The Altai family is a Turkic group. Turkic group of languages: peoples, classification, distribution and interesting facts

Genealogical classification is the most developed classification of languages in the world. It is based on the relationship of kinship. Based on these relationships, languages are combined into so-called language families, each of which consists of language branches or groups, in turn they are divided either into separate languages or into subgroups of closely related languages. The following families of languages are usually distinguished: Turkic, Indo-European, Semitic, Finno-Ugric, Ibero-Caucasian, Paleo-Asian, etc. There are languages that are not part of the language families. These are single languages. Such a language is, for example, the Basque language.

Indo-European languages include such large associations / families / as the Slavic family of languages, Indian, Romance, Germanic, Celtic, Iranian, Baltic, etc. In addition, Armenian, Albanian, Greek are also classified as Indo-European languages.

In turn, individual families of Indo-European languages \u200b\u200bmay have their own division into subgroups. So, Slavic the group of languages is divided into three subgroups - East Slavic, South Slavic, West Slavic. The East Slavic group of languages includes Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, the West Slavic group includes Polish, Czech, Slovak, etc., the South Slavic group includes Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian, Old Slavonic / dead language /.

Indian the family of languages includes a language composed in ancient times. Ritual texts, the texts of the Vedas, were written in this language. This language is called Vedic. Sanskrit is one of the oldest Indian languages. It is the language of the epic poems Ramayana and Mahabharata. Modern Indian languages include Bengali, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, etc.

Germanic languages are divided into East Germanic, West Germanic and Scandinavian / or North Germanic / groups. The northern group includes Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese. The Western group is English, German, Dutch, Luxembourgish, Afrikaans, Yiddish. The eastern group consists of dead languages - Gothic, Burgundian, etc. Among the Germanic languages, the newest languages stand out - Yiddish and Afrikaans. Yiddish was formed in the X-XIY centuries on the basis of High German elements. Afrikaans originated in the 17th century on the basis of Dutch dialects with the inclusion of elements from French, German, English, Portuguese and some African languages.

Romanskaya the family of languages includes such languages as French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Catalan, etc. This group of languages is related by a common origin from the Latin language. On the basis of individual Romance languages, more than 10 Creoles arose.

Iranian the group is Persian, Dari, Ossetian, Tajik, Kurdish, Afghan / Pashto / and other languages that make up the group of Pamir languages.

Baltic languages are represented by Latvian and Lithuanian.

Another large family of languages, spread over a large area of Asia and parts of Europe, are the Turkic languages. There are several classification schemes in Turkology. The generally accepted scheme is the classification of A.N. Samoilovich.

All Turkic languages are divided into 6 groups: Bulgar, Uighur, Kypchak, Chagatai, Kypchak-Turkmen, Oguz. The Bulgar group includes the Chuvash language, the Uighur group includes Old Uyghur, Tuva, Yakut, Khakass; the Kypchak group consists of the Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, Kirghiz and Altaic languages; the Chagatai group covers the modern Uighur language, Uzbek, etc.; the Kypchak-Turkmen group - intermediate dialects (Khivan-Uzbek, Khiva-Sart); The Oguz group includes Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen and some others.

Among all language families, Indo-European languages occupy a special place, since the Indo-European family was the first language family that was distinguished on the basis of genetic / kinship / connection, therefore, the selection of other language families was guided by the experience of studying Indo-European languages. This determines the role of research in the field of Indo-European languages for the historical study of other languages.

conclusions

Genealogical classification is based on kinship relationships. Relations of kinship are associated with a common origin.

The common origin is manifested in a single source of related words - in the parent language.

There is a hierarchy of proto-languages.

Linguistic kinship can be direct /immediate/ and indirect.

The genealogical classification is based on taking into account both direct and indirect types of language kinship.

Kinship relations are manifested in the material identity of sounds, morphemes, words.

Reliable data gives a comparison of the words that make up the oldest fund.

When comparing vocabulary, it is necessary to take into account the presence of borrowings. The material similarity of grammatical indicators is one of the most reliable proofs of kinship.

Phonetic identity is manifested in the presence of phonetic /sound/ correspondence.

Phonetic correspondences do not reflect the full articulatory and acoustic similarity between the sounds of related languages. Sound correspondences are the result of the most ancient phonetic processes.

Phonetic correspondences are found not in one isolated fact, but in a whole series of similar examples. In the historical study of languages, comparative-historical analysis is used.

The comparative-historical method is based on the comparison of related languages.

The comparison is carried out with the aim of reconstructing the oldest prototype and prototype.

The phenomena being reconstructed are classified as hypothetical. Not only separate fragments are recreated, but also proto-languages. The comparative-historical method was developed by both foreign and domestic linguists.

a language family that spans from Turkey in the west to Xinjiang in the east and from the coast of the East Siberian Sea in the north to Khorasan in the south. Speakers of these languages live compactly in the CIS countries (Azerbaijanis - in Azerbaijan, Turkmens - in Turkmenistan, Kazakhs - in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz - in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbeks - in Uzbekistan; Kumyks, Karachays, Balkars, Chuvashs, Tatars, Bashkirs, Nogais, Yakuts, Tuvans, Khakass, Mountain Altaians - in Russia; Gagauz - in the Transnistrian Republic) and beyond its borders - in Turkey (Turks) and China (Uighurs). At present, the total number of speakers of Turkic languages is about 120 million. The Turkic family of languages is part of the Altai macrofamily.

