Turkic group of languages: peoples, classification, distribution and interesting facts. Turkic languages

TURKIC LANGUAGES

Turkic languages are a family of languages spoken by numerous peoples and nationalities of the USSR, Turkey, part of the population of Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia, China, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania. The question of the genetic relationship of these languages to the Altaic languages is at the level of a hypothesis that involves the unification of the Turkic, Tungus-Manchu and Mongolian languages. According to a number of scientists (E.D. Polivanov, G.J. Ramstedt and others), the scope of this family is expanding to include Korean and Japanese. There is also the Ural-Altaic hypothesis (M.A. Kastren, O. Betlingk, G. Winkler, O. Donner, Z. Gombots and others), according to which the Turkic languages, as well as other Altaic languages, together with the Finno-Ugric languages Ural-Altai macrofamily. In the Altaic literature, the typological similarity of the Turkic, Mongolian, and Tungus-Manchu languages is sometimes mistaken for a genetic relationship. The contradictions of the Altai hypothesis are connected, firstly, with the fuzzy application of the comparative historical method in the reconstruction of the Altai archetype and, secondly, with the lack of precise methods and criteria for differentiating primordial and borrowed roots.

The formation of individual Turkic languages was preceded by numerous and complex migrations of their speakers. In the 5th c. the movement of Gur tribes from Asia to the Kama region began; from the 5th-6th centuries Turkic tribes from Central Asia (Oghuz, etc.) began to move into Central Asia; in 10-12 centuries. the range of settlement of the ancient Uighur and Oghuz tribes expanded (from Central Asia to East Turkestan, Central and Asia Minor); there was a consolidation of the ancestors of Tuvans, Khakasses, mountain Altai; at the beginning of the 2nd millennium, the Kyrgyz tribes from the Yenisei moved to the current territory of Kyrgyzstan; in the 15th century consolidated Kazakh tribes.

According to the modern geography of distribution, the Turkic languages of the following areas are distinguished: Central and Southeast Asia, South and Western Siberia, the Volga-Kama, the North Caucasus, Transcaucasia and the Black Sea region. There are several classification schemes in Turkology. V.A. Bogoroditsky divided the Turkic languages into 7 groups: northeastern (Yakut, Karagas and Tuvan languages); Khakass (Abakan), which included the Sagai, Beltir, Koibal, Kachinsky and Kyzyl dialects of the Khakass population of the region; Altaic with a southern branch (Altaic and Teleut languages) and a northern branch (dialects of the so-called Black Tatars and some others); West Siberian, which includes all dialects of the Siberian Tatars; Volga-Urals (Tatar and Bashkir languages); Central Asian (Uighur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Karakalpak languages); southwestern (Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Kumyk, Gagauz and Turkish language And). The linguistic criteria of this classification were not distinguished by sufficient completeness and persuasiveness, as well as the purely phonetic features that formed the basis of the classification by V.V. Radlov, who singled out 4 groups: eastern (languages and dialects of the Altai, Ob, Yenisei Turks and Chulym Tatars, Karagas, Khakass, Shor and Tuvan languages); western (dialects of the Tatars of Western Siberia, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Bashkir, Tatar and, conditionally, Karakalpak languages); Central Asian (Uigur and Uzbek languages) and southern (Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Turkish, some South Coast dialects of the Crimean Tatar language); Radlov singled out the Yakut language in particular. F.E. Korsh, who first used morphological features as a basis for classification, admitted that the Turkic languages were originally divided into northern and southern groups; later the southern group broke up into eastern and western. In the refined scheme proposed by A.N. Samoilovich (1922), the Turkic languages are divided into 6 groups: the p-group, or Bulgar (it also included the Chuvash language); d-group, or Uyghur, otherwise northeastern (in addition to Old Uyghur, it included Tuvan, Tofalar, Yakut, Khakass languages), Tau-group, or Kypchak, otherwise northwestern (Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, Kyrgyz languages, Altai language and its dialects, Karachay-Balkarian, Kumyk, Crimean Tatar languages), Tag-lyk-group, or Chagatai, otherwise southeastern (modern Uighur language, Uzbek language without its Kypchak dialects); tag-ly group, or Kypchak-Turkmen (intermediate dialects - Khiva-Uzbek and Khiva-Sart, which have lost their independent meaning); ol-group, otherwise southwestern, or Oguz (Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, southern coastal Crimean Tatar dialects).

Subsequently, new schemes were proposed, in each of them there was an attempt to clarify the distribution of languages into groups, as well as to include the ancient Turkic languages. So, for example, Ramstedt distinguishes 6 main groups: the Chuvash language, the Yakut language, the northern group (according to A.M.O. Ryasyanen - northeastern), which includes all Turkic languages and dialects of Altai and adjacent regions; the western group (according to Ryasyanen - northwestern) - Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Karakalpak, Nogai, Kumyk, Karachay, Balkar, Karaim, Tatar and Bashkir languages, the dead Kuman and Kypchak languages are also assigned to this group; the eastern group (according to Ryasyanen - southeastern) - the New Uighur and Uzbek languages; the southern group (according to Ryasyanen - southwestern) - Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Turkish and Gagauz languages. Some variations of this type of schemes are represented by the classification proposed by I. Benzing and K.G. Menges. The classification is based on S.E. Malov is based on the chronological principle: all languages are divided into "old", "new" and "latest".

The classification of N.A. is fundamentally different from the previous ones. Baskakova; according to his principles, the classification of the Turkic languages is nothing more than a periodization of the history of development Turkic peoples and languages in all the variety of small tribal associations of the primitive system that arose and disintegrated, and then large tribal associations, which, having the same origin, created communities that were different in the composition of the tribes, and consequently in the composition of the tribal languages.

The considered classifications, with all their shortcomings, helped to identify the groups of Turkic languages that are genetically related most closely. The special allocation of the Chuvash and Yakut languages is substantiated. To develop a more accurate classification, it is necessary to expand the set of differential features, taking into account the extremely complex dialect division of the Turkic languages. The most generally accepted classification scheme for describing individual Turkic languages remains the scheme proposed by Samoylovich.

Typologically, the Turkic languages are classified as agglutinative languages. The root (basis) of the word, not being burdened with class indicators (there is no class division of nouns in the Turkic languages), in it. n. can act in its pure form, due to which it becomes the organizing center of the entire declension paradigm. The axial structure of the paradigm, i.e. such, which is based on one structural core, influenced the nature of phonetic processes (the tendency to preserve clear boundaries between morphemes, an obstacle to the deformation of the very axis of the paradigm, to the deformation of the stem of the word, etc.). The companion of agglutination in the Turkic languages is synharmonism.

The presence of vowel harmony and the associated opposition of the front-lingual consonants to the back-lingual ones, the absence in the original Turkic words of combinations of several consonants at the beginning of a word, at the junctions of morphemes or in the absolute outcome of a word, the special typology of syllables determine the relative simplicity of the distributive relations of phonemes in the Turkic languages.

More consistently manifested in the Turkic languages is harmony on the basis of palatality - non-palatality, cf. tour. ev-ler-in-de "in their houses", Karachay-balk. bar-ay-ym "I'll go," etc. Lip voicing in different Turkic languages is developed to varying degrees.

There is a hypothesis about the presence of 8 vowel phonemes for the early common Turkic state, which could be short and long: a, ê (reduced), o, u, ö, ÿ, s, and i. It is debatable whether there was a closed /e/ in the Turkic languages. A characteristic feature of the further change in the ancient Turkic vocalism is the loss of long vowels, which covered most of the Turkic languages. They are mainly preserved in the Yakut, Turkmen, Khalaj languages; in other Turkic languages, only their individual relics have been preserved.

In the Tatar, Bashkir and Old Chuvash languages, /a/ in the first syllables of many words has changed into a labialized, pushed back /å/, cf. *kara "black", other Turkic, Kazakh. Kara, but tat. kera; *åt "horse", Old Turkic, Tur., Azeri, Kazakh. at, but tat., head. et etc. There was also a transition from /a/ to labialized /o/, typical of the Uzbek language, cf. *bash "head", Uzbek. Bosch The umlaut /a/ is noted under the influence of /and/ of the next syllable in the Uighur language (eti "his horse" instead of ata); a short ê has been preserved in the Azerbaijani and New Uigur languages (cf. *kêl- "come", Azeri gêl"-, Uighur. kêl-, etc.). Tatar, Bashkir, Khakass and partly Chuvash languages are characterized by the transition ê > and, cf. *êт "meat", Tat.It. In the Kazakh, Karakalpak, Nogai and Karachay-Balkar languages there is a diphthongoid pronunciation of some vowels at the beginning of a word, in the Tuvan and Tofalar languages - the presence of pharyngealized vowels.

