, horizontal version can be found other scripts —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.145.110.194 (talk • contribs)


 * 80.145.110.194, sorry, I do not have good sources to list the autochtonous origin of the Turkic Alphabets, and therefore I included only 4 theories of origin. Your example shows that the 5th theory, advocated by some prominent Türkologists, including, I think, Scherbak, also belongs to the description of theories of origin. Barefact 07:10, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issyk_kurgan#.22Golden_man.22 You can see this in the article: It is dated to the 4th or 3rd century BC (Hall 1997). As you can see, the same script was used there.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sogdian_alphabet It was used throughout Central Asia, from the edge of Iran in the west, to China in the east, from approximately 100-1200 C.E.. So, it seems that your sources are out-of-date. --78.181.12.243 (talk) 06:11, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

import from Turkic alphabets
Redirecting and merging to willfully delete contents, including the outline of the origin, crotique of the initial ideas, and the rest, is wrong. Turkic alphabets include the Orkhon as its component, and there is no chance for a component to describe the whole. The article has to be restored and any objections discussed. Discussion on the Orkhon article would be outside of the scope of the article. Barefact 06:59, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * You will note that I moved your material to Orkhon script, into the "origins" and "variants" section. If you are unhappy with the title "Orkhon script", we can discuss a move, at Talk:Orkhon script. I agree it could also reside at Orkhon-Yenisey script, for example. dab (𒁳) 09:42, 12 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, I noted that. I also appreciated your addition of Amajolov article. I presume you did not create it to spill negatives on him, which are a separate issue. For the Turkic alphabets, I.Kyslasov is the main source, his palegraphy allowed a clear division of the raw mass of Turkic epigraphy into distinctly defined groups of alphabets. If Amajolov deserves an article, I.Kyslasov deserves nothing less. I will be glad to provide any help for it.


 * In light of I.Kyslasov classifications, universally cited (for such an obscure subject his book has exceptional visibility), the whole architecture devoted to the Turkic alphabets needs to be re-thought. Granted, the Orkhon script is most famous, and needs a special page. Turkic Euroasian and Turkic Asian subfamilies, which include a number of alphabets each, seem to merit a separate page each, even though they overlap geographically. This overlapping has historical roots, history can justify combining them in a single article. And finally, the overview of all families with the origin and spread of each sub-family was and is what I started under "Turkic alphabets", so unfortunately and untimely interrupted by your intervention. Taxonomically, these three layers present different perspectives, and they surely can't fit in the Orkhon script straightjacket. You can't write a good article starting with a relatively minor detail (even a famous minor detail) and ascending to the overall picture. Barefact 19:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I could accept a move to Old Turkic script if you insist. In any case, this is the article that discusses all variants of the script. If we're moving this, you might then consider starting a separate article on the Orkhon inscriptions in particular. dab (𒁳) 13:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I would favour a move to Old Turkic script. -- Evertype·✆ 21:09, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Is Y /j/ or /ʤ/?
NY is for sure /nʤ/, not /nj/! Look at russian version 24.218.13.86 (talk) 02:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Common letter?
The -NG [ŋ] letter looks very similar to elder futhark [n] (Nauþiz) rune. The only difference is that futhark version pierces through vertical line. Could it be a connection? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.200.186.108 (talk) 07:15, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Letter similarities chart
I made a little chart analyzing Elder Futhark and Talas-Orkhon-Yenisei script. Regards, Iliassh (talk)

dispute tag
It had said/says:"These alphabets are divided into four groups by Kyzlasov" and then Turanian group was mentioned. Such a language does not exist so this makes Kyzlasov unreliable. Same with " A. S. Amanzholov" which had already been discussed by dab(Amanzholov claims ancient near eastern languages are altaic). So lets just get some reliable scholars and remove these two. Overall article is good, but these two sources need to be removed or real scholars be mentioned. Thank you. --Nepaheshgar (talk) 14:04, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Firstly, if the overall article is good, you should put the tags to the relevant section. Secondly, factual accuracy and neutrality are two different issues. Regards. E104421 (talk) 14:09, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The overall article is good, but Kyzlasov's categorization is probably wrong since he forged a Turanian script(no such language or script). So I suggest that portion be removed.  I'll put it in the appropriate section, and remove Amanzholov, which does not meet WP:RS.  Overall again, the article is informative, but we should find someone else except Kyzlasov.  --Nepaheshgar (talk) 14:23, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Here check this: . We can rewrite that section based on it and I will remove the tag.  --Nepaheshgar (talk) 14:28, 10 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I think that whole variant section is POV, since it was from Kyzlasov. Alans, Sogdians, Turanians (mythical people)  and etc. were POV.  I think the variant is the similar runiform script found in different places.  So my suggestion is that we remove that section, since the rest of the article is sound and informative.  --Nepaheshgar (talk) 14:40, 10 November 2008 (UTC)