The very first (3rd century BC, according to glottochronology) the Bulgar group separated from the Proto-Turkic community (in other terminology - R-languages). The only living representative of this group is the Chuvash language. Separate glosses are known in written monuments and borrowings in neighboring languages from the medieval languages of the Volga and Danube Bulgars. The rest of the Turkic languages (“Common Turkic” or “Z-languages”) are usually classified into 4 groups: “Southwestern” or “Oghuz” languages (main representatives: Turkish, Gagauz, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Afshar, Coastal Crimean Tatar) , "North-Western" or "Kipchak" languages (Karaim, Crimean Tatar, Karachay-Balkarian, Kumyk, Tatar, Bashkir, Nogai, Karakalpak, Kazakh, Kyrgyz), "South-Eastern" or "Karluk" languages (Uzbek, Uighur), "North-Eastern" languages - a genetically heterogeneous group, including: a) the Yakut subgroup (Yakut and Dolgan languages), which separated from the common Turkic, according to glottochronological data, before its final collapse, in the 3rd century BC. AD; b) the Sayan group (Tuvan and Tofalar languages); c) the Khakass group (Khakas, Shor, Chulym, Saryg-Yugur); d) Gorno-Altai group (Oirot, Teleut, Tuba, Lebedinsky, Kumandin). The southern dialects of the Gorno-Altai group are close in a number of parameters to the Kyrgyz language, constituting with it the "central-eastern group" of the Turkic languages; some dialects of the Uzbek language clearly belong to the Nogai subgroup of the Kypchak group; Khorezm dialects of the Uzbek language belong to the Oguz group; part of the Siberian dialects of the Tatar language is approaching the Chulym-Turkic.

The earliest deciphered written monuments of the Turks date back to the 7th century. AD (steles written in runic script found on the Orkhon River in northern Mongolia). Throughout their history, the Turks used the Turkic runic (ascending, apparently, to the Sogdian script), Uighur script (later passed from them to the Mongols), Brahmi, Manichaean script, and Arabic script. At present, writings based on Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic are common.

According to historical sources, information about the Turkic peoples for the first time emerges in connection with the appearance of the Huns on the historical arena. The steppe empire of the Huns, like all known formations of this kind, was not monoethnic; judging by the linguistic material that has come down to us, there was a Turkic element in it. Moreover, the dating of the initial information about the Huns (in Chinese historical sources) is 4-3 centuries. BC. – coincides with the glottochronological definition of the time of the allocation of the Bulgar group. Therefore, a number of scientists directly connect the beginning of the movement of the Huns with the separation and departure to the west of the Bulgars. The ancestral home of the Turks is placed in the northwestern part of the Central Asian plateau, between the Altai mountains and the northern part of the Khingan Range. From the southeast side they were in contact with the Mongol tribes, from the west their neighbors were the Indo-European peoples of the Tarim Basin, from the northwest - the Ural and Yenisei peoples, from the north - the Tungus-Manchus.

By the 1st century BC. separate tribal groups of the Huns moved to the territory of modern South Kazakhstan, in the 4th century. AD the invasion of the Huns to Europe begins, by the end of the 5th century. In Byzantine sources, the ethnonym "Bulgars" appears, denoting a confederation of tribes of Hunnic origin, which occupied the steppe between the Volga and Danube basins. In the future, the Bulgarian confederation is divided into the Volga-Bulgarian and Danube-Bulgarian parts.

After the breakaway of the "Bulgars", the rest of the Turks continued to remain in the territory close to their ancestral home until the 6th century. AD, when, after defeating the Zhuan-Zhuan confederation (part of the Xianbei, presumably the proto-Mongols who defeated and ousted the Huns in their time), they formed the Turkic confederation, which dominated from the middle of the 6th to the middle of the 7th century. over a vast territory from the Amur to the Irtysh. Historical sources do not provide information about the moment of separation from the Turkic community of the ancestors of the Yakuts. The only way to connect the ancestors of the Yakuts with some historical messages is to identify them with the Kurykans of the Orkhon inscriptions, which belonged to the Teles confederation absorbed by the Turks. They were localized at that time, apparently, to the east of Baikal. Judging by the references in the Yakut epic, the main advance of the Yakuts to the north is associated with a much later time - the expansion of the empire of Genghis Khan.

In 583, the Turkic confederation was divided into Western (with its center in Talas) and Eastern Turks (in other words, “blue Turks”), the center of which was the former center of the Turkic empire Kara-Balgasun on Orkhon. Apparently, the disintegration of the Turkic languages into the western (Oghuz, Kipchak) and eastern (Siberia; Kirghiz; Karluk) macrogroups is connected with this event. In 745, the Eastern Turks were defeated by the Uighurs (localized to the southwest of Lake Baikal and presumably at first non-Turks, but by that time already Turkicized). Both the Eastern Turkic and the Uyghur states experienced a strong cultural influence of China, but the Eastern Iranians, primarily Sogdian merchants and missionaries, had no less influence on them; in 762 Manichaeism became the state religion of the Uighur empire.

