Site adresi: The Internal Classification & Migration of Turkic languages THE TURKIC LANGUAGES IN A NUTSHELL The Internal Classification & Migration of Turkic languages Version 8.1 v.1 (04/2009) (first online, phonological studies) > v.4.3 (12/2009) (major update, lexicostatistics added) > v.5.0 (11/2010) (major changes, the discussion of grammar added) > v.6.0 (11-12/2011) (major corrections to the text; maps, illustrations, references added) > v.7.0 (02-04/2012) (corrections to Yakutic, Kimak, the lexicostatistical part; the chapter on Turkic Urheimat was transferred into a separate article; grammatical and logical corrections) > v.8 (01/2013) (grammatical corrections to increase logical consistency and readability, additions to the chapter on Uzbek- Uyghur, Yugur) Abstract The internal classification of the Turkic languages has been rebuilt from scratch based upon the phonological, grammatical, lexical, geographical and historical evidence. The resulting linguistic phylogeny is largely consistent with the most prevalent taxonomic systems but contains many novel points. Contents 1. Introduction 1.1 Preliminary notes on the reconstruction of Proto-Turkic 2. Collecting factual material 2.1 An overview of the lexicostatistical research in Turkic languages 2.2 Dissimilar basic lexemes in the Turkic languages 2.3 The comparison of phonological and grammatical features 1 Site adresi: The Internal Classification & Migration of Turkic languages 3. Making Taxonomic Conclusions Bulgaric Some of the exclusive Bulgaric features Yakutic Where does Sakha actually belong? How did Sakha actually get there? On the origins of Turkic ethnonymy Altay-Sayan Tofa and Soyot closely related to Tuva The Khakas languages Khakas and Tuvan share no exclusive innovations Altay, Khakas and Tuvan form the Altay-Sayan subgroup Great-Steppe Kimak-Kypchak-Tatar, Kyrgyz-Kazakh, and Chagatai-Uzbek-Uyghur seem to form a genetic unity Great-Steppe and Altay-Sayan seem to be closer to each other than to Oghuz-Seljuk Kyrgyz-Chagatai Kazakh is closely related to Kyrgyz Altay-Kyrgyz isolexemes Chagatai looks like Karakhanid affected by Kyrgyz Kimak-Kypchak-Tatar 2 Site adresi: The Internal Classification & Migration of Turkic languages The Kimak subtaxon The relationship between Oghuz and Kimak On the origins of the ethnonym Tatar Bashkir is closely related to Kazan Tatar On the origins of Nogai Karachay-Balkar, an atypical Kimak language Oghuz-Seljuk Oghuz is still a valid subtaxon Seljuk as a subtaxon of Oghuz Oghuz-Seljuk is indirectly related to Orkhon-Karakhanid Notes on the confusion about y-/j- in Oghuz and Kimak Orkhon-Karakhanid Orkhon-Karakhanid as a valid subtaxon Khalaj is probably an offshoot of South Karakhanid Yugur-Salar Yugur seems to be ancient Salar has little to do with Oghuz, but quite a lot with Yugur and Uyghur 4.The Resulting Internal Classification of Bulgaro-Turkic languages 4.1 The Genealogical Classification of Bulgaro-Turkic languages 4.2 The taxonomic Classification of Bulgaro-Turkic languages 4.3 The Geographical Tree of Bulgaro-Turkic languages 3 Site adresi: The Internal Classification & Migration of Turkic languages 5. References and sources 1. Introduction The present study of the Turkic languages (2009-2012) was started as brief online notes that gradually grew into a series of online publications. The study is mostly an original research with relatively few references to previous theories. Most analysis was based upon factual evidence collected from dictionaries, grammars, language textbooks, native speakers on the web, sound and video fragments, books and articles containing detailed descriptions of specific languages. The resulting conclusions rarely draw from historically accepted opinions or assumptions produced by other researchers, rather attempting to build a logically consistent view of the spread of Turkic languages and their internal classification grounded in the nearly independent and relatively comprehensive step-by-step analysis. Nevertheless, the author deeply appreciates the extensive input from people who worked on the vast amount of Turkological literature dedicated to the numerous Turkic languages, as well as those who helped directly or indirectly by providing corrections and valuable notes by email or through web forums, without whose interest and collaboration this work would never have come to life. The present article provides all the linguistic argumentation concerning the internal classification of Bulgaro-Turkic languages. Furthermore, there are three other separate articles which can be regarded as part of the same work. The Lexicostatistics and Glottochronology of the Turkic languages (2009-2012) is a detailed research of Swasdesh-210 wordlists, which dates the Turkic Proper split to about 300-400 BC, and the Bulgaro-Turkic