Similarities between Old Turkic and Etruscan alphabet
see etruscan at ;http://users.tpg.com.au/etr/etrusk/pix/lemnos.gif there are many same characters between them. do you know any research about it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.174.9.35 (talk) 02:14, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * There are similarities between the scripts, because they are ultimately both descended from Phoenician. But it is a mistake to simply look at two glyphs that look alike and conclude a relationship between those two letters. -- Evertype·✆ 09:45, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * turkic is not indo-european, like etruscan. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.174.9.35 (talk) 10:44, 17 November 2008 (UTC)
 * The Turkic languages are non-Indo-European. And the Etruscan language is non-Indo-European. But that is irrelevant: we are not talking about languages here, but writing systems. As it happens, Old Turkic, Old Italic, Greek, Cyrillic, Latin, Runic, Hebrew, Arabic, and all the Brahmic scripts of India and South Asia are all ultimately derived from scripts used by Semitic speakers. As I say, the similarities between Old Turkic and Old Italic are mostly surface similarities. Shape alone does not show relationship. Relationship can be shown, back via Phoenician. -- Evertype·✆ 12:58, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

but there are not so much similarities between the other childs of Phonecian, but only old turkic and etruscan has a huge similarities. and in the other hand turkic peoples never lived with europeans or semitics. maybe tocharians lived with turkic peoples but there are not any other know contact between those peope. and there is other important connection, see Asena the Turkic myth, see the similarities with Romulus and Remus--195.174.9.35 (talk) 10:28, 18 November 2008 (UTC)


 * OT and Etruscan don't look very similar to me at all, except for both being scratched onto rock. kwami (talk) 11:15, 18 November 2008 (UTC)

There are works regarding similarities and there are even perfect decipherments of Etruscan writing in Turkic made by philologist Chingiz Garasharly. http://ebooks.preslib.az/pdfbooks/enbooks/chingizgarasharli.pdf Ancalimonungol (talk) 03:40, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Intro needs explanation and citations
This part in the intro: This similarity is superficial, however.[1] All alphabetic scripts used for incision in hard surfaces show this tendency (see Old Italic alphabets for other examples).. This needs explanation and clarification. As it stands, the sentence All alphabetic scripts used for incision in hard surfaces show this tendency... is POV. The Rosetta stone is inscribed in stone and it does not look runic. The existing citation does not help explain anything, i.e. does not provide reasons from the sources. Also, some sources do suggest that the Turkic script was independently derived and that should be stated. WillMall (talk) 15:17, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Origins
old Turkic did not come from Soghdian, they are two totally different langauges originating from different areas. one is Iranian, one is Turkish —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.220.114.108 (talk) 05:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Hi. I've restored the changes you made regarding the classification of this script. I've also restored some older paragraphs from the origins section which appeared to have been removed at some point. It's important to understand that the origin of a writing system is not the same as the origin of the language that uses it. For example, Vietnamese is written nowadays with a Latin script, like English, but clearly Vietnamese and English are not related. As far as I know there is no evidence for an independent origin of the Old Turkic script. Arzchena (talk) 14:16, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Actually there is no evidence for a certain origin for most of the alphabets in the word and Old Turkic Alphabet is one of them. There are new promising theories about the writing system being invented by Turks themselves but they are not published at the moment. Ancalimonungol (talk) 03:43, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Inappropriate edits by user Got Milked
Could someone please revert the recent inappropriate edits by User:Got Milked which have introduced into the article a comment I made in an edit summary, and which confuses my Wikipedia persona with my real life persona. As one of the co-authors of the Old Turkic encoding proposal I have deliberately avoided making any significant contributions to this article, and have only made a total of 3 edits (all reversions), so in no way could I be considered an "important contributor to this article". To avoid any further misunderstanding I will not make any further edits to this page, however minor. BabelStone (talk) 13:18, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Unicode
i can't see the unicode characters in "Unicode" section. tried both firefox and ie. the encoding is UTF-8. i think there are other people who can't see the chracters, either. i know that's not a help page but i thought it is the right place since the problem may cause only when it's the Old Turkic script. What should i do?--78.163.192.221 (talk) 14:56, 23 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Use a font that supports Old Turkic. -- Evertype·✆ 11:21, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Writing Systems assessment
I have assessed this article as importance=Mid. Due to the paucity of extant Old Turkic inscriptions/manuscripts and the lack of a modern or historically crucial descendent script. Members of WikiProject Writing Systems may revise this assessment but should list their reasoning in response to this comment. Vanisaac (talk) 05:42, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