In 840 the Uyghur state centered on the Orkhon was destroyed by the Kyrkiz (from the upper reaches of the Yenisei; presumably also at first not a Turkic, but by this time a Turkicized people), the Uyghurs fled to Eastern Turkestan, where in 847 they founded a state with the capital Kocho (in the Turfan oasis). From here the main monuments of the ancient Uighur language and culture have come down to us. Another group of fugitives settled in what is now the Chinese province of Gansu; their descendants may be Saryg-Yugurs. The entire northeastern group of Turks, except for the Yakuts, can also go back to the Uyghur conglomerate, as part of the Turkic population of the former Uyghur Khaganate, which moved northward, deeper into the taiga, already at the time of the Mongol expansion.

In 924, the Kyrgyz were ousted from the Orkhon state by the Khitans (presumably Mongols in language) and partly returned to the upper reaches of the Yenisei, partly moved westward, to the southern spurs of the Altai. Apparently, the formation of the central-eastern group of Turkic languages can be traced back to this South Altai migration.

The Turfan state of the Uyghurs existed for a long time next to another Turkic state dominated by the Karluks, a Turkic tribe that originally lived to the east of the Uyghurs, but by 766 moved to the west and subjugated the state of the Western Turks, whose tribal groups spread in the steppes of Turan (Ili-Talas region , Sogdiana, Khorasan and Khorezm; at the same time, Iranians lived in the cities). At the end of the 8th c. Karluk Khan Yabgu converted to Islam. The Karluks gradually assimilated the Uighurs who lived to the east, and the Uighur literary language served as the basis for the literary language of the Karluk (Karakhanid) state.

Part of the tribes of the Western Turkic Khaganate were Oghuz. Of these, the Seljuk confederation stood out, which at the turn of the 1st millennium AD. migrated west through Khorasan to Asia Minor. Apparently, the linguistic consequence of this movement was the formation of the southwestern group of Turkic languages. Around the same time (and, apparently, in connection with these events) there was a mass migration to the Volga-Ural steppes and Eastern Europe of tribes representing the ethnic basis of the current Kypchak languages.

The phonological systems of the Turkic languages are characterized by a number of common properties. In the field of consonantism, restrictions on the occurrence of phonemes in the position of the beginning of a word, a tendency to weaken in the initial position, restrictions on the compatibility of phonemes are common. At the beginning of the primordial Turkic words are not found l,r,n, ,z. Noisy plosives are usually contrasted by strength/weakness (Eastern Siberia) or deafness/voicedness. At the beginning of a word, the opposition of consonants in terms of deafness/voicedness (strength/weakness) exists only in the Oguz and Sayan groups, in most other languages at the beginning of a word, labials are voiced, dental and back-lingual are deaf. Uvular in most Turkic languages are allophones of velar with back vowels. The following types of historical changes in the consonant system are classified as significant. a) In the Bulgar group in most positions there is a voiceless fricative lateral l coincided with l in sound in l; r and r in r. In other Turkic languages l gave , r gave z, l and r preserved. In relation to this process, all Turkologists are divided into two camps: some call it rotacism-lambdaism, others - zetacism-sigmatism, and this is statistically associated, respectively, with their non-recognition or recognition of the Altaic kinship of languages. b) Intervocalic d(pronounced as interdental fricative ð) gives r in Chuvash t in Yakut d in the Sayan languages and Khalaj (an isolated Turkic language in Iran), z in the Khakass group and j in other languages; respectively, talking about r-,t-,d-,z- and j- languages.

The vocalism of most Turkic languages is characterized by synharmonism (the likening of vowels within one word) in row and roundness; the vowel system is reconstructed for the Proto-Turkic as well. Synharmonism disappeared in the Karluk group (as a result of which the opposition of velar and uvular was phonologized there). In the New Uighur language, a kind of synharmonism is again built - the so-called "Uyghur umlaut", the leading of wide unrounded vowels before the next i(which ascends both to the front *i, and to the rear * ï ). In Chuvash, the whole system of vowels has changed a lot, and the old vowel harmony has disappeared (its trace is the opposition k from a velar in an anterior word and x from the uvular in the back row word), but then a new synharmonism lined up in a row, taking into account the current phonetic characteristics of vowels. The opposition of vowels by longitude/shortness that existed in the Proto-Turkic was preserved in the Yakut and Turkmen languages (and in a residual form in other Oghuz languages, where the voiceless consonants sounded after the old long vowels, as well as in the Sayan languages, where short vowels before voiceless consonants receive the sign of "pharyngealization") ; in other Turkic languages it disappeared, but in many languages long vowels reappeared after intervocalic voiced omissions (Tuvinsk. so"tub" *sagu etc.). In Yakut, primary wide long vowels have turned into ascending diphthongs.

In all modern Turkic languages - a power stress, which is morphonologically fixed. In addition, tonal and phonation oppositions were noted for the Siberian languages, however, they were not fully described.

From the point of view of morphological typology, the Turkic languages belong to the agglutinative, suffixal type. At the same time, if the Western Turkic languages are a classic example of agglutinative ones and have almost no fusion, then the Eastern ones, like the Mongolian languages, develop a powerful fusion.

The grammatical categories of the name in the Turkic languages are number, belonging, case. The order of affixes is: base + aff. numbers + aff. accessories + case aff. Plural form h. is usually formed by adding an affix to the stem -lar(in Chuvash -sem). In all Turkic languages, the plural form hours is marked, the form of units. hours - unmarked. In particular, in the generic meaning and with numerals, the singular form is used. numbers (kumyk. men at gerdyum " I (actually) saw horses."