split to about 1000 BC. The Proto-Turkic Urheimat & The Early Migrations of the Turkic Peoples (2012-13) is a detailed analysis of the early Bulgaro-Turkic migrations largely based upon the results obtained in the glottochronological analysis above and the present classification. The Proto-Turkic Proper Urheimat area was positioned northwest of the Altai Mountains, and the earlier Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic Urheimat in northern Kazakhstan. The work explores the associations with the major archaeological cultures of the Bronze and Iron Age period in West Siberia. The Turkic languages in a Nutshell (2009-2012) embraces the final classification, trying to focus on the most well-established conclusions from various works including the present investigation. It also contains multiple illustrations, notes on history, ethnography, geography and the most typical linguistic features, which essentially makes it a basic introduction into Turkology for beginners. 4 Site adresi: The Internal Classification & Migration of Turkic languages 1.1 Preliminary notes on the reconstruction of Proto-Turkic Before we proceed with the main analysis, let us consider the reconstruction of the Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic word-initial *j/*y, which has become a long-standing issue in Turkological studies, and which may affect certain conclusions in the main part of this publication. Many proto-language reconstructions in various branches of historical linguistics are often based entirely on the supposed readings of the ancient texts from the oldest family representatives. For instances, in the Indo-European studies we can avail ourselves of the wonderful attestations of Ancient Greek, Latin and Avestan. However, when the oldest representatives are poorly read and interpreted, such an approach can result in errors. Generally speaking, an ancient extinct language can only be seen suitable for reconstruction purposes, only if it meets several conditions, namely: (1) it is a uniquely preserved language closely related to a proto-state without the existence of any alternative sibling branches; (2) it is so well-attested that its data are completely reliable and no significant misinterpretations can occur from occasional mistakes in ancient writing, reading (e.g., from abraded petroglyphs), copying of the material, translation, interpretation, etc; (3) the scriptclosely and adequately reflects the original pronunciation and we know full well how to correctly reconstruct that pronunciation from that script; (4) the linguistic material should should be dialectically uniform, in other word it should constitute just one language, not a mixture of various dialects or languages gathered by numerous contributors during generally unknown periods or from unknown areas [which is referred herein as the Sanskrit dictionary syndrome]. Obviously, the situation in Turkology does not meet these criteria. Orkhon Old Turkic, the oldest Turkic language attested in the inscriptions from Mongolia, fails to meet the first point (see details below), it barely gets in with the second one, and raises many objections with the third one. In other words, Orkhon Old Turkic may just be insufficiently old or much too geographically off-centered to be considered close enough to the proto-state. Moreover, there may be just not enough correctly interpeted material for the solid attestation and interpretation of ancient phonology. Orkhon Old Turkic is not as well reconstructed as, say, Latin and Greek in the Indo-European studies, so many readings are quite ambiguous. And finally, it often gets mixed in literature with Old Karakhanid, Old Uyghur and generally unknown Old Yenisei Kyrgyz dialects (given that not all of the Old Turkic inscription were made in Mongolia). Therefore one should not confuse the methodological basis established for the Indo-European reconstruction with the methods convenient for other language branches, such as Turkic. An old language is not always just good enough. As a result, the reconstruction of Proto-Turkic should be conducted by means of a completely different approach, namely using materials from the well-attested modern representativesof Turkic languages. In that case, we should build a reconstruction using a lineal formula with separately determined lineal coefficients representing contributions for each particular language branch. This method is drastically different from the old-fashioned old-language-for-all model. As an example, when reconstructing Bulgaro-Turkic, we could roughly assign about 50% to Chuvash and about 50% to Proto-Turkic Proper, and then more or less equally divide the second half among the most archaic representatives from the main 5 Site adresi: The Internal Classification & Migration of Turkic languages