A.S. Amanjolov
This scholar looks reputable, but should we be using him for statements of fact? Is it clear that he represents the mainstream opinion for this material? Dougweller (talk) 06:18, 13 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The second of the four paragraphs sounds fairly mainstream. I have not seen Amajolov's book, so it is hard to evaluate how much of a leading scholar in the field he is just by the title. -- Evertype·✆ 09:39, 14 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The number of living experts on the subject can be counted on fingers of one hand, and among them only two, I.Kyzlasov and A.Amanjolov are recognized paleographers. A.Amanjolov is the "up-to day" interpretation, the others are about 100 years old, and their suggestions were based on very limited material of 1900s, which grew exponentially since then. Very few references are available, among the latest are: Christopher P. Atwood, 2006, Mongolian studies: Volume 27 The Mongolia Society, Incorporated, Research Center for Language and Semiotic Studies, Indiana University,, p. 121, and Gary Seaman, 1992, Foundations of empire: archaeology and art of the Eurasian Steppes, Ethnographics Press, Center for Visual Anthropology, University of Southern California, ISBN-13: 9780910980975. But that is besides the point, the deletion of good faith referenced material should be based on authoritatative opposing reference or demonstrated clear misinterpretation of the cited reference, otherwise it is pure POV. BTW, Greek alphabet is a development of Semitic alphabet, it is a common knowledge. Barefact (talk) 08:37, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm well aware of the Semitic language family; see Roadmapping early Semitic scripts. When we encoded Old Turkic we used the following:


 * Erdal, Marcel. 2004. A grammar of Old Turkic. Leiden & Boston: Brill.
 * Faulmann, Carl. 1990 (1880). ''Das Buch der Schrift. Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn. ISBN 3-8218-1720-8
 * Kara, György. 1996. “Aramaic scripts for Altaic languages”, in Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, eds. The world’s writing systems. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507993-0
 * Róna-Tas, A. 1991. An introduction to Turkology. Szeged.
 * Scharlipp, Wolfgang Ekkehard. 2000. Eski Türk run yazıtlarına giris ̧: ders kitabı = An introduction to the Old Turkish Runic inscriptions: A textbook in English and Turkish. Engelschoff: Auf dem Ruffel. ISBN 3-933847-00-X
 * Tekin, Talât. [1968]. A grammar of Orkhon Turkic. Bloomington: Indiana University.
 * 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.
 * Малов, С.Е. 1951, Памятники Древнитюркской Письменности, Москва & Ленинград.

Certainly Marcel Erdal is a modern expert; he corresponded with us as we did our work. -- Evertype·✆ 11:05, 16 January 2012 (UTC)
 * My BTW note referred to the 9 January 2012‎ rv with funny comment "apparent nonsense: close link to both Greek & S.Semitic?", not to the encoding, where I can only admire the efforts. On encoding I noticed some missing letters, and can pass comments to you, it is fortunate that you raised the topic, but the encoding subject is outside of the Amanjolov's discussion, which addresses proper justification for removing of referenced material. On the subject, I would like to clarify that Amanjolov was involved in studies of inscriptions S-W of the Enisei-Orkhon script zone, which predates the Enisei-Orkhon script by at least few centuries, which allowed him to paleographically track development of individual graphemes, analyzed in his monograph. Barefact (talk) 03:46, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I removed some material again. It appears to claim that OT derives from Egyptian hieroglyphs. If this means just through Aramaic, then we can just say from Aramaic, as we do with other scripts. This may all be correct, but I thought it needed discussion here:


 * ''However, the paleographic analysis of the Ancient Türkic runes, in turn, leads to a conclusion about very early forming date for the Türkic runic alphabet in Southern Siberia and Jeti-Su, not later than the middle of the 1st millennium BC. This alphabet reveals a close genetic linkage, first, with the early types of the ancient Greek alphabet (especially with Anatolian and Italic), and secondly, with the Northern Semitic-Phoenician (including the early Aramean) and S.Semitic alphabets.