Case systems include: a) the nominative (or main) case with a zero indicator; the form with a zero case indicator is used not only as a subject and a nominal predicate, but also as an indefinite direct object, an adjectival definition and with many postpositions; b) accusative case (aff. *- (ï )g) - case of a certain direct object; c) genitive case (aff.) - the case of a concrete-referential applied definition; d) dative-directive (aff. *-a/*-ka); e) local (aff. *-ta); e) ablative (aff. *-tin). The Yakut language rebuilt the case system along the lines of the Tungus-Manchu languages. Usually there are two types of declension: nominal and possessive-nominal (declension of words with affixes of the 3rd person; case affixes take a slightly different form in this case).

The adjective in the Turkic languages differs from the noun in the absence of inflectional categories. Receiving the syntactic function of the subject or object, the adjective acquires all the inflectional categories of the noun.

Pronouns change by case. Personal pronouns are available for 1 and 2 persons (* bi/ben"I", * si/sen"you", * bir"we", *sir"you"), in the third person demonstrative pronouns are used. Demonstrative pronouns in most languages distinguish three degrees of range, for example, bu"this", Su"this remote" (or "this" when indicated by the hand), ol"that". Interrogative pronouns distinguish between animate and inanimate ( Kim"who" and ne"what").

In the verb, the order of affixes is as follows: the stem of the verb (+ aff. voice) (+ aff. negation (- ma-)) + aff. inclination/view-temporal + aff. conjugations for persons and numbers (in brackets - affixes that are not necessarily present in the word form).

Voices of the Turkic verb: real (without indicators), passive (*- il), return ( *-in-), mutual ( * -ï- ) and causative ( *-t-,*-ir-,*-tyr- and some etc.). These indicators can be combined with each other (cum. ger-yush-"see", gyor-yush-dir-"to force to see" jaz-hole-"force to write" yaz-hole-yl-"to be compelled to write").

The conjugated forms of the verb fall into proper verbal and improper verbal forms. The former have personal indicators that go back to the affixes of belonging (except for 1 lit. plural and 3 lit. plural). These include the past categorical tense (aorist) in the indicative mood: verb stem + indicator - d- + personal indicators: bar-d-im"I went" oqu-d-u-lar"they read"; means a completed action, the fact of the implementation of which is beyond doubt. This also includes the conditional mood (verb stem + -sa-+ personal indicators); desired mood (verb stem + -aj- + personal indicators: pra-Turkic. * bar-aj-im"let me go" * bar-aj-ik"let's go"); imperative mood (pure stem of the verb in 2 l singular and stem + in 2 l. pl. h.).

Non-proper verbal forms are historically gerunds and participles in the function of the predicate, decorated with the same indicators of predicability as nominal predicates, namely, postpositive personal pronouns. For example: other Turkic. ( ben)beg ben"I'm Bek" ben anca tir ben"I say so", lit. "I say so-I." Present participles (or simultaneity) are distinguished (stem + -a), indefinite future (base + -VR, where V– vowel of different quality), precedence (stem + -ip), desired mood (base + -g aj); participle perfect (stem + -g an), behind-the-eyes, or descriptive (stem + -mus), definite-future tense (stem + ) and many others. etc. The affixes of gerunds and participles do not carry collateral oppositions. Verbs with predicative affixes, as well as gerunds with auxiliary verbs in proper and improper verbal forms (numerous existential, phase, modal verbs, verbs of motion, verbs "to take" and "give") express a variety of committed, modal, directional and accommodative meanings, cf. Kumyk. bara bulgaiman"Looks like I'm going" go- dep. simultaneity become- dep. desired -I), ishley goremen"I am going to work" ( work- dep. simultaneity look- dep. simultaneity -I), language"sleep (for yourself)" ( write- dep. precedence take). Various verbal names of action are used as infinitives in various Turkic languages.

From the point of view of syntactic typology, the Turkic languages belong to the languages of the nominative system with the prevailing word order "subject - object - predicate", preposition of the definition, preference for postpositions over prepositions. There is a folded design with the indicator of membership at the defined word ( at bas-i"horse head", lit. "the horse's head is hers"). In a composing phrase, usually all grammatical indicators are attached to the last word.

The general rules for the formation of subordinating phrases (including sentences) are cyclical: any subordinating combination can be inserted as one of the members into any other, and the connection indicators are attached to the main member of the built-in combination (the verb form turns into the corresponding participle or gerund). Wed: Kumyk. ak sakal"white beard" ak sakal-ly gishi"white-bearded man" booth-la-ny ara-son-yes"between the booths" booth-la-ny ara-son-da-gye yol-well orta-son-da"in the middle of the path passing between the booths", sen ok atganing"you shot an arrow" sen ok atganyng-ny gerdyum"I saw you shoot an arrow" ("you shot an arrow - 2 l. singular - vin. case - I saw"). When a predicative combination is inserted in this way, one often speaks of the "Altai type of a complex sentence"; indeed, the Turkic and other Altaic languages show a clear preference for such absolute constructions with the verb in the impersonal form over subordinate clauses. The latter, however, are also used; for communication in complex sentences, allied words are used - interrogative pronouns (in subordinate clauses) and correlative words - demonstrative pronouns (in main sentences).

