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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 than 95% of speakers. Kara-Khanid scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari, who lived in the 11th century, stated that the Oghuz language was the simplest among all Turkic languages. Swedish turcologist and linguist Lars Johanson notes that Oghuz languages form a clearly discernible and closely related bloc within the Turkic language family as the cultural and political history of the speakers of Oghuz languages has linked them more closely up to the modern age. History and terminology The ancestor of Oghuz languages is a matter of debate. The language of the oldest stone monuments such as Orkhon inscriptions, and documents such as Old Uyghur manuscripts are rather the ancestor of Karluk and Kipchak Turkic languages. Oghuz languages apparently origi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turkic Languages
The Turkic languages are a language family of over 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 Western Asia. The Turkic languages originated in a region of East Asia spanning from Mongolia to Northwest China, where Proto-Turkic is thought to have been spoken, from where they expanded to Central Asia and farther west during the first millennium. They are characterized as a dialect continuum. Turkic languages are spoken by some 200 million people. The Turkic language with the greatest number of speakers is Turkish, spoken mainly in Anatolia and the Balkans; its native speakers account for about 38% of all Turkic speakers. Characteristic features such as vowel harmony, agglutination, subject-object-verb order, and lack of grammatical gender, are almost universal within the Turkic family. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility, upon moderate expo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguistics is concerned with both the cognitive and social aspects of language. It is considered a scientific field as well as an academic discipline; it has been classified as a social science, natural science, cognitive science,Thagard, PaulCognitive Science, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). or part of the humanities. Traditional areas of linguistic analysis correspond to phenomena found in human linguistic systems, such as syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences); semantics (meaning); morphology (structure of words); phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures in sign languages); phonology (the abstract sound system of a particular language); and pragmatics (how soc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Turkic (eastern) branches. One estimate postulates Proto-Turkic to have been spoken 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 and reconstruction of Proto-Turkic must rely 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 more sparse, reconstruction of Proto-Turkic still rests fundamentally on the easternmost Old Turkic of the Göktürks. Phonology Consonants The consonant sys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dīwān Lughāt Al-Turk
The ' ( ar, ديوان لغات الترك, lit=Compendium of the languages of the Turks) is the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages, compiled in 1072–74 by the Turkic scholar Mahmud Kashgari who extensively studied the Turkic languages of his time.Kemal H. Karpat, ''Studies on Turkish Politics and Society:Selected Articles and Essays'', (Brill, 2004), 441. Importance Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk was intended for use by the Caliphs of Baghdad, who were controlled by the Seljuk Turks. It has a map that shows countries and regions from Japan to Egypt. The book also included the first known map of the areas inhabited by Turkic peoples. The compendium documented evidence of Turkic migration and the expansion of the Turkic tribes and Turkic languages into Central Asia, Eastern Europe and West Asia, mainly between the 6th and 11th centuries. The region of origin of the Turkic people is suggested to be somewhere in Siberia and Mongolia. By the 10th century most of Centra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balkans
The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the whole of Bulgaria. The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the northwest, the Ionian Sea in the southwest, the Aegean Sea in the south, the Turkish Straits in the east, and the Black Sea in the northeast. The northern border of the peninsula is variously defined. The highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala, , in the Rila mountain range, Bulgaria. The concept of the Balkan Peninsula was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, who mistakenly considered the Balkan Mountains the dominant mountain system of Southeast Europe spanning from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea. The term ''Balkan Peninsula'' was a synonym for Rumelia in the 19th century, the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire. It had a geop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Province), East Thrace (European part of Turkey), Egypt, Iran, the Levant (including Ash-Shām and Cyprus), Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq), and the Socotra Archipelago (a part of Yemen). The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East (as opposed to the Far East) beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and has been viewed by some to be discriminatory or too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of Western Asia (including Iran), but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes all of Egypt (not just the Sinai Region) and all of Turkey (not just the part barring East Thrace). ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, which are colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as the countries all have names ending with the Persian suffix " -stan", meaning "land of". The current geographical location of Central Asia was formerly part of the historic region of Turkistan, also known as Turan. In the pre-Islamic and early Islamic eras ( and earlier) Central Asia was inhabited predominantly by Iranian peoples, populated by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians, Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Dahae. After expansion by Turkic peoples, Central Asia also became the homeland for the Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Tatars, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, and Uyghurs; Turkic langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Altay Mountains