The consonantism of the Turkic languages can be presented in the form of a table:

so-called. the Oghuz languages allow voiced stops in anlaut; the Kipchak languages allow occlusions in this position, but voiceless occlusions predominate.

In the process of changing consonants in the Turkic languages, sounds with more or less complex articulation were simplified or turned into sounds of a different quality: bilateral /l/ and interdental /z/ disappeared; the velar /q/ in a number of languages has turned into the usual Middle language /k/ or /x/ (cf. *qara "black", Orkhon kara, Kazakh, Karakalp., Karachay-Balk., Uighur qara, but Tur. kara, Chuvash . khur). There are common cases of voicing of consonants in an intervocalic position (characteristic of the Chuvash language and especially of the Turkic languages of Siberia), numerous assimilation of consonants, especially in affixes, transition to > h and t > h before front vowels (cf. dialects of Azeri, Tur. , Uighur languages: Chim< ким "кто"). Наблюдаемое во многих тюркских языках изменение начального й- в аффрикату также объясняется внутренними закономерностями развития тюркских языков. Ср. *йêр "земля", азерб. йêр, кирг. жер (где /ж/ обозначает звонкую аффрикату, хакас. чир, тув. чер. В других случаях изменения звуков могут возникать под воздействием соседних неродственных языков: таковы радикальные изменения тюркского консонантизма в якутском, а также в известной мере в чувашском, появление придыхательных смычных в некоторых тюркских языках Кавказа и Сибири.

The name category in all Turkic languages, except for Yakut, has 6 cases. Them. n. not marked, genus. p. is made out by indicators -yn / -in, wines. n. -s / -i, -ny / -ni, in some languages there are affixes genus. p. and wine. n. with initial -n, dat.-direct. n. -ka/-gê -a/-ê, local n. -ta/-tê, -da/-dê, original n. -tan/-tên, -dan/-dên; in languages where assimilation processes are developed, there are variants of the affix genus. n. -tyn / -dyn, wine affix. n. -ty / -dy, etc. In the Chuvash language, as a result of rotacism -з-, variants of the original and local cases -ra and -ran appeared in the intervocalic position; data-vin. n. in this language is combined in one indicator -a / -e, -on / -not.

In all Turkic languages plural expressed with the affix -lar/-lêr, except for the Chuvash language, where this function has the affix -sem. The category of belonging is transmitted using a system of personal affixes attached to the stem.

The numerals include lexical units for designating the numbers of the first ten, for the numbers twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred, one thousand; for the numbers sixty, seventy, eighty and ninety, compound words are used, the first part of which is the phonetically modified names of the corresponding units of the first ten. In some Turkic languages, a different system for denoting tens was formed according to the scheme "the name of the unit of the first ten + he" ten", cf. Khakass. alt-on "sixty", Yakut. törtÿon "forty".

Demonstrative pronouns in the Turkic languages reflect 3 plans for the arrangement of objects in space: the closest to the speaker (for example, Tur. bu, Chuvash.ku "this"), more distant (Turk. su, Kirg. oshol "that one"), the most remote (tur. o, kirg. al "that").

The paradigm of personal pronouns includes forms of three persons singular. and many others. hours, with their declension in a number of languages, changes in the vowel of the stem occur in dat.-direct. p. units h., Wed. tour. ben "I", but: bana "me", Kirg. men "I", but magica "me", etc.

There are 2 bases of the interrogative pronoun: cf. Uzbek, Nogai kim "who", kimlar "who" (in relation to persons), nima "what", nimalar "what", Nogai not "what" (in relation to objects).

Reflexive pronouns are based on independent nouns. Eg. öz "inside", "core" (in most languages), Azeri, Kirg. ozyam "I myself"; in Shore, Khakass, Tuv, Alt. and tofalar. languages use the word "body" accordingly, cf. shore call, tuv. bodum, Alt. bojym "I myself", in Yakut. language - the word beeyee "body", cf. Yakut. baem "myself", on tour. and Gagauz. languages - the word kendi, cf. tour. kendim "myself", etc.

In the verb conjugation system, 2 types of personal endings are actualized. The first type - phonetically modified personal pronouns - appear when the verb is conjugated in the present and future tenses, as well as in the perfect and pluperfect. The second type of endings, associated with possessive affixes, is used in the past tense with -dy and the conditional mood.

The most common form of the present tense is in -a, which sometimes has the meaning of the future tense (in Tatar, Bashk., Kumyk, Crimean Tatar languages, in the Turkic languages of Central Asia, dialects of the Tatars of Siberia). All Turkic languages have a form of the present-future tense in -ar/-yr. The Turkish language is characterized by the form of the present tense in -yor, for the Turkmen language in -yar. The present tense form of the given moment in -makta/-makhta/-mokda is found in Tur., Azerb., Uzbek, Crimean Tatar, Turkm., Uighur, Karakalp. languages. In the Turkic languages, there is a tendency to create special forms of the present tense of a given moment, formed according to the model "germs in -а or -ып + the present tense form of a certain group of auxiliary verbs".

The common Turkic form of the past tense ending in -dy is distinguished by its semantic capacity and aspectual neutrality. In the development of the Turkic languages, there was a constant tendency to create the past tense with specific meanings, especially denoting a long action in the past (cf. an indefinite imperfect like Karaim. alyr edim "I took"). In many Turkic languages (mainly Kypchak) there is a perfect formed by adding personal endings of the first type (phonetically modified personal pronouns) to participles in -kan/-gan. An etymologically related form to -an exists in the Turkmen language and to -ny in the Chuvash language. In the languages of the Oguz group, the perfect ending in -mysh is common, in the Yakut language, the etymologically related form is ending in -byt. The pluperfect has the same stem as the perfect combined with the forms of the stems of the past tense of the auxiliary verb "to be".

In all Turkic languages, except for the Chuvash language, there is an indicator -yr/-ar for the future tense (present-future). The Oguz languages are characterized by the form of the future categorical tense in -adzhak/-achak, it is also common in some languages of the southern area (Uzbek, Uighur).

In addition to the indicative in the Turkic languages, there is a desirable mood with the most common indicators -gai (for the Kypchak languages), -a (for the Oghuz languages), imperative with its own paradigm, where the pure stem of the verb expresses a command addressed to 2 lit. units h., conditional, having 3 models of education with special indicators: -sa (for most languages), -sar (in Orkhon, other Uyghur monuments, as well as in Turkic texts of the 10-13th centuries from East Turkestan, from modern languages in a phonetically transformed form was preserved only in Yakut), -san (in the Chuvash language); the obligatory mood is found mainly in the languages of the Oguz group.

Türkic languages have real (coinciding with the stem), passive (indicator -l attached to the stem), reciprocal (indicator -sh) and coercive (indicators are diverse, the most frequent are -dyr / -tyr, -t, -yz, -gyz) pledges.

The verb stem in the Turkic languages is indifferent to the aspect expression. Aspective shades can have separate tense forms, as well as special complex verbs, the aspectual characteristic of which is given by auxiliary verbs.

Negation in the Turkic languages has different indicators for the verb (affix -ma< -ба) и имени (слово дейил "нет", "не имеется" для огузских языков, эмес - в том же значении для кыпчакских языков).

The models for the formation of the main types of phrases - both attributive and predicative - are the same in the Turkic languages; the dependent member precedes the principal. A characteristic syntactic category in the Turkic languages is izafet: this type of relationship between two names permeates the entire structure of the Turkic languages.

The nominal or verbal type of a sentence in the Turkic languages is determined by the nature of the grammatical expression of the predicate. The model of a simple nominal sentence, in which predicativeness is expressed by analogs of the link (predicate affixes, personal pronouns, various predicative words), is a common Turkic one. The number of types of verb sentences that unite the Turkic languages with a morphological reference member is relatively small (the past tense form into -dy, the present-future tense into -a); most types of verbal sentences developed in zonal communities (cf. the type of verbal sentence with a formative member in -gan, which was fixed in the Kipchak area, or the type with a forming member in -mysh, characteristic of the Oguz area, etc.). The simple sentence in the Turkic languages is the predominant syntactic structure; it tends to include such substitutes for subordinate clauses, the structure of which would not contradict the rules of its construction. Various subordinating relations are conveyed by participial, participle, verb-nominal constructions.