The main part of the vocabulary of the Turkic languages is native, often having parallels in other Altaic languages. Comparison of the general vocabulary of the Turkic languages allows us to get an idea of the world in which the Turks lived in the period of the collapse of the Proto-Turkic community: the landscape, fauna and flora of the southern taiga in Eastern Siberia, on the border with the steppe; metallurgy of the early Iron Age; economic structure of the same period; transhumance cattle breeding based on horse breeding (with the use of horse meat for food) and sheep breeding; farming in a subsidiary function; the big role of developed hunting; two types of dwellings - winter stationary and summer portable; quite developed social dismemberment on a tribal basis; apparently, to a certain extent, a codified system of legal relations in active trade; a set of religious and mythological concepts characteristic of shamanism. In addition, of course, such “basic” vocabulary as the names of body parts, verbs of movement, sensory perception, etc. is being restored.

In addition to the original Turkic vocabulary, modern Turkic languages use a large number of borrowings from languages with whose speakers the Turks have ever come into contact. These are, first of all, Mongolian borrowings (there are many borrowings from the Turkic languages in the Mongolian languages, there are also cases when a word was borrowed first from the Turkic languages into Mongolian, and then back, from the Mongolian languages into Turkic, cf. other Uighur. irbi, Tuvan. irbis"bars" > mong. irbis > Kirg. irbis). There are many Tungus-Manchurian borrowings in the Yakut language, in Chuvash and Tatar they are borrowed from the Finno-Ugric languages of the Volga region (as well as vice versa). A significant part of the “cultural” vocabulary has been borrowed: in the Old Uyghur there are many borrowings from Sanskrit and Tibetan, primarily Buddhist terminology; in the languages of the Muslim Turkic peoples there are many Arabicisms and Persianisms; in the languages of the Turkic peoples that were part of the Russian Empire and the USSR, there are many Russian borrowings, including internationalisms like communism,tractor,political economy. On the other hand, there are many Turkic borrowings in Russian. The earliest are borrowings from the Danube-Bulgarian language into Old Church Slavonic ( book, drop"idol" - in the word temple“pagan temple”, etc.), who came from there to Russian; there are also borrowings from Bulgar into Old Russian (as well as into other Slavic languages): serum(Common Turk. *jogurt, bulg. *suvart), bursa"Persian silk fabric" (Chuvashsk. porcin * bariun Middle-Pers. *aparesum; trade of pre-Mongol Rus with Persia went along the Volga through the Great Bulgar). A large amount of cultural vocabulary was borrowed into Russian from the late medieval Turkic languages in the 14th–17th centuries. (during the time of the Golden Horde and even more later, during the time of brisk trade with the surrounding Turkic states: ass, pencil, raisin,shoe, iron,Altyn,arshin,coachman,Armenian,ditches,dried apricots and many others. etc.). In later times, the Russian language borrowed from Turkic only words denoting local Turkic realities ( snow leopard,ayran,kobyz,sultana,village,elm). Contrary to a common misconception, there are no Turkic borrowings among Russian obscene (obscene) vocabulary, almost all of these words are Slavic in origin.

Turkic languages. - In the book: Languages of the peoples of the USSR, vol. II. L., 1965
Baskakov N.A. Introduction to the study of Turkic languages. M., 1968
Comparative-historical grammar of Turkic languages. Phonetics. M., 1984
Comparative-historical grammar of Turkic languages. Syntax. M., 1986
Comparative-historical grammar of Turkic languages. Morphology. M., 1988
Gadzhieva N.Z. Turkic languages. – Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary. M., 1990
Turkic languages. - In the book: Languages of the world. M., 1997
Comparative-historical grammar of Turkic languages. Vocabulary. M., 1997

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The official history says that the Turkic language arose in the first millennium when the first tribes belonging to this group appeared. But, as modern research shows, the language itself arose much earlier. There is even an opinion that the Turkic language came from a certain proto-language, which was spoken by all the inhabitants of Eurasia, as in the legend of the Tower of Babel. The main phenomenon of the Turkic vocabulary is that it has not changed much over the five millennia of its existence. The ancient writings of the Sumerians will still be as clear to the Kazakhs as modern books.

Spreading

The Turkic language group is very numerous. If you look territorially, then the peoples who communicate in similar languages live like this: in the west, the border begins with Turkey, in the east - the autonomous region of China Xinjiang, in the north - the East Siberian Sea and in the south - Khorasan.

Currently, the approximate number of people who speak Turkic is 164 million, this number is almost equal to the entire population of Russia. At the moment, there are different opinions about how the group of Turkic languages is classified. Which languages stand out in this group, we will consider further. Main: Turkish, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Uzbek, Karakalpak, Uighur, Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash, Balkar, Karachai, Kumyk, Nogai, Tuvan, Khakass, Yakut, etc.

Ancient Turkic-speaking peoples

We know that the Turkic group of languages spread very widely in Eurasia. In ancient times, the peoples who spoke this way were simply called Turks. Their main activity was cattle breeding and agriculture. But one should not perceive all modern peoples of the Turkic language group as descendants of an ancient ethnic group. As the millennia passed, their blood mixed with the blood of other ethnic groups of Eurasia, and now there are simply no indigenous Turks.

