TURKS

Turkic Language Turkic language tree
 
Unlike other earlier nomads who left no records of written language, the Turks possessed the so-called Orkhon inscriptions (a Kok Turk invention related to Eastern Khate around AD 682) in a runic-like script, and this script was deciphered back in 1896.  There was some element of Chinese language among the early Orkhon scripts, though.  Note Han Dynasty Chinese had no problem communicating with the Huns who were speculated to be Turkic-speaking as well. The forms of the lost languages of the Khitans, Tanguts and Jurchens, like the Korean writing, had all appeared to be some kind of revision on top of Chinese pictographs.  Among the Turks, the Uygurs were great language masters, and adopted their own script which became known as the Uygur script.  They helped Chingiz Khan's Mongols in devising the written Mongol language in early 13th century.  The Uygur script indirectly influened the Manchus when the latter adopted the Mongolian script in 1599.  (The Manchus first used Khitan's Siniform script and finally adopted Chinese logographic characters.)     Turkic language is one of the three language branches in the Altaic language family, namley, Turkic, Mongolian and Tunguzic.  My suspicion is that the branches did not distinguish themselves till much later, and the three language branch designations were the products of linguists of 20th century any way.  When you look at the photos of ruins of Karakorum, near the Orkhon River, southwest of Ulaanbaatar as well as few slates of tomb stones on the desolate Gobi, the impression will be all yours to imagine who the successive dwellers had been on that land.  The control of the area of Mongolia had passed from the Turks to the Uygurs, then to the Kyrgyz. (The Kyrgyz were said to be the last Turkic people to have resided in Mongolia, but in the section on Mongols, we had listed quite a few groups of peoples who appeared to be more Turkic than the later Mongols.)
 
A simple comparison of some words in later Mongolian language yields the following interesting points: The word for the Mongolinas, Mongqol irgen, is the same word 'irgen' as used in ancient Chinese pronunciation which could be corrobated by the Cantonese pronunciation of 'irgen' and Japanese pronuncitation of 'nin' or 'dgen'. Still more interesting is the fact that Genghis Khan's name, Timuchin, shared the same prefix as some of his brothers and sister, with Ti meaning nothing more than a Chinese word 'Tie' for iron or smith. JOHANN WILHELM ADOLF KIRCHHOFF (1826-1908) mentioned two Kara-Kirghiz groups, i.e., "the On or "Right" in the east, with seven branches (Bogu, Sary-Bagishch, Son-Bagishch, Sultu or Solye, Cherik, Sayak, Bassinz), and the Sol or "Left" in the west, with four branches (Kokche or Kfichy, Soru, Mundus, Kitai or Kintai)". As stated at http://57.1911encyclopedia.org/K/KI/KIRGHIZ.htm, the "Sol section occupies the region between the Talass and Oxus headstreams in Ferghana (Khokand) and Bokhara, ... The On section lies on both sides of the Tian-shan, about Lake Issyk-kul, and in the Chu, Tekes and Narin (upper Jaxartes) valleys." Once again, ancient Chinese words, like right for 'you' (mutated into 'on') and left for 'zuo' (mutated into 'sol'), were adopted by nomadic tribes on the steppe. Note that the Huns used to designate their officials into rightside and leftside virtuous kings, similar to Qin Principality's adoption of rightside and leftside prime ministers. Isenbike Togan of Middle East Technical University stated that "written Chinese is also a system of signs... Central Asian people who were not Chinese used this system at some time in the past, including the Turks." Isenbike Togan concluded that the Turkish word for 'freezing' came from Chinese word 'dong[4]'. Reader jianx mentioned that "...many words have similar sound and meaning as chinese -- the madarin... A few examples: Chinese: Bo2: father's brother --> turkish: Bey: same meaning( more general); Wa(1)Di(4): low land --> Vadi: valley; Shui(3): water --> Sui: water; Jie(2): sister --> ajia: female relative, sister. ...Turkish people have chinese last names. For example, Turkish 'Tan' is obviously a chinese last name. In turkish, it means 'sunrise', which is nearly identical to 'Dan(4)' in chinese --- the Zhou Dynasty's famous Zhou(1)Gong(1) Dan(4) --- you should know it means that the sun is rising over the horizon."
 
As to Turkic language, there had existed a much earlier version of language than the Orkhon script. There is on record a poem written by the wife of a Chinese officer under the Di[1] people's Anterior Qin Dynasty (AD 351-394), and it was said that this love poem was sent to her husband who was exiled to the border post in China's silk road. The points to make here is that it was written in so-called 'Hui' language, namely, a terminology that was to be used for denoting Turkic language later. Hui means something self-looping or percolating, in a similar fashion to the Iranian languages. (Today's Chinese designated Muslims as 'Hui Ren' and Islam as 'Hui Jiao'.) The poem, woven on silk clothing, could be read from right to left and from left to right. Both the earlier 'Hui Wen' and later Orkhon script must have been impacted by more than Chinese. Iranian languages had been found in the same area. Excavated in areas rear Turfan would be manuscripts in Bactrian, the ancient language of Bactria in northern Afghanistan. Kushan ruler Kanishka, who was of Yuezhi origin, adopted Bactrian as the language of his coinage. After the collapse of the Kushan empire, Bactrian language continued in use till the ninth-century, as evidenced by inscriptions from the Tochi valley in Pakistan and the remnants of Buddhist and Manichean manuscripts found in the Turfan oasis. (It goes without saying that neither the reign of Kanishka nor that of the Kushan dynasty approached 1000 years. In about 2Z4 A.D. the Sasanians came to power in Iran. Within a few years the Sasanians had also conquered Bactria, which they ruled during part of the following period through a viceroy known as the Kushan-shah 'king of the Kushans", who was often a prince of the Sasanian royal family. Subsequently Bactria was invaded several times by nomads from the north. At different times the invaders are referred to under various names --- Chionites, Kidarite Huns, Hephthalites --- though it is not entirely clear whether all these names refer to the same or to different peoples. The next arrivals were the Turks, who in the middle of the sixth century allied themselves with the Sasanians to defeat the Hephthalites; and then finally all the local dynasties were swept aside by the coming of Islam and the Arabs.)
 

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