Proto-Turkic language

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 Turkic (eastern) branches. Candidates for the proto-Turkic homeland range from Transcaspian Steppe to Manchuria, with most scholars agreeing that their migrations started from the eastern part of the Central Asian steppe, "It is generally agreed among historians and linguists that the starting point of the Turkic migrations was located in the eastern part of the Central Asian steppe (see, e.g., Golden 1992, Kljastornyj & Suktanov 2009; Menges 1995:55). Turkologists use various definitions for describing the Proto-Turkic homeland, but most indicate more or less the same region. While Janhunen (1996:26, 2015:293) locates the Proto-Turkic homeland fairly precisely in Eastern Mongolia, Rona-Tas (1998:88), in a rather general manner, places the last habitat of the Turkic speakers before the disintegration of the family "in west and central Siberia and in the region south of it." The latter localization overlaps in large part with that proposed by Tenisev et al. (2006), who associate the Proto-Turkic urheimat with the vast area stretching from the Ordos Desert in Inner Mongolia to the foothils of the Sayan-Altai mountains in Southern Siberia." while one author has postulated that Proto-Turkic originated 2,500 years ago in East Asia.

The oldest records of a Turkic language, the Old Turkic Orkhon inscriptions of the 7th century Göktürk khaganate, already shows characteristics of Eastern Common Turkic. For a long time, the reconstruction of Proto-Turkic relied on comparisons of Old Turkic with early sources of the Western Common Turkic branches, such as Oghuz and Kypchak, as well as the Western Oghur proper ( Bulgar, Chuvash, Khazar). Because early attestation of these non-easternmost languages is much sparser, reconstruction of Proto-Turkic still rests fundamentally on the easternmost Old Turkic of the Göktürks, however it now also includes a more comprehensive analysis of all written and spoken forms of the language.

The Proto-Turkic language shows evidence of influence from several neighboring language groups, including Eastern Iranian, Tocharian, and Old Chinese.

Phonology

Consonants

The consonant system had a two-way contrast of stop consonants ( fortis vs. lenis), ''k, p, t'' vs. ''g, b, d''. There was also an affricate consonant, ''č''; at least one sibilant ''s'' and sonorants ''m, n, ń, ŋ, r, l'' with a full series of nasal consonants. Some scholars additionally reconstruct the palatalized sounds ''ĺ'' and ''ŕ'' for the correspondence sets Oghuric /l/ ~ Common Turkic *š and Oghuric /r/ ~ Common Turkic *z. Most scholars, however, assume that these are the regular reflexes of Proto-Turkic *l and *r. Oghuric is thus sometimes referred to as Lir-Turkic and Common Turkic as Shaz-Turkic.

A glottochronological reconstruction based on analysis of isoglosses and Sinicisms points to the timing of the ''r/z'' split at around 56 BCE–48 CE. As Anna Dybo puts it, that may be associated with

the historical situation that can be seen in the history of the Huns' division onto the Northern and Southern roups the first separation and withdrawal of the Northern Huns to the west has occurred, as was stated above, in 56 BC,... the second split of the (Eastern) Huns into the northern and southern groups happened in 48 AD.

Dybo suggests that during that period, the Northern branch steadily migrated from Western Mongolia through Southern Xinjiang into the north's Dzungaria and then finally into Kazakhstan's Zhetysu until the 5th century.

There was no fortis-lenis contrast in word-initial position: the initial stops were always ''*b'', ''*t'', ''*k'', the affricate was always ''*č'' and the sibilant was always ''*s''. In addition, the nasals and the liquids did not occur in that position either.

Like in many modern Turkic languages, the velars /k/, /g/, and possibly /ŋ/ seem to have had back and front allophones ( and , and , and ) according to their environments, with the velar allophones occurring in words with front vowels, and uvular allophones occurring in words with back vowels. The lenis stops /b/, /d/ and /g/~/ɢ/ may have tended towards fricatives intervocalically.

Vowels

Like most of its descendants, Proto-Turkic exhibited vowel harmony, distinguishing vowel qualities ''a, ï, o, u'' vs. ''e, ẹ, i, ö, ü'', as well as two vowel quantities. Here, macrons represent long vowels. Some scholars (e.g. Gerhard Doerfer) additionally reconstruct a mid back unrounded ''*ë'' based on cognate sets with Chuvash, Tuvan and Yakut ''ï'' corresponding to ''a'' in all other Turkic languages, although these correspondences can also be explained as deriving from *''a'' which underwent subsequent sound changes in those three languages. The phonemicity of the distinction between the two close unrounded vowels, i.e. front ''*i'' and back ''*ï'', is also rejected by some.

Morphology

Nouns

Plurals

While plurality in modern Turkic languages is relatively straightforward, Proto-Turkic seemingly has multiple plural suffixes, with unclear use cases for each.

One plural suffix preserved in both Oghuric and Common Turkic is ''*-(I)ŕ'', in words such as Turkish "ikiz" or "biz," or Chuvash "(e)pir."

Other possible plural suffixes are ''*-(I)t'', which was commonly seen in Old Turkic, and is related to Proto-Mongolic ''*-d'' and Proto-Tungusic ''*-tA''; and ''*-(A)n'', preserved in very few words such as Turkish "oğlan."

Common Turkic languages today use their respective descendants of the Proto-Common-Turkic plural suffix ''*-lAr'', whereas Chuvash uses , which descends from Proto-Turkic ''*sāyïn'' ("every").

It's unknown whether the Proto-Common-Turkic *''-lAr'', *''-(I)t'' and *''-(A)n'' existed in Proto-Turkic and were lost in the Oghuric branch, or were later inventions altogether.

Possessive suffixes

Reconstructable possessive suffixes in Proto-Turkic includes ''*-m'', ''*-ŋ'', and ''*-(s)i'', plurals of the possessors are formed by ''*-z'' in Common Turkic languages.

Verbs

The reconstructable suffixes for the verbs include:
* Aorist: ''*-Vr''
* Past: ''*-dI''
* Negative suffix: ''*-mA''
* : ''*-m'' (past tense) & ''*-mẹn'' (aorist and future tense) < ''*bẹn''
* : ''*-ŋ'' (past tense) & ''*-sẹn'' (aorist and future tense) < ''*sẹn''
* : ''*-∅'' & ''*ol''
* : ''*-m-iŕ'' (past tense, dual form of singular suffix) & ''*-biŕ'' (aorist and future tense) < ''*biŕ''
* : ''*-ŋ-iŕ'' (past tense, dual form of singular suffix) & ''*-siŕ'' (aorist and future tense) < ''*siŕ''
Proto-Turkic also involves derivation with grammatical voice suffixes, as in cooperative ''*körüĺ'', middle ''*körün'', passive ''*körül'', and causative ''*körtkür''.

Vocabulary

Pronouns

Numbers

References

Sources

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Further reading

* Dybo, A.V. (2014).
Early contacts of Turks and problems of Proto-Turkic reconstruction
. In: ''Tatarica: Language'', 2, p. 7-17.
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External links

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Agglutinative languages
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