The ancient peoples of this group include:

Turkuts - tribes that settled in the Altai Mountains in the 5th century AD;
Pechenegs - arose at the end of the 9th century and inhabited the region between Kievan Rus, Hungary, Alania and Mordovia;
Polovtsy - with their appearance they forced out the Pechenegs, they were very freedom-loving and aggressive;
the Huns - arose in the II-IV centuries and managed to create a huge state from the Volga to the Rhine, Avars and Hungarians went from them;
Bulgars - such peoples as the Chuvash, Tatars, Bulgarians, Karachays, Balkars originated from these ancient tribes.
Khazars - huge tribes who managed to create their own state and oust the Huns;
Oghuz Turks - the ancestors of the Turkmens, Azerbaijanis, lived in Seljukia;
Karluks - lived in the VIII-XV centuries.

Classification

The Turkic group of languages has a very complex classification. Rather, each historian offers his own version, which will differ from the other by minor changes. We offer you the most common option:

Bulgarian group. The only currently existing representative is the Chuvash language.
The Yakut group is the easternmost of the peoples of the Turkic language group. Residents speak Yakut and Dolgan dialects.
South Siberian - this group includes the languages of peoples living mainly within the borders of the Russian Federation in southern Siberia.
Southeastern, or Karluk. Examples are Uzbek and Uighur languages.
The Northwestern, or Kipchak, group is represented by a large number of nationalities, many of whom live on their own independent territory, such as Tatars, Kazakhs, and Kirghiz.
Southwestern, or Oguz. The languages included in the group are Turkmen, Salar, Turkish.

Yakuts

On their territory, the local population calls itself simply - Sakha. Hence the name of the region - the Republic of Sakha. Some representatives also settled in other neighboring areas. The Yakuts are the most eastern of the peoples of the Turkic language group. Culture and traditions were borrowed in ancient times from the tribes living in the central steppe part of Asia.

Khakasses

For this people, an area is defined - the Republic of Khakassia. Here is the largest contingent of Khakasses - about 52 thousand people. Several thousand more moved to live in Tula and the Krasnoyarsk Territory.

Shors

This nationality reached its greatest number in the 17th-18th centuries. Now this is a small ethnic group that can be found only in the south of the Kemerovo region. To date, the number is very small, about 10 thousand people.

Tuvans

Tuvans are usually divided into three groups, which differ from each other in some features of the dialect. Inhabit the Republic This is a small eastern of the peoples of the Turkic language group, living on the border with China.

Tofalars

This nation has almost disappeared. According to the 2010 census, 762 people were found in several villages of the Irkutsk region.

Siberian Tatars

The eastern dialect of Tatar is the language that is considered to be the national language for the Siberian Tatars. This is also a Turkic group of languages. The peoples of this group are densely settled in Russia. They can be found in the countryside of the regions of Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk and others.

Dolgans

A small group living in the northern regions of the Nenets Autonomous Okrug. They even have their own municipal district - Taimyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky. To date, only 7.5 thousand people remain representatives of the Dolgans.

Altaians

The Turkic group of languages includes the Altai lexicon. Now in this area you can freely get acquainted with the culture and traditions of the ancient people.

Independent Turkic-speaking states

To date, there are six separate independent states, the nationality of which is the indigenous Turkic population. First of all, these are Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Of course, Turkey and Turkmenistan. And do not forget about Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan, which treat the Turkic language group in exactly the same way.

The Uighurs have their own autonomous region. It is located in China and is called Xinjiang. Other nationalities belonging to the Turks also live in this territory.

Kyrgyz

The Turkic group of languages primarily includes Kyrgyz. Indeed, the Kirghiz or Kyrgyz are the most ancient representatives of the Turks who lived on the territory of Eurasia. The first mention of the Kirghiz are found in 1 thousand BC. e. Almost throughout its history, the nation did not have its own sovereign territory, but at the same time managed to preserve its identity and culture. The Kyrgyz even have such a concept as "ashar", which means joint work, close cooperation and rallying.

The Kirghiz have long lived in the steppe sparsely populated areas. This could not but affect some of the features of character. These people are extremely hospitable. When a new person used to arrive in the settlement, he would tell news that no one could hear before. For this, the guest was rewarded with the best treats. It is customary to venerate guests sacredly to this day.

Kazakhs

The Turkic language group could not exist without the most numerous Turkic people living not only in the state of the same name, but throughout the world.

The folk customs of the Kazakhs are very severe. Children from childhood are brought up in strict rules, they are taught to be responsible and hardworking. For this nation, the concept of "jigit" is the pride of the people, a person who, at all costs, defends the honor of his fellow tribesman or his own.

In the appearance of the Kazakhs, there is still a clear division into "white" and "black". In the modern world, this has long lost its meaning, but the remnants of the old concepts are still preserved. A feature of the appearance of any Kazakh is that he can simultaneously look like a European and a Chinese.

Turks

The Turkic group of languages includes Turkish. It so happened historically that Turkey has always closely cooperated with Russia. And these relations were not always peaceful. Byzantium, and later the Ottoman Empire, began its existence simultaneously with Kievan Rus. Even then there were the first conflicts for the right to rule the Black Sea. Over time, this enmity intensified, which largely influenced the relationship between Russians and Turks.

Turks are very peculiar. First of all, this can be seen in some of their features. They are hardy, patient and completely unpretentious in everyday life. The behavior of the representatives of the nation is very cautious. Even if they are angry, they will never express their dissatisfaction. But then they can hold a grudge and take revenge. In serious matters, the Turks are very cunning. They can smile in the face, and plot intrigues behind their backs for their own benefit.

