Lably
Skip to content

Old Turkic script

Alphabet used by early Turks (8–10th centuries)

  • 5 min read
  • 6 chapters

Related on Lably

Through Alphabet, Turkic peoples and Writing system

LabABC Fun — Learn the AlphabetLabBhindi Print Wall

The script is named after the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia, where early 8th-century inscriptions were discovered in an 1889 expedition by Nikolai Yadrintsev. These Orkhon inscriptions were published by Vasily Radlov and deciphered by the Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893.

This writing system was later used within the Uyghur Khaganate. Additionally, a Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century Yenisei Kyrgyz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old Hungarian alphabet of the 10th century. Words were usually written from right to left.

Origins

Many scholars, starting with Vilhelm Thomsen (1893), suggest that the Old Turkic script is derived from descendants of the Aramaic alphabet in particular via the Pahlavi and Sogdian alphabets, or possibly via Kharosthi used to write Sanskrit. It has also been speculated that tamgas (livestock brands used by Eurasian nomads) were one of the sources of the Old Turkic script, but despite similarities in shape and forms, this hypothesis has been widely rejected as unverifiable, largely because early tamgas are too poorly attested and understood to be subject to a thorough comparison. The text is most likely derived from Aramaic via the Sogdian alphabet and Syriac alphabet.

Contemporary Chinese sources conflict as to whether the Turks had a written language by the 6th century. The 7th-century Book of Zhou mentions that the Turks had a written language similar to that of the Sogdians. Two other likewise 7th-century sources, the Book of Sui and the History of the Northern Dynasties, claim that the Turks did not have a written language. According to István Vásáry (professor of Asian studies), the Old Turkic script was invented under the rule of the first khagans and was modelled after the Sogdian fashion. Several variants of the script came into being as early as the first half of the 6th century.

Sign in to keep reading

5 more chapters are free with a Lably account.

More in Language

LatinIndo-European language of the Italic branchAncient GreekAncient forms of the Greek languageArabicCentral Semitic languageSanskritAncient Indo-Aryan language of South AsiaGreek languageIndo-European languageFrench languageRomance language