In the structure of the Turkic languages, conditions were laid for the development of allied proposals. In the development of complex sentences of the allied type, the influence of Arabic and Persian played a certain role. Constant contact of speakers of Turkic languages with Russians also contributed to the development of allied means (eg, in the Tatar language).

In the word-formation of the Turkic languages, affixation prevails. There are also ways of analytical word formation: paired names, reduplication, compound verbs, etc.

The oldest monuments of the Turkic languages date back to the 7th century BC. The writing of all the Turkic languages of the USSR since the late 30s - early 40s. based on Russian graphics. Turkish uses a Latin-based alphabet.

Bibliography

Melioransky P.M. Arab philologist about the Turkish language. SPb., 1900.

Bogoroditsky V.A. Introduction to Tatar linguistics. Kazan, 1934; 2nd ed. Kazan, 1953.

Malov S.E. Monuments of ancient Turkic writing. M.-L., 1951.

Research on comparative grammar of Turkic languages. Ch. 1-4. M., 1955-1962.

Baskakov N.A. Introduction to the study of Turkic languages. M., 1962; 2nd ed. M., 1969.

Baskakov N.A. Historical and typological phonology of the Turkic languages. M., 1988.

Shcherbak A.M. Comparative phonetics of Turkic languages. L., 1970.

Sevortyan E.V. Etymological dictionary of Turkic languages. T. 1-3. M., 1974-1980.

Serebrennikov B.A., Gadzhieva N.Z. Comparative-historical grammar of Turkic languages. Baku, 1979. 2nd edition. M., 1986.

Comparative-historical grammar of Turkic languages. Phonetics. Rep. ed. E.R. Tenishev. M., 1984.

Comparative-historical grammar of Turkic languages. Morphology. Rep. ed. E.R. Tenishev. M., 1988.

Gronbech K. Die turkische Sprachbau. V. 1. Kph, 1936.

Gabain A. Altturkische Grammatik. Lpz., 1941; 2 Aufl., Lpz., 1950.

Brockelmann C. Ostturkische Grammatik der islamischen Literatursprachen Mittelasiens. Leiden, 1954.

Rasanen M.R. Materialen zur Morphologie der Turkischen Sprachen. Hels., 1957.

Philologiae Turcicae fundamenta. T. 1-2. Wiesbaden, 1959-1964.

N.Z. Gadzhiev. TURKIC LANGUAGES.

a family of languages spoken by numerous peoples and nationalities of the USSR, Turkey, part of the population of Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia, China, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania. The question of the genetic relationship of these languages to the Altaic languages is at the level of a hypothesis that involves the unification of the Turkic, Tungus-Manchu and Mongolian languages. According to a number of scientists (E. D. Polivanov, G. J. Ramstedt and others), the scope of this family is expanding to include the Korean and Japanese languages. There is also the Ural-Altaic hypothesis (M. A. Kastren, O. Bötlingk, G. Winkler, O. Donner, Z. Gombots and others), according to which T. Ya., as well as other Altaic languages, together with Finno-Ugric languages of the Ural-Altaic macrofamily. In the Altaic literature, the typological similarity of the Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchu languages is sometimes taken as a genetic relationship. The contradictions of the Altai hypothesis are connected, firstly, with the fuzzy application of the comparative historical method in the reconstruction of the Altai archetype and, secondly, with the lack of precise methods and criteria for differentiating primordial and borrowed roots.

Formation of individual national T. I. preceded by numerous and complex migrations of their carriers. In the 5th c. the movement of Gur tribes from Asia to the Kama region began; from the 5th-6th centuries Turkic tribes from Central Asia (Oghuz and others) began to move into Central Asia; in 10-12 centuries. the range of settlement of the ancient Uighur and Oguz tribes expanded (from Central Asia to East Turkestan, Central and Asia Minor); there was a consolidation of the ancestors of Tuvans, Khakasses, mountain Altai; at the beginning of the 2nd millennium, the Kyrgyz tribes from the Yenisei moved to the current territory of Kyrgyzstan; in the 15th century consolidated Kazakh tribes.

[Classification]

According to the modern geography of distribution, T. I are distinguished. the following areas: Central and Southeast Asia, South and Western Siberia, Volga-Kama, North Caucasus, Transcaucasia and the Black Sea region. There are several classification schemes in Turkology.

V. A. Bogoroditsky shared T. I. for 7 groups: northeast(Yakut, Karagas and Tuvan languages); Khakass (Abakan), which included the Sagai, Beltir, Koibal, Kachinsky and Kyzyl dialects of the Khakass population of the region; Altai with the southern branch (Altaic and Teleut languages) and the northern branch (dialects of the so-called Black Tatars and some others); West Siberian, which includes all dialects of the Siberian Tatars; Volga-Urals(Tatar and Bashkir languages); Central Asian(Uighur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Karakalpak languages); southwestern(Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Kumyk, Gagauz and Turkish).

The linguistic criteria of this classification were not distinguished by sufficient completeness and persuasiveness, as well as the purely phonetic features that formed the basis of the classification by V. V. Radlov, who distinguished 4 groups: eastern(languages and dialects of the Altai, Ob, Yenisei Turks and Chulym Tatars, Karagas, Khakass, Shor and Tuvan languages); western(dialects of the Tatars of Western Siberia, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Bashkir, Tatar and, conditionally, Karakalpak languages); Central Asian(Uighur and Uzbek) and southern(Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Turkish, some South Coast dialects of the Crimean Tatar language); Radlov singled out the Yakut language in particular.

F. E. Korsh, who first attracted morphological features as the basis for classification, admitted that T. I. originally divided into northern and southern groups; later the southern group broke up into eastern and western.

In the refined scheme proposed by A. N. Samoylovich (1922), T. Ya. divided into 6 groups: r-group, or Bulgar (it also included the Chuvash language); d-group, or Uyghur, otherwise northeastern (in addition to the Old Uyghur, it included Tuvan, Tofalar, Yakut, Khakass languages); tau group, or Kypchak, otherwise northwestern (Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, Kyrgyz languages, Altai language and its dialects, Karachay-Balkarian, Kumyk, Crimean Tatar languages); tag-lyk-group, or Chagatai, otherwise southeastern (modern Uyghur, Uzbek without its Kypchak dialects); tag-ly-group, or Kypchak-Turkmen (intermediate dialects - Khiva-Uzbek and Khiva-Sart, which have lost their independent meaning); ol-group, otherwise southwestern, or Oguz (Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, southern coastal Crimean Tatar dialects).

Subsequently, new schemes were proposed, in each of which there was an attempt to clarify the distribution of languages into groups, as well as to include the ancient Turkic languages. So, for example, Ramstedt identifies 6 main groups: the Chuvash language; Yakut language; the northern group (according to A. M. O. Ryasyanen - northeastern), to which all T. I are assigned. and dialects of Altai and adjacent areas; the western group (according to Ryasyanen - northwestern) - Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Karakalpak, Nogai, Kumyk, Karachay, Balkar, Karaite, Tatar and Bashkir languages, the dead Kuman and Kypchak languages are also assigned to this group; the eastern group (according to Ryasyanen - southeastern) - the New Uighur and Uzbek languages; the southern group (according to Ryasyanen - southwestern) - Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Turkish and Gagauz languages. Some variations of this type of schemes are represented by the classification proposed by I. Benzing and K. G. Menges. The classification of S. E. Malov is based on a chronological feature: all languages are divided into “old”, “new” and “latest”.

The classification of N. A. Baskakov is fundamentally different from the previous ones; according to its principles, classification of T. I. is nothing more than a periodization of the history of the development of the Turkic peoples and languages in all the diversity of small tribal associations of the primitive system that arose and fell apart, and then large tribal associations, which, having the same origin, created communities that were different in composition of the tribes, and therefore in composition tribal languages.

The considered classifications, with all their shortcomings, helped to identify groups of T. I., genetically related most closely. The special allocation of the Chuvash and Yakut languages is substantiated. To develop a more accurate classification, it is necessary to expand the set of differential features, taking into account the extremely complex dialect division of T. Ya. The most common classification scheme for describing individual T. I. remains the scheme proposed by Samoylovich.

