The Oghuric, Onoguric or Oguric languages (also known as Bulgar, Pre-Proto-Bulgaric or Lir-Turkic and r-Turkic) are a branch of the
Turkic language family
Turkic may refer to:
* anything related to the country of Turkey
* Turkic languages, a language family of at least thirty-five documented languages
** Turkic alphabets (disambiguation)
** Turkish language, the most widely spoken Turkic language
* ...
. The only extant member of the group is the
Chuvash language
Chuvash ( , ; , , ) is a Turkic language spoken in European Russia, primarily in the Chuvash Republic and adjacent areas. It is the only surviving member of the Oghur branch of Turkic languages, one of the two principal branches of the Turk ...
. The first to branch off from the Turkic family, the Oghuric languages show significant divergence from other Turkic languages, which all share a
later common ancestor. Languages from this family were spoken in some nomadic tribal confederations, such as those of the
Onogurs
The Onoğurs or Oğurs (Ὀνόγουροι, Οὔρωγοι, Οὔγωροι; Onογurs, Ογurs; "ten tribes", "tribes"), were Turkic nomadic equestrians who flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region between 5th and 7th cen ...
or Ogurs,
Bulgars
The Bulgars (also Bulghars, Bulgari, Bolgars, Bolghars, Bolgari, Proto-Bulgarians) were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region during the 7th century. They became known as nomad ...
and
Khazars
The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...
.
History
The Oghuric languages are a distinct group of the
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 languag ...
, standing in contrast to
Common Turkic
Common Turkic, or Shaz Turkic, is a taxon in some classifications of the Turkic languages that includes all of them except the Oghuric languages.
Classification
Lars Johanson's proposal contains the following subgroups:
* Southwestern Common ...
. Today they are represented only by
Chuvash. The only other language which is conclusively proven to be Oghuric is the long-extinct
Bulgar
Bulgar may refer to:
*Bulgars, extinct people of Central Asia
*Bulgar language, the extinct language of the Bulgars
* Oghur languages
Bulgar may also refer to:
*Bolghar, the capital city of Volga Bulgaria
*Bulgur, a wheat product
* Bulgar, an Ash ...
, while
Khazar
The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...
may be a possible relative within the group.
There is no consensus among linguists on the relation between Oghuric and Common Turkic and several questions remain unsolved:
*Are they parallel branches of
Proto-Turkic
Proto-Turkic is the linguistic reconstruction of the common ancestor of the Turkic languages that was spoken by the Proto-Turks before their divergence into the various Turkic peoples. Proto-Turkic separated into Oghur (western) and Common Turk ...
() and, if so, which branch is more archaic?
*Does Oghuric represent Archaic Turkic before phonetic changes in 100-400 AD and was it a separate language?
Fuzuli Bayat dates the separation into Oghur r-dialects and Oghuz z-dialects to the 2nd millennium BC.
[Karadeniz Araştırmaları, Sayı 3 (Güz 2004), s.71-77. Fuzuli Bayat: Oğuz kelimesinin etimolijisi, Page 74.](_blank)
/ref>
Features
The Oghuric languages are also known as "-r Turkic" because the final consonant in certain words is ''r'', not ''z'' as in Common Turkic. cv, вăкăр - tr, öküz - tt-Cyrl, үгез - en, ox. Hence the name '' Oghur'' corresponds to ''Oghuz'' "tribe" in Common Turkic. Other correspondences are Com. ''š'' : Oghur ''l'' (''tâš'' : ''tâl'', 'stone'); ''s'' > ''š''; ''*č'' > ''ś''; ''k/q'' > ''ğ''; ''y'' > ''j, ś''; ''d, δ'' > ''δ'' > ''z'' (10th cent.) > ''r'' (13th cent.)"; ''ğd'' > ''z'' > ''r'' (14th cent.); ''a'' > ''ı'' (after 9th cent.). The shift from ''s'' to ''š'' operates before ''i'', ''ï'', and ''iV'', and Dybo calls the sound change the "Bulgar palatalization".
Denis Sinor
Denis Sinor (born Dénes Zsinór, April 17, 1916 in Kolozsvár (Austria-Hungary, now Cluj-Napoca, Romania) – January 12, 2011 in Bloomington, Indiana) was a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Central Asian Studies at the Department of Ce ...
believed that the differences noted above suggest that the Oghur-speaking tribes could not have originated in territories inhabited by speakers of Mongolic languages
The Mongolic languages are a language family spoken by the Mongolic peoples in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, North Asia and East Asia, mostly in Mongolia and surrounding areas and in Kalmykia and Buryatia. The best-known member of this language ...