In other words, it's been linked with every alphabet in the world, which means it's been linked with none. This is an empty claim: all it says is that it's an alphabet.


 * ''At the same time, the Türkic runic alphabet represents a very rich and expressly developed independently graphic system. The close genetic linkage of the Türkic runic characters with the early Semitic, ancient Greek, Italic and Anatolian letters demonstrate that the Türkic runic alphabet underwent a long path of development, and apparently it ascends to the most ancient common source of alphabetic writing. A conjectured primary source was an original logographic (ideographic) or alphabetic script of the 3rd - 2nd millennia BC.

Almost all alphabets trace back to that common source, but we don't bother to say that the English alphabet "ascends to the most ancient common source of alphabetic writing". Again, an apparently impressive but actually empty statement. See WP:Peacock.


 * ''It is also very probable that some prototypes of Ancient Türkic runes descend from primeval Türkic graphic logograms, the signs for the words. For a solution of the problem of the Türkic runic alphabet origin, a great importance acquires the hypothesis about a most ancient genetic unity of Türkic languages with the Indo-European languages.

AFAIK, there were no primeval Turkic logograms. This appears to be fiction.


 * ''Regarding the dot techniques of the Turkish Runes, the most ancient Kazakhstan rock symbols in the Late Bronze and Early Iron epochs, engraved with dot techniques, in some instances border on the initial graphics of some Ancient Türkic runes.

Meaning what, exactly? That people used the same rocks for graffiti as they did for petroglyphs? So what?

So, I deleted these paragraphs as being either empty fluff or seeming nonsense. — kwami (talk) 18:26, 20 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Dear kwami, the problem was with the deletion of the referenced material without any discussion, justified by your POV. Discussion allows you to formulate your specific objections, and appraise their validity.
 * in respect to your interpretation "linked with every alphabet in the world", this is not what the referenced material states, the key is "middle of the 1st millennium BC", it is the time when Phoenician alphabet was spreading in the Mediterranean, and Greek and early Aramean are its derivatives. The citation is very specific, and does not need imagined allegations to invalidate it. There is nothing about "linked with every alphabet in the world" in the referenced material, and if you know of a publication that came up with that allegation, you should have cited it, otherwise it your personal unjustified opinion. Please use specific published counterarguments to justify the deletion. Barefact (talk) 18:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea whether Amanjolov is a serious scholar. If he is, he has being done a great injustice by being represented online by a cranky nationalist running a private website at onlinehome.us, which is in turn used to spam Wikipedia with Türkic nonsense. I have a good mind to request that s155239215.onlinehome.us is blacklisted site-wide once and for all. Since the s155239215.onlinehome.us ("TürkicWorld") website is all about touting Amanjolov, the impression is created that Amanjolov is somehow behind this website, or associated with it. But this need not be the case. We need to distinguish between Amanjolov, who may or may not be a quotable scholar, and the onlinehome.us troll (TürkicWorld) who has plagued Wikipedia for years. The TürkicWorld troll can be easily spotted by their bizarre insistence of spelling the name Turkic as Türkic in English. Thankfully, this makes it rather easy to pinpoint their material and remove it on sight. Whatever the merits of Amanjolov, the English name for this ethnolinguistic group is Turkic, and not Türkic. --dab (𒁳) 21:04, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Amanjolov himself boasts about the fact that no other scholar has taken up his "decipherment", which to him confirms that he is right as nobody has disproven him, but what that really means is that no other scholar deems him worthy of notice. If anybody agreed with him, they would mention and quote him. But the silence marks him as fringe. Science is based on peer review: no peer review, no recognition, no scholarly status. This is what our policy WP:PROFRINGE is also in line with. Else we'd have to include any nutty theory ever uttered. Therefore, I have removed Amanjolov here and have the right to remove him everywhere on Wikipedia. He's a typical nationalist crackpot, even if he may have a degree. That alone doesn't give him academic standing and doesn't except his work from the necessity of peer review. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:05, 7 August 2014 (UTC)

Sogdian Claim
I understand that Semitists want to originate everything in Semits. They even claimed that Turks are descendants of Japheth.

There is another party which tries to "erase" Turkish history in the interest of Persian "history"!

There is this third group of Chinese ones emerging as a new branch of "There is no Turk! There was no Turkish!" argument.

