The Oghuric, Onoguric or Oguric languages (also known as Bulgar, Bulgharic, Bolgar, Pre-Proto-Bulgaric or Lir-Turkic and r-Turkic) are a branch of the Turkic language family. The only extant member of the group is the

Chuvash language Chuvash ( , ; , , ) is a Turkic languages, Turkic language spoken in European Russia, primarily in the Chuvashia, Chuvash Republic and adjacent areas. It is the only surviving member of the Oghur languages, Oghur branch of Turkic languages ...

. The first to branch off from the Turkic family, the Oghuric languages show significant divergence from other Turkic languages, which all share a later common ancestor. Languages from this family were spoken in some nomadic tribal confederations, such as those of the Onogurs or Ogurs,

Bulgars The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic peoples, Turkic Nomad, semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between the 5th and 7th centu ...

and

Khazars The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, a ...

History

The Oghuric languages are a distinct group of the

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

, standing in contrast to Common Turkic. Today they are represented only by Chuvash. The only other language which is conclusively proven to be Oghuric is the long-extinct Bulgar, while

Khazar The Khazars ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a nomadic Turkic people who, in the late 6th century CE, established a major commercial empire covering the southeastern section of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, Crimea, an ...

may be a possible relative within the group. The Hunnic language, spoken by the European Huns in the late fourth and fifth centuries AD, is occasionally described as a form of Bulgharic. This association is primarily based on historical rather than linguistic evidence. The few surviving traces of "Hunnic"—such as a small number of personal names and a few common nouns—lack sufficient evidence to draw definitive conclusions and may actually represent a mix of different languages. Oghuric was the lingua franca of the Khazar state. There is no consensus among linguists on the relation between Oghuric and Common Turkic and several questions remain unsolved: *Are they parallel branches of

Proto-Turkic Proto-Turkic is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Turkic languages that was spoken by the Proto-Turks before their divergence into the various Turkic peoples. Proto-Turkic separated into Oghur (western) and Common Tu ...

() and, if so, which branch is more archaic? *Does Oghuric represent Archaic Turkic before phonetic changes in 100–400 AD and was it a separate language? Fuzuli Bayat dates the separation into Oghur r-dialects and Oghuz z-dialects to the 2nd millennium BC.Karadeniz Araştırmaları, Sayı 3 (Güz 2004), s.71-77. Fuzuli Bayat: Oğuz kelimesinin etimolijisi, Page 74.
/ref>

Features

The Oghuric languages are also known as "-r Turkic" because the final consonant in certain words is ''r'', not ''z'' as in Common Turkic. For instance, in the

Oghuz languages The Oghuz languages are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family, spoken by approximately 108 million people. The three languages with the largest number of speakers are Turkish, Azerbaijani and Turkmen, which, combined, account for more ...

, such as Azeri and Turkish, ''öküz'' means ''ox'' ( totemic animal). Compare the Chuvash ''wăkăr'' where the word has maintained the final /r/, and the

Kipchak languages The Kipchak languages (also known as the Kypchak, Qypchaq, Qypshaq or the Northwestern Turkic languages) are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family spoken by approximately 30 million people in much of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, spanni ...

, where it is ''ögiz.'' Hence the name '' Oghur'' corresponds to ''Oghuz'' "tribe" in Common Turkic. Other correspondences are Com. ''š'' : Oghur ''l'' (''tâš'' : ''tâl'', 'stone'); ''s'' > ''š''; ''*č'' > ''ś''; ''k/q'' > ''ğ''; ''y'' > ''j, ś''; ''d, δ'' > ''δ'' > ''z'' (10th cent.) > ''r'' (13th cent.)"; ''ğd'' > ''z'' > ''r'' (14th cent.); ''a'' > ''ı'' (after 9th cent.). The shift from ''s'' to ''š'' operates before ''i'', ''ï'', and ''iV'', and Dybo calls the sound change the "Bulgar palatalization".

Denis Sinor Denis Sinor (born Dénes Zsinór, April 17, 1916 in Kolozsvár (Austria-Hungary, now Cluj-Napoca, Romania) – January 12, 2011 in Bloomington, Indiana) was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Central Asian Studies at the Department of C ...

believed that the differences noted above suggest that the Oghur-speaking tribes could not have originated in territories inhabited by speakers of

Mongolic languages The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in North Asia, East Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern Europe mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this languag ...

, given that Mongolian dialects feature the ''-z'' suffix. Peter Golden, however, has noted that there are many loanwords in Mongolic from Oghuric, such as Mongolic ''ikere'', Oghuric ''*ikir'', Hungarian ''iker'', Common Turkic ''*ikiz'' 'twins', and holds the contradictory view that the Oghur inhabited the borderlands of Mongolia prior to the 5th century.

Oghuric influence on other languages

Hungarian

The Hungarian language has many borrowings from Turkic languages, with phonological characteristics which indicate that they borrowed from a Oghuric source language: Hung. ''tenger'', Oghur. ''*tengir'', Comm. ''*tengiz'' 'sea', Hung. ''gyűrű'', Oghur. ''*ǰürük'', Comm. ''*yüzük'' 'ring', A number of Hungarian loanwords were borrowed before the 9th century, shown by ''sz-'' (< Oğ. ''*ś-'') rather than ''gy-'' (< Oğ. ''*ǰ-''), for example Hung. ''szél'', Oghur. ''*śäl'', Chuv. ''śil'', Comm. ''*yel'' 'wind', Hung. ''szűcs'' 'tailor', Hung. ''szőlő'' 'grapes'.

Mongolian

The Mongolian loanwords of Oghuric origin include Mon. "ikere" (Oghur. *iker, Chuvash "йĕкĕр", Comm. ekkiz/ikiz), Mon. "biragu" (Oghur. *burǝʷu, Comm. buzagu), Mon. "üker" (Oghur. *hekür, Comm. öküz), Mon. "jer" (Oghur. *jer, Comm. jez). These loanwords were probably borrowed before the 4th century, before the Turkic migrations to West Asia happened.

References