The Turks took their religion very seriously. Severe Muslim laws prescribed every step in the life of a Turk. For example, they could kill an unbeliever and not be punished for it. Another feature is connected with this feature - a hostile attitude towards non-Muslims.

Conclusion

Turkic-speaking peoples are the largest ethnic group on Earth. The descendants of the ancient Turks settled on all continents, but most of them live in the indigenous territory - in the Altai Mountains and in the south of Siberia. Many peoples managed to preserve their identity within the borders of independent states.

It must be distinguished from the modern Khorezmian dialect and the Iranian Khorezmian language. Khorezmian Turkic language Regions: Central Asia, Khorezm and oases along the lower reaches of the river. Cheese Yes ... Wikipedia

Self-name: Or Turks Country: People's Republic of China ... Wikipedia

Self-name: Khorasani Turks Countries: Iran, Uzbekistan ... Wikipedia

Sonkor Turkic (Songor Turkic) Countries: Iran Regions: Kermanshah ... Wikipedia

Avar language Self-name: unknown Countries ... Wikipedia

Chulym-Turkic language- Chulym Turkic language is one of the Turkic languages. Distributed along the banks of the Chulym River, the right tributary of the Ob. The number of speakers is about 500 people. It is divided into 2 dialects: Lower Chulym and Middle Chulym. For Ch. I. characterized by the presence of etymologically long ... ...

Turkic Khaganate (Kaganate) 552 603 ... Wikipedia

The Turkic parent language is the common predecessor of the modern Turkic languages, reconstructed using a comparatively historical method. Presumably arose from a common Altaic proto-language on the basis of a hypothetical Nostratic family in ... ... Wikipedia

Language of fiction- The language of fiction 1) the language in which works of art are created (its lexicon, grammar, phonetics), in some societies, completely different from everyday, everyday ("practical") language; In this sense… … Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

Turks or Mongols? The era of Genghis Khan. , Olovintsov Anatoly Grigorievich. How did a small nation conquer a multimillion-strong China, all of Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Volga region, the principalities of Russia and half of Europe? Who are they - Turks or Mongols? ... It's hard...
Turks or Mongols? The era of Genghis Khan, Olovintsov Anatoly Grigorievich. How did a small nation conquer a multimillion-strong China, all of Central Asia, the Caucasus, the Volga region, the principalities of Russia and half of Europe? Who are they - Turks or Mongols? …This is difficult…

TURKIC LANGUAGES, a language family that spans from Turkey in the west to Xinjiang in the east and from the coast of the East Siberian Sea in the north to Khorasan in the south. Speakers of these languages live compactly in the CIS countries (Azerbaijanis - in Azerbaijan, Turkmens - in Turkmenistan, Kazakhs - in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz - in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbeks - in Uzbekistan; Kumyks, Karachays, Balkars, Chuvashs, Tatars, Bashkirs, Nogais, Yakuts, Tuvans, Khakass, Mountain Altaians - in Russia; Gagauz - in the Transnistrian Republic) and beyond its borders - in Turkey (Turks) and China (Uighurs). At present, the total number of speakers of Turkic languages is about 120 million. The Turkic family of languages is part of the Altai macrofamily.

In 583, the Turkic confederation was divided into Western (with its center in Talas) and Eastern Turks (in other words, the “blue Turks”), the center of which was the former center of the Turkic empire Kara-Balgasun on Orkhon. Apparently, the disintegration of the Turkic languages into the western (Oghuz, Kipchak) and eastern (Siberia; Kirghiz; Karluk) macrogroups is connected with this event. In 745, the Eastern Turks were defeated by the Uighurs (localized to the southwest of Lake Baikal and presumably at first non-Turks, but by that time already Turkicized). Both the Eastern Turkic and the Uyghur states experienced a strong cultural influence of China, but the Eastern Iranians, primarily Sogdian merchants and missionaries, had no less influence on them; in 762 Manichaeism became the state religion of the Uighur empire.

The phonological systems of the Turkic languages are characterized by a number of common properties. In the field of consonantism, restrictions on the occurrence of phonemes in the position of the beginning of a word, a tendency to weaken in the initial position, restrictions on the compatibility of phonemes are common. At the beginning of the primordial Turkic words are not found l,r,n, š ,z. Noisy plosives are usually contrasted by strength/weakness (Eastern Siberia) or deafness/voicedness. At the beginning of a word, the opposition of consonants in terms of deafness/voicedness (strength/weakness) exists only in the Oguz and Sayan groups, in most other languages at the beginning of a word, labials are voiced, dental and back-lingual are deaf. Uvular in most Turkic languages are allophones of velar with back vowels. The following types of historical changes in the consonant system are classified as significant. a) In the Bulgar group in most positions there is a voiceless fricative lateral l coincided with l in sound in l; r and r in r. In other Turkic languages l gave š , r gave z, l and r preserved. In relation to this process, all Turkologists are divided into two camps: some call it rotacism-lambdaism, others - zetacism-sigmatism, and this is statistically related, respectively, to the non-recognition or recognition of the Altaic kinship of languages. b) Intervocalic d(pronounced as interdental fricative ð) gives r in Chuvash t in Yakut d in the Sayan languages and Khalaj (an isolated Turkic language in Iran), z in the Khakass group and j in other languages; respectively, talking about r-,t-,d-,z- and j- languages.