, given that Mongolian dialects feature the ''-z'' suffix. Peter Golden, however, has noted that there are many loanwords in Mongolic from Oghuric, such as Mongolic ''ikere'', Oghuric ''*ikir'', Hungarian ''iker'', Common Turkic ''*ikiz'' 'twins', and holds the contradictory view that the Oghur inhabited the borderlands of Mongolia prior to the 5th century.
The Oghuric tribes are often connected with the Hungarians
Hungarians, also known as Magyars ( ; hu, magyarok ), are a nation and ethnic group native to Hungary () and historical Hungarian lands who share a common culture, history, ancestry, and language. The Hungarian language belongs to the Urali ...
, whose exo-ethnonym is usually derived from '' On-Oğur'' (> ''(H)Ungari''). ''Hungarians'' -> ''Hun Oghur'' -> (''ten oghur tribes''): On ogur -> up. chv. Won ogur -> dow. chv. Wun ogur -> belor. Wugorac -> rus. Wenger -> slove. Vogr, Vogrin -> cheh. pol. Węgier, Węgrzyn, -> lit. Veñgras. The Hungarians are culturally of mixed Ugrian
The Ugric or Ugrian languages ( or ) are a proposed branch of the Uralic language family. The name Ugric is derived from Ugrians, an archaic exonym for the Magyars (Hungarians) and Yugra, a region in northwest Russia.
Ugric includes three s ...
/ Turkic heritage, with strong Oghuric-Bulgar and Khazar influences, even though much of the modern-day Hungarian genepool also has strong Slavic, Germanic, and Iranic influences. Hungarian has many borrowings from Turkic and Oghuric languages: Hung. ''tenger'', Oghur. ''*tengir'', Comm. ''*tengiz'' 'sea', Hung. ''gyűrű'', Oghur. ''*ǰürük'', Comm. ''*yüzük'' 'ring', and terms of equestrian culture ''ló'' 'horse', ''nyereg'' 'saddle', ''fék'' 'bridle', ''ostor'' 'whip'. A number of Hungarian loanwords were borrowed before the 9th century, shown by ''sz-'' (< Oğ. ''*ś-'') rather than ''gy-'' (< Oğ. ''*ǰ-''), for example Hung. ''szél'', Oghur. ''*śäl'', Chuv. ''śil'', Comm. ''*yel'' 'wind', Hung. ''szűcs'' 'tailor', Hung. ''szőlő'' 'grapes'.
In the Oghuz languages
The Oghuz languages are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family, spoken by approximately 108 million people. The three languages with the largest number of speakers are Turkish, Azerbaijani and Turkmen, which, combined, account for more t ...
as azer. tur. ''öküz'' means ''ox'' (totemic
A totem (from oj, ᑑᑌᒼ, italics=no or '' doodem'') is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe, such as in the Anishinaabe clan system.
While ''the ...
animal), and is a reflection of the Chuvash language w''ăkăr'' where rhotacism
Rhotacism () or rhotacization is a sound change that converts one consonant (usually a voiced alveolar consonant: , , , or ) to a rhotic consonant in a certain environment. The most common may be of to . When a dialect or member of a language ...
is used, in the Kipchak languages
The Kipchak languages (also known as the Kypchak, Qypchaq, Qypshaq or the Northwestern Turkic languages) are a sub-branch of the Turkic language family spoken by approximately 28 million people in much of Central Asia and Eastern Europe, spanni ...
it is ''ögiz.''
See also
* Saragurs
The Saragurs or Saraguri ( gr, Σαράγουροι, syr, s.r.w.r.g.wr, Šarağurs) was a Eurasian Oghur (Turkic) nomadic tribe mentioned in the 5th and 6th centuries. They may be the Sulujie (蘇路羯, ''suoluo-kjɐt'') mentioned in the Chinese ...
* Kutrigurs
Kutrigurs were Turkic Eurasian nomads, nomadic equestrians who flourished on the Pontic–Caspian steppe in the 6th century AD. To their east were the similar Utigurs and both possibly were closely related to the Bulgars. They warred with the Byza ...
* Utigurs
Utigurs were Turkic nomadic equestrians who flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe in the 6th century AD. They possibly were closely related to the Kutrigurs and Bulgars.
Etymology
The name ''Ut(r)igur'', recorded as , and , is generally con ...
* Oghur & Oghuz
* Oghur (tribe)
References
;Sources
*
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Oghur Languages
Agglutinative languages
Vowel-harmony languages