The Altai Mountains (), also spelled Altay Mountains, are a mountain range in Central and East Asia, where Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan converge, and where the rivers Irtysh and Ob have their headwaters. The massif merges with the Sayan Mountains in the northeast, and gradually becomes lower in the southeast, where it merges into the high plateau of the Gobi Desert. It spans from about 45° to 52° N and from about 84° to 99° E. The region is inhabited by a sparse but ethnically diverse population, including Russians, Kazakhs, Altais, Mongols and Volga Germans, though predominantly represented by indigenous ethnic minorities of semi-nomadic stock. The local economy is based on bovine, sheep, horse husbandry, hunting, agriculture, forestry, and mining. The Altaic language family takes its name from this mountain range. Etymology and modern names ''Altai'' is derived from underlying form *''altañ'' "gold, golden" (compare Old Turkic 𐰞𐱃𐰆𐰣 ''altu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oghuz Turks
The Oghuz or Ghuzz Turks (Middle Turkic: ٱغُز, ''Oγuz'', ota, اوغوز, Oġuz) were a western Turkic people that spoke the Oghuz branch of the Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in Central Asia. The name ''Oghuz'' is a Common Turkic word for "tribe". Byzantine sources call the Oghuz the Uzes (Οὐ̑ζοι, ''Ouzoi''). By the 10th century, Islamic sources were calling them Muslim Turkmens, as opposed to Tengrist or Buddhist. By the 12th century, this term had passed into Byzantine usage and the Oghuzes were overwhelmingly Muslim. The term "Oghuz" was gradually supplanted among the Turks themselves by the terms ''Turkmen'' and '' Turcoman'', ( ota, تركمن, Türkmen or ''Türkmân'') from the mid-10th century on, a process which was completed by the beginning of the 13th century. The Oghuz confederation migrated westward from the Jeti-su area after a conflict with the Kar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Turkic Languages
Middle Turkic (''Türki'' or ''Türkçe'') refers to a phase in the development of the Turkic language family, covering much of the Middle Ages (c. 900–1500 CE). In particular the term is used by linguists to refer to a group of Karluk and Oghuz and related languages spoken during this period in Central Asia, Iran, and other parts of the Middle East controlled by the Seljuk Turks. Classification Middle Turkic can be divided into eastern and western branches. Eastern Middle Turkic consists of Karakhanid (also called Khaqani Turkic), a literary language which was spoken in Kashgar, Balasaghun and other cities along the Silk Road and its later descendents such as Khorezmian and Chagatai. The western branch consists of Kipchak languages documented in '' Codex Cumanicus'' and various Mamlukean Kipchak texts from Egypt and Syria, and Oghuz Turkic represented by Old Anatolian Turkish. Old Anatolian Turkish was noted to be initially influenced by Eastern Middle Turkic tr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 28 million people in much of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, spanning from Ukraine to China. Some of the most widely spoken languages in this group are Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tatar. Linguistic features The Kipchak languages share a number of features that have led linguists to classify them together. Some of these features are shared with other Common Turkic languages; others are unique to the Kipchak family. Shared features *Change of Proto-Turkic *d to (e.g. *''hadaq'' > ''ajaq'' "foot") *Loss of initial *h (preserved only in Khalaj), see above example Unique features Family-specific *Extensive labial vowel harmony (e.g. ''olor'' vs. ''olar'' "them") *Frequent fortition (in the form of assibilation) of initial (e.g. ''*etti'' > ''etti'' "seven") *Diphthongs from syllable-final and (e.g. *''ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karluk Languages
The Karluk or Qarluq languages are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family that developed from the varieties once spoken by Karluks. Many Middle Turkic works were written in these languages. The language of the Kara-Khanid Khanate was known as Turki, Ferghani, Kashgari or Khaqani. The language of the Chagatai Khanate was the Chagatai language. Karluk Turkic was once spoken in the Kara-Khanid Khanate, Chagatai Khanate, Timurid Empire, Mughal Empire, Yarkent Khanate and the Uzbek-speaking Khanate of Bukhara, Emirate of Bukhara. Classification Languages * Uzbek language, Uzbek – spoken by the Uzbeks; approximately 44 million speakers * Uyghur language, Uyghur – spoken by the Uyghurs; approximately 8-11 million speakers * Ili Turki language, Ili Turki – endangered language, moribund language spoken by Ili Turkis, who are legally recognized as a subgroup of Uzbeks; 120 speakers and decreasing (1980) * Chagatai language, Chagatai – extinct language which was once widel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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