[Typology]

Typologically T. I. are agglutinative languages. The root (base) of the word, without being burdened with class indicators (there is no class division of nouns in T. I.), in the nominative case can act in its pure form, due to which it becomes the organizing center of the entire declension paradigm. The axial structure of the paradigm, i.e., one based on one structural core, influenced the nature of phonetic processes (the tendency to maintain clear boundaries between morphemes, an obstacle to deformation of the paradigm axis itself, to deformation of the stem of the word, etc.) . The satellite of agglutination in T. I. is synharmonism.

[Phonetics]

It is more consistently shown in T. I. harmony on the basis of palatality - non-palatality, cf. tour. evler-in-de ‘in their houses’, Karachay-Balk. bar-ay-ym ‘I’ll go’, etc. Lip vowel harmony in different T. I. developed to varying degrees.

There is a hypothesis about the presence of 8 vowel phonemes for the early common Turkic state, which could be short and long: a, ә, o, u, ө, ү, s, and. The question is disputable whether it was in T. I. closed /e/. A characteristic feature of the further change in the ancient Turkic vocalism is the loss of long vowels, which covered the majority of T. Ya. They are mainly preserved in the Yakut, Turkmen, Khalaj languages; in other T. I. only a few relics have survived.

In the Tatar, Bashkir and Old Chuvash languages, /a/ in the first syllables of many words changed into a labialized, pushed back /a°/, cf. *қara ‘black’, other Turkic, Kazakh. kara, but tat. ka°ra; *at ‘horse’, other Turkic, Tur., Azeri, Kazakh. at, but tat., head. a°t, etc. There was also a transition from /a/ to labialized /o/, typical of the Uzbek language, cf. *bash ‘head’, Uzbek. Bosch . The umlaut /a/ is noted under the influence of /and/ of the next syllable in the Uighur language (eti ‘his horse’ instead of ata); a short ә has been preserved in Azerbaijani and New Uighur languages (cf. kәl- ‘come’, Azeri gəl′‑, Uyghur. kəl‑), while ә > e in most T. ya. (cf. Tur. gel-, Nogai, Alt., Kirg. Kel-, etc.). The Tatar, Bashkir, Khakass, and partly Chuvash languages are characterized by the transition ә > u, cf. *әt ‘meat’, Tat. it. In the Kazakh, Karakalpak, Nogai and Karachay-Balkarian languages, a diphthongoid pronunciation of some vowels at the beginning of a word is noted, in the Tuvan and Tofalar languages - the presence of pharyngealized vowels.

The most common form of the present tense is ‑a, which sometimes has the meaning of the future tense (in the Tatar, Bashkir, Kumyk, Crimean Tatar languages, in T. I. Central Asia, dialects of the Tatars of Siberia). In all T. I. there is a present-future form in -ar/-yr. The Turkish language is characterized by the present tense form in -yor, while the Turkmen language - in -yar. The present tense form of this moment in -makta/-makhta/-mokda is found in Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Crimean Tatar, Turkmen, Uighur, Karakalpak languages. In T. I. there is a tendency to create special forms of the present tense of a given moment, formed according to the model “germs in а- or -ып + the present tense form of a certain group of auxiliary verbs”.

The common Turkic form of the past tense in -dy is distinguished by its semantic capacity and aspectual neutrality. In the development of T. I. there was a constant tendency to create the past tense with specific meanings, especially denoting durations. an action in the past (cf. an indefinite imperfect like the Karaite alyr edim ‘I took’). In many T. I. (mostly Kypchak) there is a perfect formed by adding personal endings of the first type (phonetically modified personal pronouns) to the participle in -kan/-gan. An etymologically related form in -an exists in the Turkmen language and in -ny in the Chuvash language. In the languages of the Oguz group, the perfect for -mys is common, in the Yakut language, the etymologically related form for -byt. The pluperfect has the same stem as the perfect combined with the past stem forms of the auxiliary verb ‘to be’.

In all T. Ya., except for the Chuvash language, for the future tense (present-future) there is an indicator -yr / -ar. The Oghuz languages are characterized by the form of the future categorical tense in -adzhak/-achak, it is also common in some languages of the southern area (Uzbek, Uighur).

In addition to the indicative in T. I. there is a desirable mood with the most common indicators -gai (for the Kypchak languages), -a (for the Oguz languages), imperative with its own paradigm, where the pure stem of the verb expresses a command addressed to the 2nd literal. units h., conditional, having 3 models of education with special indicators: -sa (for most languages), -sar (in Orkhon, ancient Uyghur monuments, as well as in Turkic texts of the 10th-13th centuries from East Turkestan, from modern languages in phonetically transformed the form was preserved only in Yakut), -san (in the Chuvash language); the obligatory mood is found mainly in the languages of the Oghuz group (cf. Azeri ҝәlmәliјam ‘I must come’).

T. i. have a real (coinciding with the basis), passive (indicator -l, attached to the base), reflexive (indicator -n), mutual (indicator -sh) and compulsory (indicators are diverse, the most frequent are -holes / -tyr, -t, - yz, -gyz) pledges.

The verb stem in T. i. indifferent to the expression of the species. Aspective shades can have separate tense forms, as well as special complex verbs, the aspectual characteristic of which is given by auxiliary verbs.

Melioransky P. M., Arab philologist about the Turkish language, St. Petersburg, 1900;
Bogoroditsky V. A., Introduction to Tatar Linguistics, Kazan, 1934; 2nd ed., Kazan, 1953;
Malov S. E., Monuments of ancient Turkic writing, M.-L., 1951;
Studies on the comparative grammar of the Turkic languages, parts 1-4, M., 1955-62;
Baskakov N. A., Introduction to the study of Turkic languages, M., 1962; 2nd ed., M., 1969;
his own, Historical and typological phonology of Turkic languages, M., 1988;
Shcherbak A. M., Comparative phonetics of the Turkic languages, L., 1970;
Sevortyan E. V., Etymological dictionary of Turkic languages, [vol. 1-3], M., 1974-80;
Serebrennikov B. A., Hajiyeva N.Z., Comparative-historical grammar of Turkic languages, Baku, 1979; 2nd ed., M., 1986;
Comparative-historical grammar of Turkic languages. Phonetics. Rep. ed. Edited by E. R. Tenishev. Moscow, 1984.
Same, Morphology, M., 1988;
Grønbech K., Der türkische Sprachbau, v. 1, Kph., 1936;
Gabain A., Altturkische Grammatik, Lpz., 1941; 2. Aufl., Lpz., 1950;
Brockelmann C., Osttürkische Grammatik der islamischen Literatursprachen Mittelasiens, Leiden, 1954;
Rasanen M. R., Materialien zur Morphologie der türkischen Sprachen, Hels., 1957 (Studia Orientalia, XXI);
Philologiae Turcicae fundamenta, t. 1-2, , 1959-64.

The official history says that the Turkic language arose in the first millennium when the first tribes belonging to this group appeared. But, as modern research shows, the language itself arose much earlier. There is even an opinion that the Turkic language came from a certain proto-language, which was spoken by all the inhabitants of Eurasia, as in the legend of the Tower of Babel. The main phenomenon of the Turkic vocabulary is that it has not changed much over the five millennia of its existence. The ancient writings of the Sumerians will still be as clear to the Kazakhs as modern books.

Spreading

The Turkic language group is very numerous. If you look territorially, then the peoples who communicate in similar languages live like this: in the west, the border begins with Turkey, in the east - the autonomous region of China Xinjiang, in the north - the East Siberian Sea and in the south - Khorasan.

Currently, the approximate number of people who speak Turkic is 164 million, this number is almost equal to the entire population of Russia. On the this moment there are different opinions about how the group of Turkic languages is classified. Which languages stand out in this group, we will consider further. Main: Turkish, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Uzbek, Karakalpak, Uighur, Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash, Balkar, Karachai, Kumyk, Nogai, Tuvan, Khakass, Yakut, etc.

Ancient Turkic-speaking peoples

We know that the Turkic group of languages spread very widely in Eurasia. In ancient times, the peoples who spoke this way were simply called Turks. Their main activity was cattle breeding and agriculture. But one should not perceive all modern peoples of the Turkic language group as descendants of an ancient ethnic group. As the millennia passed, their blood mixed with the blood of other ethnic groups of Eurasia, and now there are simply no indigenous Turks.

