THE EXAMINATION AND INTERPRETATION OF MEDIEVAL TURKIC WRITTEN MONUMENTS (Monuments of PJAEE, 17 (6) (2020) Tonykok, Bilge Khagan, Kultegin and the Book of Korkyt Ata) THE EXAMINATION AND INTERPRETATION OF MEDIEVAL TURKIC WRITTEN MONUMENTS (Monuments of Tonykok, Bilge Khagan, Kultegin and the Book of Korkyt Ata) M. Zholdasbekov, Doctor of Philology, Professor, Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Department of Turkology, Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan [email protected] M. Zholdasbekov: THE EXAMINATION AND INTERPRETATION OF MEDIEVAL TURKIC WRITTEN MONUMENTS (Monuments of Tonykok, Bilge Khagan, Kultegin and the Book of Korkyt Ata) -- Palarch’s Journal Of Archaeology Of Egypt/Egyptology 17(6). ISSN 1567-214x Keywords: Orkhon, Korkyt Ata book, Written monuments, Turkic language, History. ABSTRACT This academic work deliberate upon the modernization of the Kazakh language, with special reference to the global perspective and the linguistic characteristics of the ancient Turkic peoples, by comparing and substantiating the master versions of the monuments of Orkhon (Bilge, Tonykok, Kultegin), the "Book of Korkyt Ata" and the exploration of scientists of the contemporary era. Although the literary translation of a written monument conveys its contents, story, ideas but it doesn’t divulge rich linguistic material as much as the original. So, the transcription of any written artifact involves the formation of language, stages of development, ancient grammar and language resources, etc. because all these parameters are significant in the research point of view. To the present day, the Kazakh versions of the "Book of Korkyt Ata" have been, as mentioned above, translated through free translation and such translations should not be the basis for linguistic research. The fact that «The Book of Korkyt Ata» has not yet been decrypted and published in Kazakhstan and it shows that rich linguistic data and material both profoundly ingrained in the historical depths of our Kazakh language which still need to be grasped. With the reference it can be said that although the issue of literary translation has been largely solved, but the question of scientific translation is still unresolved. For example, scientific translation does not endure excessive autonomy, deviations from the original but indeed it requires precision and deftness so the present academic work mainly deliberate on these factors as much as possible. 13187 THE EXAMINATION AND INTERPRETATION OF MEDIEVAL TURKIC WRITTEN MONUMENTS (Monuments of PJAEE, 17 (6) (2020) Tonykok, Bilge Khagan, Kultegin and the Book of Korkyt Ata) Introduction The spiritual culture of the Turkic peoples, inhabiting the immense expanses of Eurasia since the “Creation of Tengri in the sky, Water and Earth below", is one of the significant parts of the world civilization. It is said that if a person has a wide field, he has a wide horizon with this there are also several proverbs such as "Your son is in Urum, your daughter is in Crimea", "Your destination is the Balkan mountain, it is also our mountain" were innate in the days of the ancient Turkic khanate, and it shows the extent of their conceptual dimension. The sacred evidence of this opinion is "Kultegin", "Tonykok", "Bilge Kagan", "Tariat", "Bronze Shor", "MoiynShor", "Talas”, "Issyk", "Irtysh" “Monuments of "Ili", "IrygBitig", "Korkyt Ata", "Ogyznama" and "KuttyBilik" by Balasagun, "Turkic Dictionary" of Kashgar, and "DiwaniHikmet" by Yassaui. Based on these artifacts, it is said that the foundation of the Turkic written literature was laid in the VII-VIII centuries. Because this sacred heritage is not only a spiritual treasure of the Turkic people, but also a cultural monument common to all mankind and the contribution of the Turkic peoples to world civilization. Earlier in our monograph "AsylArnalar" [1] we made a detailed analysis of the historical, traditional, thematic, oratory, genre, rhythm, generation, equality, allegorical, comparative, proverbial connections between the Orkhon inscriptions and ancient Kazakh literature. M.Auezov and A.Margulan were at the forefront of the study of ancient Turkic writings in Kazakhstan, the school was formed in the early sixties under the leadership of our late teacher B.Kenzhebayev. Beiseken was the first Kazakh writer to draw my attention to this ancient myth. Thus, in 1967, I began to study the Turkic written monuments and their Kazakhization. In the course of research, these inscriptions are an invaluable heritage of the Turkic people. We realized that its language is very close to modern Kazakh. The monuments were made mainly by tribes and the Kazakh people were also the part in this. W. Bartold, V. Radlov, and S. Malov wrote extensively about the timing to determine the exact language of these monuments, which made a great change in oriental studies. P. Melioransky said: "The language that kept the language of the ancient Turks fresh, is the modern Kazakh language" [2], emphasizing that the language of the inscriptions is more