The origins of the Bulgaro-Turkic languages

The Turkic language group is a closely related phylogenetic cluster of languages further related to the Mongolic and Tungusic language groups in the first place [see, for instance, Hugjiltu (1995)^[5] and herein (2009)^[4]], and more distantly, to the tentatively proposed Altaic family in general [Starostin (1991)^[8]].
The total number of modern Turkic ethnicities exceeds 50, especially if large dialect-languages and ethnic groups with individual self-appellations are counted.
Another correct name for the group could be Bulgaro-Turkic, because of the early separation of the Bulgaric branch from the rest of the Turkic languages. According to the present glottochronological study^[2], the Bulgaric languages apparently branched off from the Turkic languages at a rather early period of time, most likely c. 1100-900 BC, which is considerably earlier than normally cited elsewhere^{[10][10a][10b]} (usually based on Starostin's formulas), although the exact date cannot be calculated with precision due to possible lexicostatistical fluctuations and the uniqueness of changes in Chuvash.
The location of the Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic homeland is also still controversial, but was probably confined to the area in northeastern Kazakhstan located along the middle course the Irtysh /ir-TISH/ river and the Irtysh basin, including the Ishim /ee-SHIM/ river [herein (2009-2012)^[3]]. In any case, the geo-lexicostatistical analysis [herein, (2012)^[3] partly based on materials collected in SIGTY, Lexis (2002)^[9]] suggests that Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic people inhabited the forested steppeland of Northern Eurasia during the classical Bronze Age period (c. 2000-1000 BC). They lived in the open territory with deciduous groves (birch, willow, aspen, linden), occasional marshland, saline areas and lakes with various waterfowl and small mammal fauna, particularly beavers. Terms denoting taiga flora/fauna or desert ecozone have not been preserved. They were well familiar with crop cultivation (millet, barley, Spelt, possibly flax), cattle and horse breeding, dairy products, horse harnessing and riding, precious metals and copper working.

On the present classification of Bulgaro-Turkic languages

Turkology is probably one of the oldest branches of historical linguistics, at least judging from the fact that the earliest sketch of Turkic dialects was drawn by Mahmud al-Kashgari c. 1073, years before the first Crusade. There were many previous attempts to build a consistent classification of the Turkic languages [see, for instance, Baskakov (1969)^[7] for historiographic details], the most prominent ones being those of Rémusat (1820), Balbi (1847), Berezin (1848, 1857), Ilminskiy (1861), Vámbéry (1885), Radloff (1882), Katanov (1894), Aristov (1896), Müller (1896), Foy (1903), Korsh (1910), Winkler (1921), Samoylovich (1922), Rahmati (1922), Bogoroditskiy (1934), Ligeti (1934), Batmanov (1947), Räsänen (1949), Malov (1951),  Baskakov (1952, 1969, 1988), Benzing (1959), Menges (1959), Tekin (1980), Johanson (1998), Schoening (1999), Dyachok (2001), Anna Dybo (2006), Mudrak (2002, 2009), ASJP (2009). Whereas some of these were just superficial attempts without much justification, others were part of a lifetime work. Accordingly, the high complexity of building the Turkic classification can be seen from the mere fact that a slightly different version was published about every 5 years for the past 200 years or so.
The classical Baskakov's classification,^[6][7] first presented in 1952 (then republished in 1969, 1988), was widely accepted in the Soviet/Russian Turkology at least until the 2000's, and seems to have strongly affected even some of the western approaches. It did not include, however, any lexicostatistical study, and most of its conclusions were based on phonological and some grammatical observations alone. In his books, Baskakov used terms like "a complex system isogloss" by which he apparently understood a vague conglomeration of traits, which marks his classification as rather phenetic in nature.
As to other recent works, Anna Dybo's research^[10a] was purely lexicostatistical, and Mudrak's classification^[10b] is phono-morphostatistical.