The ancient peoples of this group include:

Turkuts - tribes that settled in the Altai Mountains in the 5th century AD;
Pechenegs - arose at the end of the 9th century and inhabited the region between Kievan Rus, Hungary, Alania and Mordovia;
Polovtsy - with their appearance they forced out the Pechenegs, they were very freedom-loving and aggressive;
the Huns - arose in the II-IV centuries and managed to create a huge state from the Volga to the Rhine, Avars and Hungarians went from them;
Bulgars - such peoples as the Chuvash, Tatars, Bulgarians, Karachays, Balkars originated from these ancient tribes.
Khazars - huge tribes who managed to create their own state and oust the Huns;
Oghuz Turks - the ancestors of the Turkmens, Azerbaijanis, lived in Seljukia;
Karluks - lived in the VIII-XV centuries.

Classification

Turkic group languages has a very complex classification. Rather, each historian offers his own version, which will differ from the other by minor changes. We offer you the most common option:

Bulgarian group. The only currently existing representative is the Chuvash language.
The Yakut group is the easternmost of the peoples of the Turkic language group. Residents speak Yakut and Dolgan dialects.
South Siberian - this group includes the languages of the peoples living mainly within the borders Russian Federation in the south of Siberia.
Southeastern, or Karluk. Examples are Uzbek and Uighur languages.
Northwestern, or Kypchak group - represented big amount nationalities, many of which live in their own independent territory, such as Tatars, Kazakhs, Kirghiz.
Southwestern, or Oguz. The languages included in the group are Turkmen, Salar, Turkish.

Yakuts

On their territory, the local population calls itself simply - Sakha. Hence the name of the region - the Republic of Sakha. Some representatives also settled in other neighboring areas. The Yakuts are the most eastern of the peoples of the Turkic language group. Culture and traditions were borrowed in ancient times from the tribes living in the central steppe part of Asia.

Khakasses

For this people, an area is defined - the Republic of Khakassia. Here is the largest contingent of Khakasses - about 52 thousand people. Several thousand more moved to live in Tula and the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Shors

This nationality reached its greatest number in the 17th-18th centuries. Now it is a small ethnic group that can only be found in the south. Kemerovo region. To date, the number is very small, about 10 thousand people.

Tuvans

Tuvans are usually divided into three groups, which differ from each other in some features of the dialect. Inhabit the Republic This is a small eastern of the peoples of the Turkic language group, living on the border with China.

Tofalars

This nation has almost disappeared. According to the 2010 census, 762 people were found in several villages of the Irkutsk region.

Siberian Tatars

The eastern dialect of Tatar is the language that is considered to be the national language for the Siberian Tatars. This is also a Turkic group of languages. The peoples of this group are densely settled in Russia. They can be found in the countryside of the regions of Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk and others.

Dolgany

A small group living in the northern regions of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. They even have their own municipal district - Taimyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky. To date, only 7.5 thousand people remain representatives of the Dolgans.

Altaians

The Turkic group of languages includes the Altai lexicon. Now in this area you can freely get acquainted with the culture and traditions of the ancient people.

Independent Turkic-speaking states

To date, there are six separate independent states, the nationality of which is the indigenous Turkic population. First of all, these are Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Of course, Turkey and Turkmenistan. And do not forget about Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, which treat the Turkic language group in exactly the same way.

Mine autonomous region Uyghurs have. It is located in China and is called Xinjiang. Other nationalities belonging to the Turks also live in this territory.

Kyrgyz

The Turkic group of languages primarily includes Kyrgyz. Indeed, the Kirghiz or Kyrgyz are the most ancient representatives of the Turks who lived on the territory of Eurasia. The first mention of the Kirghiz are found in 1 thousand BC. e. Almost throughout its history, the nation did not have its own sovereign territory, but at the same time managed to preserve its identity and culture. The Kyrgyz even have such a concept as "ashar", which means joint work, close cooperation and rallying.

The Kirghiz have long lived in the steppe sparsely populated areas. This could not but affect some of the features of character. These people are extremely hospitable. When a new person used to arrive in the settlement, he would tell news that no one could hear before. For this, the guest was rewarded with the best treats. It is customary to venerate guests sacredly to this day.

Kazakhs

The Turkic language group could not exist without the most numerous Turkic people living not only in the state of the same name, but throughout the world.

The folk customs of the Kazakhs are very severe. Children from childhood are brought up in strict rules, they are taught to be responsible and hardworking. For this nation, the concept of "jigit" is the pride of the people, a person who, at all costs, defends the honor of his fellow tribesman or his own.

In the appearance of the Kazakhs, there is still a clear division into "white" and "black". IN modern world this has long lost its meaning, but the remnants of the old concepts are still preserved. A feature of the appearance of any Kazakh is that he can simultaneously look like a European and a Chinese.

Turks

The Turkic group of languages includes Turkish. It so happened historically that Turkey has always closely cooperated with Russia. And these relations were not always peaceful. Byzantium and later Ottoman Empire, began its existence simultaneously with Kievan Rus. Even then there were the first conflicts for the right to rule the Black Sea. Over time, this enmity intensified, which largely influenced the relationship between Russians and Turks.

Turks are very peculiar. First of all, this can be seen in some of their features. They are hardy, patient and completely unpretentious in everyday life. The behavior of the representatives of the nation is very cautious. Even if they are angry, they will never express their dissatisfaction. But then they can hold a grudge and take revenge. In serious matters, the Turks are very cunning. They can smile in the face, and plot intrigues behind their backs for their own benefit.

The Turks took their religion very seriously. Severe Muslim laws prescribed every step in the life of a Turk. For example, they could kill an unbeliever and not be punished for it. Another feature is connected with this feature - a hostile attitude towards non-Muslims.

Conclusion

Turkic-speaking peoples are the largest ethnic group on Earth. The descendants of the ancient Turks settled on all continents, but most of them live in the indigenous territory - in the Altai Mountains and in the south of Siberia. Many peoples managed to preserve their identity within the borders of independent states.

They are settled on the vast territory of our planet, ranging from the cold Kolyma basin to the southwestern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Turks do not belong to any particular racial type, even among the same people there are both Caucasoids and Mongoloids. They are mostly Muslims, but there are peoples who profess Christianity, traditional beliefs, and shamanism. The only thing that connects almost 170 million people is the common origin of the group of languages that the Turks now speak. Yakut and Turk - they all speak related dialects.

Strong branch of the Altai tree

Among some scientists, disputes still do not subside over what language family belongs to the Turkic language group. Some linguists singled it out as a separate large group. However, the most generally accepted hypothesis today is the version about the entry of these related languages into the large Altaic family.

A great contribution to these studies was made by the development of genetics, thanks to which it became possible to trace the history of entire peoples in the wake of individual fragments of the human genome.

Once a group of tribes in Central Asia spoke the same language - the ancestor of modern Turkic dialects, but in the 3rd century. BC e. a separate Bulgar branch separated from the large trunk. The only people who speak the languages of the Bulgar group today are the Chuvash. Their dialect is noticeably different from other related ones and stands out as a special subgroup.

Some researchers even propose to place the Chuvash language in a separate genus of the large Altai macrofamily.

Southeast direction classification

Other representatives of the Turkic group of languages are usually divided into 4 large subgroups. There are disagreements in the details, but for simplicity, we can take the most common way.

Oguz, or southwestern, languages, which include Azerbaijani, Turkish, Turkmen, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz. Representatives of these peoples speak very similarly and can easily understand each other without an interpreter. Hence the huge influence of strong Turkey in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, whose inhabitants perceive Turkish as their native language.

The Turkic group of the Altai family of languages also includes the Kypchak, or northwestern, languages, which are spoken mainly on the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as representatives of the peoples of Central Asia who have nomadic ancestors. Tatars, Bashkirs, Karachays, Balkars, such peoples of Dagestan as Nogais and Kumyks, as well as Kazakhs and Kirghiz - they all speak related dialects of the Kypchak subgroup.

The southeastern, or Karluk, languages are solidly represented by the languages of two large peoples - the Uzbeks and the Uighurs. However, for almost a thousand years they developed separately from each other. If the Uzbek language has experienced a colossal influence of Farsi, Arabic, then the Uyghurs, the inhabitants of East Turkestan, brought over the years a huge amount of Chinese borrowings into their dialect.

Northern Turkic languages

The geography of the Turkic group of languages is wide and varied. Yakuts, Altaians, in general, some indigenous peoples of northeastern Eurasia, are also combined into a separate branch of a large Turkic tree. Northeastern languages are quite heterogeneous and are subdivided into several separate genera.