The vocalism of most Turkic languages is characterized by synharmonism (the likening of vowels within one word) in row and roundness; the vowel system is reconstructed for the Proto-Turkic as well. Synharmonism disappeared in the Karluk group (as a result of which the opposition of velar and uvular was phonologized there). In the New Uighur language, a kind of synharmonism is again built - the so-called "Uyghur umlaut", the leading of wide unrounded vowels before the next i(which ascends both to the front *i, and to the rear * ï ). In Chuvash, the whole system of vowels has changed a lot, and the old vowel harmony has disappeared (its trace is the opposition k from a velar in an anterior word and x from the uvular in the back row word), but then a new synharmonism lined up in a row, taking into account the current phonetic characteristics of vowels. The opposition of vowels by longitude/shortness that existed in the Proto-Turkic was preserved in the Yakut and Turkmen languages (and in a residual form in other Oghuz languages, where the voiceless consonants sounded after the old long vowels, as well as in the Sayan languages, where short vowels before voiceless consonants receive the sign of "pharyngealization") ; in other Turkic languages it disappeared, but in many languages long vowels reappeared after intervocalic voiced omissions (Tuvinsk. so"tub"< *sagu and under.). In Yakut, primary wide long vowels have turned into ascending diphthongs.

Voices of the Turkic verb: real (without indicators), passive (*- il), return ( *-in-), mutual ( * -ïš- ) and causative ( *-t-,*-ir-,*-tyr- and some etc.). These indicators can be combined with each other (cum. ger-yush-"see", gyor-yush-dir-"to force to see" jaz-hole-"force to write" yaz-hole-yl-"to be compelled to write").

From the point of view of syntactic typology, the Turkic languages belong to the languages of the nominative system with the prevailing word order "subject - object - predicate", preposition of the definition, preference for postpositions over prepositions. There is a folded design – with the indicator of membership at the defined word ( at bas-i"horse head", lit. "the horse's head is hers"). In a composing phrase, usually all grammatical indicators are attached to the last word.

The general rules for the formation of subordinating phrases (including sentences) are cyclical: any subordinating combination can be inserted as one of the members into any other, and the connection indicators are attached to the main member of the built-in combination (the verb form turns into the corresponding participle or gerund). Wed: Kumyk. ak sakal"white beard" ak sakal-ly gishi"white-bearded man" booth-la-ny ara-son-yes"between the booths" booth-la-ny ara-son-da-gye yol-well orta-son-da"in the middle of the path passing between the booths", sen ok atganing"you shot an arrow" sen ok atganyng-ny gerdyum"I saw you shoot an arrow" ("you shot an arrow - 2 l. singular - vin. case - I saw"). When a predicative combination is inserted in this way, one often speaks of the "Altai type of a complex sentence"; indeed, the Turkic and other Altaic languages show a clear preference for such absolute constructions with the verb in the impersonal form over subordinate clauses. The latter, however, are also used; for connection in complex sentences, allied words are used - interrogative pronouns (in subordinate clauses) and correlative words - demonstrative pronouns (in main sentences).

In addition to the original Turkic vocabulary, modern Turkic languages use a large number of borrowings from languages with whose speakers the Turks have ever come into contact. These are, first of all, Mongolian borrowings (there are many borrowings from the Turkic languages in the Mongolian languages, there are also cases when a word was borrowed first from the Turkic languages into Mongolian, and then back, from the Mongolian languages into Turkic, cf. other Uighur. irbi, Tuvan. irbis"bars" > mong. irbis > Kirg. irbis). In the Yakut language there are many Tungus-Manchurian borrowings, in Chuvash and Tatar they are borrowed from the Finno-Ugric languages of the Volga region (as well as vice versa). A significant part of the “cultural” vocabulary has been borrowed: in the Old Uyghur there are many borrowings from Sanskrit and Tibetan, primarily Buddhist terminology; in the languages of the Muslim Turkic peoples there are many Arabicisms and Persianisms; in the languages of the Turkic peoples that were part of the Russian Empire and the USSR, there are many Russian borrowings, including internationalisms like communism,tractor,political economy. On the other hand, there are many Turkic borrowings in Russian. The earliest are borrowings from the Danube-Bulgarian language into Old Church Slavonic ( book, drop"idol" - in the word temple“pagan temple”, etc.), who came from there to Russian; there are also borrowings from Bulgar into Old Russian (as well as into other Slavic languages): serum(Common Turk. *jogurt, bulg. *suvart), bursa"Persian silk fabric" (Chuvashsk. porcin< *bar and un< Wed-Pers. *aparesum; trade of pre-Mongol Rus with Persia went along the Volga through the Great Bulgar). A large amount of cultural vocabulary was borrowed into Russian from the late medieval Turkic languages in the 14th–17th centuries. (during the time of the Golden Horde and even more later, during the time of brisk trade with the surrounding Turkic states: ass, pencil, raisin,shoe, iron,Altyn,arshin,coachman,Armenian,ditches,dried apricots and many others. etc.). In later times, the Russian language borrowed from Turkic only words denoting local Turkic realities ( snow leopard,ayran,kobyz,sultana,village,elm). Contrary to a common misconception, there are no Turkic borrowings among Russian obscene (obscene) vocabulary, almost all of these words are Slavic in origin.

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