similar to the modern Kazakh language. Book of Korkyt Ata is also one of the examples of the above statement. Since the culture, language, and literature of the ancient Turkic peoples have been preserved as a legacy of the Kazakh people, we have concluded that these inscriptions are not merely "translations" but "Modernization of the modern Kazakh language". The first data on the Orkhon monuments 13188 THE EXAMINATION AND INTERPRETATION OF MEDIEVAL TURKIC WRITTEN MONUMENTS (Monuments of PJAEE, 17 (6) (2020) Tonykok, Bilge Khagan, Kultegin and the Book of Korkyt Ata) ... At the beginning of the XVIII century, the captured Swedish officer Philip Johann Stralenberg, who was captured by the Russian army, found the monuments of Orkhon. In the first quarter of the 19th century, Grigory Spassky published some information in his journal "Siberian Herald" [3]. His article was soon translated into Latin, and the Orkhon monuments became known to other scholars from several countries. Upon hearing this news, the Finnish Archaeological Society sent two expeditions to Minusinsk in 1875, and in 1889 published an atlas with 32 tables and 8 photographs entitled "Yenisei inscriptions". It should be noted that until the discovery of the alphabet, these heritages were recognized by Finnish scholars as monuments of their people. However, they later acknowledged that this view was speculative. In 1889, the Russian explorer N. Yadrintsev saw a four-walled high rock along the Orkhon River, at the mouth of the Yenisei River. Soon N. Yadrintsev at the VIII Congress of Russian Archaeologists drew the attention of scientists to the ancient heritage of the Orkhon. So, the inscriptions which is formerly known only as Yenisei monuments, now called Orkhon, or Orkhon-Yenisei inscriptions [4]. In the spring of 1890, the Finnish archeological expedition to the Orkhon River, led by A. Heikel, published a work entitled "Inscriptions of the Orkhon Valley" in 1891. [5] And in 1891 he left St. Petersburg for an expedition of the Academy of Sciences under the leadership of the Russian scientist V. Radlov (including Yadrintsev), the founder of Turkology in the country. He has a difficult and responsible task - to read the secret of writing. Of course, in addition to the difficulty of reading these writings, there were some advantages as well. Because at that time the text of the monument was written in Chinese, and the names of the people who made the monument and the beys who ruled it were known from that text. However, solving the mystery of the silent monument, which has not yet revealed any secrets, could only be done by a well-trained linguist. One such researcher was Wilhelm Thomsen, a Danish scientist and professor of comparative linguistics at the University of Copenhagen. After a historical work on the relationship between Early Russia and Scandinavia, published in 1877, Thomsen turned his attention to the study of the Orkhon- Yenisei monuments found in southern Siberia. Finally, in 1893, he found the "key" to the Orkhon inscription. In modern times, Thomsen's discovery can be considered not only as a key to the Orkhon inscriptions, but also as a precious key to the secrets of the ancient inscriptions found in the history of Central Asia and Kazakhstan. Using the alphabet discovered by Wilhelm Thomsen, academician V. Radlov first translated the monument into Russian in 1894 and gave a version of the text in the Latin alphabet. W. Thomsen published his translation only in 1895. This monument was translated and published by academician S. Malov [7]. Since then, the study of the Orkhon monuments has never stopped. Kazakh linguists have also done a lot to study these monuments as a historical and linguistic heritage of our people. Among 13189 THE EXAMINATION AND INTERPRETATION OF MEDIEVAL TURKIC WRITTEN MONUMENTS (Monuments of PJAEE, 17 (6) (2020) Tonykok, Bilge Khagan, Kultegin and the Book of Korkyt Ata) them are the works of Altai Amanzholov, Gainutdin Musabayev, Gubaidulla Aidarov [8]. In short, their study and research are the state of discovery of Orkhon monuments. Translation of Orkhon monuments There are two types of translations of Orkhon monuments published in Russian. The first is a semantic translation in the form of obscenities, this was confirmed by V.V. Radlov, translated by Melioransky, SE Malov, and the second translation of Stebleva's poem [9]. A comparative study of the works of these scientists led to identify the errors in them, including the transcription and Kazakh version of the inscriptions Bilge, Kultegin, Tonykok, and in 2005 published a work entitled "Complete Atlas of Orkhon Monuments" [10]. Academician S. Malov's translation was much more advanced than his predecessors, both in terms of accuracy and scientific validity. However, the translation of S. Malov, an expert in Turkic languages, still has some room for improvement. What we are talking about mainly leads to the following issues: For example, the word "Teηri" in the sentence "Üze kök Teηri, asra jaγyz Jer»" [10, p. 190] Thomsen [11, p.