The Yakut and Dolgan languages separated from the single Turkic dialect, and this happened in the 3rd century BC. n. e.

Tuvan and Tofalar languages belong to the Sayan group of languages of the Turkic family. Khakasses and residents of Gornaya Shoria speak the languages of the Khakass group.

Altai is the cradle of the Turkic civilization, the indigenous inhabitants of these places still speak the Oirot, Teleut, Lebedin, Kumandin languages of the Altai subgroup.

Incidents in a slender classification

However, not everything is so simple in this conditional division. The process of national-territorial delimitation, which took place on the territory of the Central Asian republics of the USSR in the twenties of the last century, also affected such subtle matter as language.

All residents of the Uzbek SSR were called Uzbeks, a single version of the literary Uzbek language was adopted, based on the dialects of the Kokand Khanate. However, even today the Uzbek language is characterized by pronounced dialectism. Some dialects of Khorezm, the westernmost part of Uzbekistan, are closer to the languages of the Oguz group and closer to Turkmen than to literary Uzbek.

Some regions speak dialects that belong to the Nogai subgroup of the Kipchak languages, hence the situations when a Fergana has difficulty understanding a native of Kashkadarya, who, in his opinion, shamelessly distorts his native language.

The situation is approximately the same with other representatives of the peoples of the Turkic group of languages - Crimean Tatars. The language of the inhabitants coastal strip almost identical to Turkish, but the natural steppe people speak an dialect closer to the Kypchak ones.

Ancient history

For the first time, the Turks entered the world historical arena in the era of the Great Migration of Nations. In the genetic memory of Europeans, there is still a shudder before the invasion of Attila's Huns in the 4th century. n. e. The steppe empire was a motley formation of numerous tribes and peoples, however, the Turkic element was still predominant.

There are many versions of the origin of these peoples, but most researchers place the ancestral home of today's Uzbeks and Turks in the northwestern part of the Central Asian plateau, in the area between Altai and the Khingar Range. This version is also followed by the Kyrgyz, who consider themselves the direct heirs of the great empire and are still nostalgic about this.

The neighbors of the Turks were the Mongols, the ancestors of today's Indo-European peoples, the Ural and Yenisei tribes, the Manchus. The Turkic group of the Altaic family of languages began to take shape in close cooperation with close peoples.

Confusion with Tatars and Bulgarians

In the first century A.D. e. individual tribes begin to migrate towards southern Kazakhstan. In the 4th century, the famous Hun invasion of Europe took place. It was then that the Bulgar branch separated from the Turkic tree and an extensive confederation was formed, which was divided into the Danubian and Volga. Today's Bulgarians in the Balkans now speak Slavic and have lost their Turkic roots.

The reverse situation occurred with the Volga Bulgars. They still speak Turkic languages, but after the invasion of the Mongols they call themselves Tatars. The conquered Turkic tribes living in the steppes of the Volga took the name of the Tatars, a legendary tribe that had long disappeared in wars, with whom Genghis Khan began his campaigns. They also called their language Tatar, which they used to call Bulgar.

Chuvash is considered the only living dialect of the Bulgar branch of the Turkic group of languages. The Tatars, another descendant of the Bulgars, actually speak a variant of the later Kipchak dialects.

From Kolyma to the Mediterranean

The peoples of the Turkic language group include the inhabitants of the harsh regions of the basin of the famous Kolyma, the resort beaches of the Mediterranean, the Altai mountains and the steppes of Kazakhstan, which are flat as a table. The ancestors of today's Turks were nomads, along and across the Eurasian continent. For two thousand years they interacted with their neighbors, who were Iranians, Arabs, Russians, Chinese. During this time, an unimaginable mixture of cultures and bloodlines occurred.

Today it is even impossible to determine the race to which the Turks belong. Residents of Turkey, Azerbaijanis, Gagauz belong to the Mediterranean group of the Caucasian race, there are practically no guys with slanted eyes and yellowish skin. However, the Yakuts, Altaians, Kazakhs, Kirghiz - they all carry a pronounced Mongoloid element in their appearance.

Racial diversity is observed even among peoples who speak the same language. Among the Tatars of Kazan you can meet blue-eyed blonds and black-haired people with slanted eyes. The same is observed in Uzbekistan, where it is impossible to deduce the appearance of a typical Uzbek.

Vera

The majority of Turks are Muslims who practice the Sunni branch of this religion. Only in Azerbaijan adhere to Shiism. However, individual peoples either retained ancient beliefs or became adherents of other major religions. Most of the Chuvash and Gagauz profess Christianity in its Orthodox form.

In the northeast of Eurasia, individual peoples continue to adhere to the faith of their ancestors; among the Yakuts, Altaians, Tuvans, traditional beliefs and shamanism continue to be popular.

During the time of the Khazar Khaganate, the inhabitants of this empire professed Judaism, which continues to be perceived as the only true religion by today's Karaites, fragments of that mighty Turkic state.

Vocabulary

Along with world civilization, the Turkic languages also developed, absorbing the vocabulary of neighboring peoples and generously endowing them with their own words. It is difficult to count the number of borrowed Turkic words in the East Slavic languages. It all started with the Bulgars, from whom the words “kap” were borrowed, from which arose “temple”, “suvart”, transformed into “serum”. Later, instead of "serum" they began to use the common Turkic "yogurt".

The exchange of vocabulary became especially lively during the Golden Horde and the late Middle Ages, during active trade with the Turkic countries. A huge number of new words came into use: donkey, cap, sash, raisins, shoe, chest and others. Later, only the names of specific terms began to be borrowed, for example, snow leopard, elm, dung, kishlak.

TURKIC LANGUAGES, a language family spread over the territory from Turkey in the west to Xinjiang in the east and from the coast of the East Siberian Sea in the north to Khorasan in the south. Speakers of these languages live compactly in the CIS countries (Azerbaijanis - in Azerbaijan, Turkmens - in Turkmenistan, Kazakhs - in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz - in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbeks - in Uzbekistan; Kumyks, Karachays, Balkars, Chuvashs, Tatars, Bashkirs, Nogais, Yakuts, Tuvans, Khakass, Mountain Altaians - in Russia; Gagauz - in the Transnistrian Republic) and beyond its borders - in Turkey (Turks) and China (Uighurs). Currently total number There are about 120 million native speakers of Turkic languages. The Turkic family of languages is part of the Altai macrofamily.

The very first (3rd century BC, according to glottochronology) the Bulgar group separated from the Proto-Turkic community (in other terminology - R-languages). The only living representative of this group is the Chuvash language. Separate glosses are known in written monuments and borrowings in neighboring languages from the medieval languages of the Volga and Danube Bulgars. The rest of the Turkic languages (“Common Turkic” or “Z-languages”) are usually classified into 4 groups: “Southwestern” or “Oghuz” languages (main representatives: Turkish, Gagauz, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Afshar, Coastal Crimean Tatar) , "North-Western" or "Kipchak" languages (Karaim, Crimean Tatar, Karachay-Balkarian, Kumyk, Tatar, Bashkir, Nogai, Karakalpak, Kazakh, Kyrgyz), "South-Eastern" or "Karluk" languages (Uzbek, Uighur), "North-Eastern" languages - a genetically heterogeneous group, including: a) the Yakut subgroup (Yakut and Dolgan languages), which separated from the common Turkic, according to glottochronological data, before its final collapse, in the 3rd century BC. AD; b) the Sayan group (Tuvan and Tofalar languages); c) the Khakass group (Khakas, Shor, Chulym, Saryg-Yugur); d) Gorno-Altai group (Oirot, Teleut, Tuba, Lebedinsky, Kumandin). The southern dialects of the Gorno-Altai group are close in a number of parameters to the Kyrgyz language, constituting with it the "central-eastern group" of the Turkic languages; some dialects of the Uzbek language clearly belong to the Nogai subgroup of the Kypchak group; Khorezm dialects of the Uzbek language belong to the Oguz group; part of the Siberian dialects of the Tatar language is approaching the Chulym-Turkic.

The earliest deciphered written monuments of the Turks date back to the 7th century. AD (steles written in runic script found on the Orkhon River in northern Mongolia). Throughout their history, the Turks used the Turkic runic (ascending, apparently, to the Sogdian script), Uighur script (later passed from them to the Mongols), Brahmi, Manichaean script, and Arabic script. At present, writings based on Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic are common.

