Old Turkic script

Many scientists, starting with Vilhelm Thomsen (1893), suggest that the Old Turkic script is derived from descendants of the Aramaic alphabet in particular via the Pahlavi and Sogdian alphabets, or possibly via Kharosthi used to write Sanskrit. It has also been speculated that tamgas (livestock brands used by Eurasian nomads) were one of the sources of the Old Turkic script, but despite similarities in shape and forms, this hypothesis has been widely rejected as unverifiable, largely because early tamgas are too poorly attested and understood to be subject to a thorough comparison. The text is most likely derived from Aramaic via the Sogdian alphabet and Syriac alphabet. Contemporary Chinese sources conflict as to whether the Turks had a written language by the 6th century. The 7th century Book of Zhou mentions that the Turks had a written language similar to that of the Sogdians. Two other sources, the Book of Sui and the History of the Northern Dynasties, claim that the Turks did not have a written language. According to , the Old Turkic script was invented under the rule of the first khagans and was modelled after the Sogdian fashion. Several variants of the script came into being as early as the first half of the 6th century. ==Corpus==

The Old Turkic corpus consists of about two hundred inscriptions, plus a number of manuscripts. The inscriptions, dating from the 8th to 10th century, were discovered in present-day Mongolia (the area of the Second Turkic Khaganate and the Uyghur Khaganate that succeeded it), in the upper Yenisei basin of central-south Siberia, and, in smaller numbers, in the Altai Mountains and Xinjiang. The texts are mostly epitaphs (official or private), but there are also graffiti and a handful of short inscriptions found on archaeological artifacts, including a number of bronze mirrors. The Old Turkic manuscripts, of which there are none earlier than the 9th century, were found in present-day Xinjiang and represent Old Uyghur, a different Turkic dialect from the one represented in the Old Turkic inscriptions in the Orkhon valley and elsewhere. == Alphabet ==

Old Turkic being a synharmonic language, a number of consonant signs are divided into two "synharmonic sets", one for front vowels and the other for back vowels. Such vowels can be taken as intrinsic to the consonant sign, giving the Old Turkic alphabet an aspect of an abugida script. In these cases, it is customary to use superscript numerals ¹ and ² to mark consonant signs used with back and front vowels, respectively. This convention was introduced by Thomsen (1893), and followed by Gabain (1941), Malov (1951) and Tekin (1968). A colon-like symbol () is sometimes used as a word separator. In some cases a ring () is used instead. A reading example (right to left): 𐱅𐰭𐰼𐰃 transliterated t²ñr²i, this spells the name of the Turkic sky god, Täñri (). == Variants ==

of the Azerbaijani 5 manat banknote issued since 2006. . Per Variants of the script were found from Mongolia and Xinjiang in the east to the Balkans in the west. The preserved inscriptions were dated to between the 8th and 10th centuries. These alphabets are divided into four groups by Kyzlasov (1994) • Asiatic group (includes Orkhon proper) • Eurasiatic group • Southern Europe group The Asiatic group is further divided into three related alphabets: • Orkhon alphabet, Göktürks, 8th to 10th centuries • Yenisei alphabet, • Talas alphabet, a derivative of the Yenisei alphabet, Kangly or Karluks 8th to 10th centuries. Talas inscriptions include Terek-Say rock inscriptions found in the 1897, Koysary text, Bakaiyr gorge inscriptions, Kalbak-Tash 6 and 12 inscriptions, Talas alphabet has 29 identified letters. The Eurasiatic group is further divided into five related alphabets: • Achiktash, used in Sogdia 8th to 10th centuries. • South-Yenisei, used by the Göktürks 8th to 10th centuries. • Two especially similar alphabets: the Don alphabet, used by the Khazars, 8th to 10th centuries; and the Kuban alphabet, used by the Bulgars, 8th to 13th centuries. Inscriptions in both alphabets are found in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and on the banks of the Kama river. • Tisza, used by the Pechenegs 8th to 10th centuries. A number of alphabets are incompletely collected due to the limitations of the extant inscriptions. Evidence in the study of the Turkic scripts includes Turkic-Chinese bilingual inscriptions, contemporaneous Turkic inscriptions in the Greek alphabet, literal translations into Slavic languages, and paper fragments with Turkic cursive writing from religion, Manichaeism, Buddhist, and legal subjects of the 8th to 10th centuries found in Xinjiang. ==Sample text==

Transcription of part of Bilge Kağan's inscription (lines 36-38). == Unicode ==

The Unicode block for Old Turkic is U+10C00–U+10C4F. It was added to the Unicode standard in October 2009, with the release of version 5.2. It includes separate "Orkhon" and "Yenisei" variants of individual characters. Since Windows 8 Unicode Old Turkic writing support was added in the Segoe font. ==See also==