In this article, I found all these Anti-Turkist arguments.

Old Turkish alphabet being descandant of Persian(!) ones which in turn are Semitic(!). The Chinese argument is represented as the alternative one. It is like "If you don't like to be shot by gun we have knife!"

And this fiction is represented as "mainstream" ! (appearantly Turkish scholars are not counted, they don't exist)

Why there is no argument from Turkish scholars? Isn't this article about Turks? Where are Turks in this article? Turks don't have a say on themselves according to Wikipedia administrators who constantly remove sourced content?

If it is Sogdian why don't you put Turkish and Sogdian alphabets in a two rows table? Let readers decide who is the liar.

I don't expect Wikipedia administrators (who are notoriously Aryanist or Semitist) to let authors put the statements of Turkish scholars on this article. Just put that da*n table.

Let readers see Sogdian and Turkish letters one under the other. LEt them compare those alphabets.

Just put the table.--98.196.232.128 (talk) 06:57, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm also hate Aryanist and Semitist, im kyrgyz. --158.181.10.150 (talk) 09:20, 26 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I have compared Old Sogdian and Orkhon side by side. The affinities are pretty obvious. If you can't see it, it's probably because you don't want to, or maybe you're looking at cursive Sogdian (look at the /a/ characters for example - they're identical). In any event, Chinese observers of the time even remarked on their similarity. It's obviously modified quite a bit, but relative to most script adaptations between disparate languages like Sogdian and Old Turkic, it's nothing shocking. Compare the adaptation of Kharosthi from Aramaic. Tarchon (talk) 20:05, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

German works on Old Turkic inscriptions
Der türkische Text der bilinguelen Inschriften der Mongolei: Erstes Heft: Die Schrift ist eine ... (1900)

https://archive.org/details/dertrkischetext00albegoog

Inscriptions de l'Orkhon déchiffrées (1896)

https://archive.org/details/inscriptionsdel00thomgoog

Über die köktürkische Inschrift auf der Südseite des Kül Takin-Denkmals (1896)

https://archive.org/details/berdiekktr00banguoft

Wörterverzeichniss zu den Inscriptions de l'Iénisseï (1892)

https://archive.org/details/wrterverzeichni00donngoog

Rajmaan (talk) 03:58, 28 March 2014 (UTC)

Inscriptions de l'Orkhon : vol.1

http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/La-4/V-1/

Inscriptions de l'Orkhon : vol.1

http://dsr.nii.ac.jp/toyobunko/La-4/V-1/

Ottoman Turkish work

Orhun abideleri

https://archive.org/details/orhunabideleri00yaziuoft

History of Turks

https://archive.org/details/trktrh00yazi

History of Ottomans

https://archive.org/details/osmnltrh01yazi

https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22Yaziksiz%2C+Necib+%27Asim%2C+1861-1935%22

Similarities between Old Turkic and Scandinavian alphabet
I'm an absolute layman regarding runic alphabet. By coincidence, I found an interesting website that claims a very amazing  assumption. According to the author, some Skandinavian stones ​​can be read with the orchun alphabet with a sensefull content,  even with a referance to the picture on the stone. That seems far-fetched to me, so I've been looking at tis article for more information on the topic. Therefore, my question to the professional world is, can this be true or is author making a joke ?

Here is the page with the thesis and the respective transcriptions: http://www.antalyaonline.net/futhark/index.htm

Thanks for your feedback on this !!

Similarities between Old Turkic and Scandinavian alphabet
I'm an absolute layman regarding runic alphabet. By coincidence, I found an interesting website that claims a very amazing  assumption. According to the author, some Skandinavian stones ​​can be read with the orchun alphabet with a sensefull content,  even with a referance to the picture on the stone. That seems far-fetched to me, so I've been looking at tis article for more information on the topic. Therefore, my question to the professional world is, can this be true or is author making a joke ?

Here is the page with the thesis and the respective transcriptions: http://www.antalyaonline.net/futhark/index.htm

Thanks for your feedback on this !! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.128.80.107 (talk) 23:19, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Futhark and Orchon Runes
The first Futhark Runes is found around 70 BC in German coast. The first Orchon Runes is found after 450 AD in Asia. The german runes are older. Fact is that the gotic people have cooperated from 375 AD to 450 AD with the huns. In this time came it to the culture chance between Gotes and Huns. Attila had a gotic grandma and a gotic woman. He was a man with half east germanic roots. The Orchon runes is a turk script, but after the sample from germanic runes. It is important to understand, the orchon runes are in old turk language, not a 1:1 copy of german runes. It is self created by the huns from Uldin and Attila, what is inspired from the germanic runes and her forms. You can not directly translate from Germanic Runes in Turk Runes.