According to historical sources, information about the Turkic peoples for the first time emerges in connection with the appearance of the Huns on the historical arena. The steppe empire of the Huns, like all known formations of this kind, was not monoethnic; judging by the linguistic material that has come down to us, there was a Turkic element in it. Moreover, the dating of the initial information about the Huns (in Chinese historical sources) is 4-3 centuries. BC. – coincides with the glottochronological definition of the time of the allocation of the Bulgar group. Therefore, a number of scientists directly connect the beginning of the movement of the Huns with the separation and departure to the west of the Bulgars. The ancestral home of the Turks is placed in the northwestern part of the Central Asian plateau, between the Altai mountains and the northern part of the Khingan Range. From the southeast side they were in contact with the Mongol tribes, from the west their neighbors were the Indo-European peoples of the Tarim Basin, from the northwest - the Ural and Yenisei peoples, from the north - the Tungus-Manchus.

By the 1st century BC. separate tribal groups of the Huns moved to the territory of modern South Kazakhstan, in the 4th century. AD the invasion of the Huns to Europe begins, by the end of the 5th century. In Byzantine sources, the ethnonym "Bulgars" appears, denoting a confederation of tribes of Hunnic origin, which occupied the steppe between the Volga and Danube basins. In the future, the Bulgarian confederation is divided into the Volga-Bulgarian and Danube-Bulgarian parts.

After the breakaway of the "Bulgars", the rest of the Turks continued to remain in the territory close to their ancestral home until the 6th century. AD, when, after defeating the Zhuan-Zhuan confederation (part of the Xianbei, presumably the proto-Mongols who defeated and ousted the Huns in their time), they formed the Turkic confederation, which dominated from the middle of the 6th to the middle of the 7th century. over a vast territory from the Amur to the Irtysh. Historical sources do not provide information about the moment of separation from the Turkic community of the ancestors of the Yakuts. The only way to connect the ancestors of the Yakuts with some historical messages is to identify them with the Kurykans of the Orkhon inscriptions, which belonged to the Teles confederation absorbed by the Turks. They were localized at that time, apparently, to the east of Baikal. Judging by the references in the Yakut epic, the main advance of the Yakuts to the north is associated with a much later time - the expansion of the empire of Genghis Khan.

In 583, the Turkic confederation was divided into Western (with its center in Talas) and Eastern Turks (in other words, “blue Turks”), the center of which was the former center of the Turkic empire Kara-Balgasun on Orkhon. Apparently, the disintegration of the Turkic languages into the western (Oghuz, Kipchak) and eastern (Siberia; Kirghiz; Karluk) macrogroups is connected with this event. In 745, the Eastern Turks were defeated by the Uighurs (localized to the southwest of Lake Baikal and presumably at first non-Turks, but by that time already Turkicized). Both the Eastern Turkic and the Uyghur states experienced a strong cultural influence of China, but the Eastern Iranians, primarily Sogdian merchants and missionaries, had no less influence on them; in 762 Manichaeism became the state religion of the Uighur empire.

In 840 the Uyghur state centered on the Orkhon was destroyed by the Kyrkiz (from the upper reaches of the Yenisei; presumably also at first not a Turkic, but by this time a Turkicized people), the Uyghurs fled to Eastern Turkestan, where in 847 they founded a state with the capital Kocho (in the Turfan oasis). From here the main monuments of the ancient Uighur language and culture have come down to us. Another group of fugitives settled in what is now the Chinese province of Gansu; their descendants may be Saryg-Yugurs. The entire northeastern group of Turks, except for the Yakuts, can also go back to the Uyghur conglomerate, as part of the Turkic population of the former Uyghur Khaganate, which moved northward, deeper into the taiga, already at the time of the Mongol expansion.

In 924, the Kyrgyz were ousted from the Orkhon state by the Khitans (presumably Mongols in language) and partly returned to the upper reaches of the Yenisei, partly moved westward, to the southern spurs of the Altai. Apparently, the formation of the central-eastern group of Turkic languages can be traced back to this South Altai migration.

The Turfan state of the Uyghurs existed for a long time next to another Turkic state dominated by the Karluks, a Turkic tribe that originally lived to the east of the Uyghurs, but by 766 moved to the west and subjugated the state of the Western Turks, whose tribal groups spread in the steppes of Turan (Ili-Talas region , Sogdiana, Khorasan and Khorezm; at the same time, Iranians lived in the cities). At the end of the 8th c. Karluk Khan Yabgu converted to Islam. The Karluks gradually assimilated the Uighurs who lived to the east, and the Uighur literary language served as the basis for the literary language of the Karluk (Karakhanid) state.

Part of the tribes of the Western Turkic Khaganate were Oghuz. Of these, the Seljuk confederation stood out, which at the turn of the 1st millennium AD. migrated west through Khorasan to Asia Minor. Apparently, the linguistic consequence of this movement was the formation of the southwestern group of Turkic languages. Around the same time (and, apparently, in connection with these events) there was a mass migration to the Volga-Ural steppes and Eastern Europe tribes representing the ethnic basis of the current Kypchak languages.

The phonological systems of the Turkic languages are characterized by a number of common properties. In the field of consonantism, restrictions on the occurrence of phonemes in the position of the beginning of a word, a tendency to weaken in the initial position, and restrictions on the compatibility of phonemes are common. At the beginning of the primordial Turkic words are not found l,r,n, š ,z. Noisy plosives are usually contrasted by strength/weakness (Eastern Siberia) or deafness/voicedness. At the beginning of a word, the opposition of consonants in terms of deafness/voicedness (strength/weakness) exists only in the Oguz and Sayan groups, in most other languages at the beginning of a word, labials are voiced, dental and back-lingual are deaf. Uvular in most Turkic languages are allophones of velar with back vowels. The following types of historical changes in the consonant system are classified as significant. a) In the Bulgar group in most positions there is a voiceless fricative lateral l coincided with l in sound in l; r And r in r. In other Turkic languages l gave š , r gave z, l And r preserved. In relation to this process, all Turkologists are divided into two camps: some call it rotacism-lambdaism, others - zetacism-sigmatism, and this is statistically associated, respectively, with their non-recognition or recognition of the Altaic kinship of languages. b) Intervocalic d(pronounced as interdental fricative ð) gives r in Chuvash t in Yakut d in the Sayan languages and Khalaj (an isolated Turkic language in Iran), z in the Khakass group and j in other languages; respectively, talking about r-,t-,d-,z- And j- languages.

The vocalism of most Turkic languages is characterized by synharmonism (the likening of vowels within one word) in row and roundness; the vowel system is reconstructed for the Proto-Turkic as well. Synharmonism disappeared in the Karluk group (as a result of which the opposition of velar and uvular was phonologized there). In the New Uighur language, a kind of synharmonism is again built - the so-called "Uyghur umlaut", the leading of wide unrounded vowels before the next i(which ascends both to the front *i, and to the rear * ï ). In Chuvash, the whole system of vowels has changed a lot, and the old vowel harmony has disappeared (its trace is the opposition k from a velar in an anterior word and x from the uvular in the back row word), but then a new synharmonism lined up in a row, taking into account the current phonetic characteristics of vowels. The opposition of vowels by longitude/shortness that existed in the Proto-Turkic has been preserved in the Yakut and Turkmen languages (and in a residual form in other Oghuz languages, where the voiceless consonants sounded after the old long vowels, as well as in the Sayan languages, where short vowels before voiceless consonants receive the sign of "pharyngealization") ; in other Turkic languages it disappeared, but in many languages long vowels reappeared after intervocalic voiced omissions (Tuvinsk. so"tub"< *sagu and under.). In Yakut, primary wide long vowels have turned into ascending diphthongs.

In all modern Turkic languages - a power stress, which is morphonologically fixed. In addition, tonal and phonation oppositions were noted for the Siberian languages, however, they were not fully described.

From the point of view of morphological typology, the Turkic languages belong to the agglutinative, suffixal type. At the same time, if the Western Turkic languages are a classic example of agglutinative ones and have almost no fusion, then the Eastern ones, like the Mongolian languages, develop a powerful fusion.

The grammatical categories of the name in the Turkic languages are number, belonging, case. The order of affixes is: base + aff. numbers + aff. accessories + case aff. Plural form h. is usually formed by adding an affix to the stem -lar(in Chuvash -sem). In all Turkic languages, the plural form hours is marked, the form of units. hours - unmarked. In particular, in the generic meaning and with numerals, the singular form is used. numbers (kumyk. men at gerdyum " I (actually) saw horses."

Case systems include: a) the nominative (or main) case with a zero indicator; the form with a zero case indicator is used not only as a subject and a nominal predicate, but also as an indefinite direct object, an adjectival definition and with many postpositions; b) accusative case (aff. *- (ï )g) - case of a certain direct complement; c) genitive case (aff.) - the case of a concrete-referential applied definition; d) dative-directive (aff. *-a/*-ka); e) local (aff. *-ta); e) ablative (aff. *-tin). The Yakut language rebuilt the case system along the lines of the Tungus-Manchu languages. Usually there are two types of declension: nominal and possessive-nominal (declension of words with affixes of the 3rd person; case affixes take a slightly different form in this case).

The adjective in the Turkic languages differs from the noun in the absence of inflectional categories. Receiving the syntactic function of the subject or object, the adjective acquires all the inflectional categories of the noun.

Pronouns change by case. Personal pronouns are available for 1 and 2 persons (* bi/ben"I", * si/sen"you", * bir"we", *sir"you"), in the third person are used demonstrative pronouns. Demonstrative pronouns in most languages distinguish three degrees of range, for example, bu"this", Su"this remote" (or "this" when indicated by the hand), ol"that". Interrogative pronouns distinguish between animate and inanimate ( Kim"who" and ne"what").

In the verb, the order of affixes is as follows: the stem of the verb (+ aff. voice) (+ aff. negation (- ma-)) + aff. inclination/view-temporal + aff. conjugations for persons and numbers (in brackets - affixes that are not necessarily present in the word form).

Voices of the Turkic verb: real (without indicators), passive (*- il), return ( *-in-), mutual ( * -ïš- ) and causative ( *-t-,*-ir-,*-tyr- and some etc.). These indicators can be combined with each other (cum. ger-yush-"see", gyor-yush-dir-"to force to see" jaz-hole-"force to write" yaz-hole-yl-"to be compelled to write").

The conjugated forms of the verb fall into proper verbal and improper verbal forms. The former have personal indicators that go back to the affixes of belonging (except for 1 lit. plural and 3 lit. plural). These include the past categorical tense (aorist) in the indicative mood: verb stem + indicator - d- + personal indicators: bar-d-im"I went" oqu-d-u-lar"they read"; means a completed action, the fact of the implementation of which is beyond doubt. This also includes the conditional mood (verb stem + -sa-+ personal indicators); desired mood (verb stem + -aj- + personal indicators: pra-Turkic. * bar-aj-im"let me go" * bar-aj-ik"let's go"); imperative mood(pure stem of the verb in 2 l singular and stem + in 2 l. pl. h.).

Non-verbal forms are historically gerunds and participles in the function of the predicate, decorated with the same predicative indicators as nominal predicates, namely postpositive personal pronouns. For example: other Turkic. ( ben)beg ben"I'm Bek" ben anca tir ben"I say so", lit. "I say so-I." Present participles (or simultaneity) are distinguished (stem + -a), indefinite future (base + -VR, where V– vowel of different quality), precedence (stem + -ip), desired mood (base + -g aj); participle perfect (stem + -g an), behind-the-eyes, or descriptive (stem + -mus), definite-future tense (stem + ) and many others. etc. The affixes of gerunds and participles do not carry collateral oppositions. Germs with predicative affixes, as well as gerunds with auxiliary verbs in proper and improper verbal forms (numerous existential, phase, modal verbs, verbs of motion, the verbs "to take" and "to give") express a variety of committed, modal, directional and accommodal meanings, cf. Kumyk. bara bulgaiman"Looks like I'm going" go- dep. simultaneity become- dep. desired -I), ishley goremen"I am going to work" ( work- dep. simultaneity look- dep. simultaneity -I), language"sleep (for yourself)" ( write- dep. precedence take). Various verbal names of action are used as infinitives in various Turkic languages.

From the point of view of syntactic typology, the Turkic languages belong to the languages of the nominative system with the prevailing word order "subject - object - predicate", preposition of the definition, preference for postpositions over prepositions. There is a folded design – with the indicator of membership at the defined word ( at bas-i"horse head", lit. "the horse's head is hers"). In a composing phrase, usually all grammatical indicators are attached to the last word.

The general rules for the formation of subordinating phrases (including sentences) are cyclical: any subordinating combination can be inserted as one of the members into any other, and the connection indicators are attached to the main member of the built-in combination (the verb form becomes the corresponding participle or gerund). Wed: Kumyk. ak sakal"white beard" ak sakal-ly gishi"white-bearded man" booth-la-ny ara-son-yes"between the booths" booth-la-ny ara-son-da-gye yol-well orta-son-da"in the middle of the path passing between the booths", sen ok atganing"you shot an arrow" sen ok atganyng-ny gerdyum"I saw you shoot an arrow" ("you shot an arrow - 2 l. singular - vin. case - I saw"). When a predicative combination is inserted in this way, one often speaks of the "Altai type of a complex sentence"; indeed, the Turkic and other Altaic languages show a clear preference for such absolute constructions with the verb in the impersonal form over subordinate clauses. The latter, however, are also used; for connection in complex sentences, allied words are used - interrogative pronouns (in subordinate clauses) and correlative words - demonstrative pronouns (in main sentences).

The main part of the vocabulary of the Turkic languages is native, often having parallels in other Altaic languages. Comparison of the general vocabulary of the Turkic languages allows us to get an idea of the world in which the Turks lived in the period of the collapse of the Proto-Turkic community: the landscape, fauna and flora of the southern taiga in Eastern Siberia, on the border with the steppe; metallurgy of the early Iron Age; economic structure of the same period; transhumance cattle breeding based on horse breeding (with the use of horse meat for food) and sheep breeding; farming in a subsidiary function; the big role of developed hunting; two types of dwellings - winter stationary and summer portable; quite developed social dismemberment on a tribal basis; apparently, to a certain extent, a codified system of legal relations in active trade; a set of religious and mythological concepts characteristic of shamanism. In addition, of course, such “basic” vocabulary as the names of body parts, verbs of movement, sensory perception, etc. is being restored.

In addition to the original Turkic vocabulary, modern Turkic languages use a large number of borrowings from languages with whose speakers the Turks have ever come into contact. These are, first of all, Mongolian borrowings (there are many borrowings from the Turkic languages in the Mongolian languages, there are also cases when a word was borrowed first from the Turkic languages into Mongolian, and then back, from the Mongolian languages into Turkic, cf. other Uighur. irbi, Tuvan. irbis"bars" > mong. irbis > Kirg. irbis). There are many Tungus-Manchurian borrowings in the Yakut language, in Chuvash and Tatar they are borrowed from the Finno-Ugric languages of the Volga region (as well as vice versa). A significant part of the “cultural” vocabulary has been borrowed: in the Old Uyghur there are many borrowings from Sanskrit and Tibetan, primarily Buddhist terminology; in the languages of the Muslim Turkic peoples there are many Arabicisms and Persianisms; in the languages of the Turkic peoples that were part of Russian Empire and the USSR, many Russian borrowings, including internationalisms like communism,tractor,political economy. On the other hand, there are many Turkic borrowings in Russian. The earliest are borrowings from the Danube-Bulgarian language into Old Church Slavonic ( book, drop"idol" - in the word temple“pagan temple”, etc.), who came from there to Russian; there are also borrowings from Bulgar into Old Russian (as well as into other Slavic languages): serum(Common Turk. *jogurt, bulg. *suvart), bursa"Persian silk fabric" (Chuvashsk. porcin< *bar and un< Wed-Pers. *aparesum; trade of pre-Mongol Rus with Persia went along the Volga through the Great Bulgar). A large amount of cultural vocabulary was borrowed into Russian from the late medieval Turkic languages in the 14th–17th centuries. (during the time of the Golden Horde and even more later, during the time of brisk trade with the surrounding Turkic states: ass, pencil, raisin,shoe, iron,Altyn,arshin,coachman,Armenian,ditches,dried apricots and many others. etc.). In later times, the Russian language borrowed from Turkic only words denoting local Turkic realities ( snow leopard,ayran,kobyz,sultana,village,elm). Contrary to a common misconception, there are no Turkic borrowings among Russian obscene (obscene) vocabulary, almost all of these words are Slavic in origin.

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