The Germanic runes is a idea from the Hallstatt time (HA C). The hallstatt culture have connect to the norican tribe, a hallstatt-venetian-culture-remix. So came the venetian-etruscian Letters to the Germans as Runes, and the german runes to the Orchon River. The Magyar, Bolgar and Turk mythology have the same source, and the Orchon runes is the early form of magyar, oldturkic runes and influence of the old church slavic letters. The Gotic-Hunnic time is the connect between europe and asia. I hope now is clear the mysterium of connect between germanic and orchon Runes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.218.217.170 (talk) 13:32, 31 October 2014 (UTC)


 * This isn't a discussion board. All of that would be interesting on a web forum, but here we want sources that meet WP:RS if you want to change the article. Dougweller (talk) 16:29, 31 October 2014 (UTC)

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Clarification on which quality is inherent with the "normal" consonants
Does any of the sources crlarify what vowels follow consonants not from the Synharmonic sets? If yes could someone add that please? --LonleyGhost (talk) 18:51, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

shouldn't 𐰎 be transliterated as ɣ?
tekin 1968, nadeljaev 1969, and thomsen 1893 all say the transliteration should be ɣ Prof. Pedantic (talk) 15:58, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * Elaborate? Beshogur (talk) 16:54, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * File:Thomsen Orkhon table 1893.png - Wikimedia Commons says it should be transcribed as ɣ
 * dts.pdf (altaica.ru) (nadeljaev 1969) says that it should be transcribed as ɣ
 * Tekin_A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic 1968.pdf (altaica.ru) (tekin 1968) says that it should be transcribed as ɣ Prof. Pedantic (talk) 17:20, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * It's unclear what you're asking. What do you want to be changed in the article? Beshogur (talk) 17:40, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * the table of characters? Prof. Pedantic (talk) 18:17, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * The IPA uses that character. Beshogur (talk) 19:10, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
 * i'm saying the transcription should be that. Prof. Pedantic (talk) 03:51, 25 February 2022 (UTC)

Association with the Turkic language
There is a connection in some of the letters in the script in terms of their shape, sound and the object (lexical meaning) they refer to. These connections can only be explained via Turkic languages:

Letter          Lex. Meaning              Shape eb                   house                       a tent at (ta?) throw (mountain?)   Showing upwards El                   hand           a hand with 2 fingers? Er               man        a two-armed upright being (E?)m            em : suck             a breast (A?)ch           ach : open              an angle ich               inside      3 lines, one in the middle Ek                sow         a farming tool? Ant        traditional oath drink           a filled cup Alt; sub; 2 high points and a valley in between Ay or yay; moon or arch; half-moon or an arch Ok ( ⬇)    arrow     an arrow (E?)ng; eng : most?; a person pointing above?
 * Sounds are the consonants.

Due to the examples above, I claim that the script can't have, at least fully, come from another preceding script such as Sogdian because some of the letters above must have been created by Turkic speaking people. I don't object that it may have been created after a Sogdian fashion but it cannot have been fully descended from it or another script. 144.122.130.181 (talk) 11:20, 15 October 2022 (UTC)

Orientalist false sogdian claim.
The sogdian claim is written with bad intentions. The sogdian alphabet never has influenced the runic alphabet of Turks. It influenced the Uyghur alphabet. The first known alphabet of Turks are the runic alphabet and the second known is the Uygur alphabet.

The writing systems of both languages are different. This is also not a new info.

The oldest scripts are not anymore the Orkhun runes but the legacy of İlterish, probably 7th century.it is the oldest Turk runes and it was written in two languages. Turk Runes and also in Sogdian alphabet. Which means the turk runes were already existing with the sogdian alphabet.

Main difference of Sogdian is, every letter has 3 shapes while the Turk runes doesn't even involve vowels and every letter has one shape. Besides the Turk runes have punctuation rule to seperate different words, which indicates a grammatical structure extremely different than sogdian.

In a nutshell, no, runes are not a variation of sogdian but the uyghur alphabet. 2A04:4540:6518:5200:B532:C8B:A670:DAC8 (talk) 18:55, 18 December 2022 (UTC)