The present taxonomic system was rebuilt nearly from scratch with very little reference to other theoretical publications, and is not directly based on any previous classification system; consequently, it may differ from earlier works in several aspects. It can be seen as an attempt at a cladistic phylogeny which generally tries to differentiate between plesiomorphies and shared innovations.

All the linguistic argumentation and other theoretical studies concerning the classification are provided in The Internal Classification and Migration of Turkic Languages (2009-2012), a separate online article. The lexicostatistical research with possible dates can be found in The Lexicostatistics and Glottochronology of the Turkic Languages (2009-2012). And the research into the homeland position in The Proto-Turkic Urheimat & The Early Migrations of the Turkic Peoples (2012).

The present taxonomic description does not address any rare or obsolete languages, for which no lexical data were found either because of access difficulties or the nearly complete absence thereof (e.g. "Hunnic"), therefore by no means should this publication be viewed as exhaustive. The total number of Turkic languages and major dialects exceeds 60, and it is difficult to mention and describe all of them. Consequently, the present series of articles has mostly been focused on getting all the major subgroups together in the proper order, something that was particularly hard to accomplish considering the close proximity of most Turkic sub-branches and their considerable posterior interaction.

It should also be noted that this particular page was inspired by the comprehensive work on the numerals of the world conducted by Mark Rosenfelder.
The nine nouns listed below were carefully chosen to visually demonstrate the maximum phonological differences across the Turkic languages, unlike the numbers which simply run from 1 to 10. Font colors tend to mark phonologically similar lexemes, except the black color that stands for "unclassified", or gray that marks an "internal lexical replacement or borrowing". You should not pay much attention to the colors, these are mostly auxiliary and were used to analyze the material at the initial stage, but were not removed afterwards, since they still help to pick up similar phonetic elements.

On the mutual proximity of Turkic languages

A frequently asked question concerns the mutual intelligibility between Turkish and other Turkic languages. The question has been explored, for instance, by Talat Tekin (1979)^[22]. Of course, no two languages can be entirely "mutually intelligible", let alone the subjectivity of this concept. In any case, Turkish is pretty much a western language and therefore is rather distant from other Turkic subgroups. Of major Turkic languages, it exhibits close proximity only to Azeri and some of the lesser Seljuk languages (such as Gagauz, to which it is particularly close), sharing with them most grammar and vocabulary (cf., say, Spanish and Portuguese). There's much less mutual intelligibility with Turkmen than one could expect from their common Oghuz descent in historical records. On the other hand, Uzbek and Uyghur, despite being even further geographically, still share lots of familiar Turkic, Persian and Arabic words with Tukish and can be learned with some effort as any two in-group languages, for instance as English and Swedish. The intelligibility of Turkish with the languages that had limited contact with Oghuz tribes and the Arabo-Persian world, such as Kazakh and Kyrgyz, let alone the languages located to the east of the Altay Mountains, seems to be very poor or zero. However, many similar words and typical idioms (for instance, such as the local variants of var/bar/pur "there is" and yok/jok/s'uk "there is not", to name just one of the most frequently used ones) can be picked up even as far as Sakha and Chuvash, whereas the fundamentals of basic grammatical structure are largely similar in all the Turkic languages.

Based on the meticulous lexicostatistical study of 215-word Swadesh lists^[2], we can make conclusions concerning the actual mutual proximity of Turkic languages (see the clickable map above). Outside (1) Chuvash and (2) Sakha, which have been notorious for centuries for their independent positions, there are several internal lexical clusters or intelligibility islands: (3) Oghuz-Seljuk, (4) Great-Steppe, (5) Altay-Khakas, (6) Yugur (not measured because of the scarcity of lexical materials) and (7)Tuvan, although (3a) Turkmen and (4a) Karachay-Balkar likewise seem to be rather detached from the rest. Note that in the real speech, the value for the subjective intelligibility will normally be much lower than the figures in the map obtained for the standardized lexical lists. For instance, 50% in the diagram will approach zero in a real fluent speech of a native speaker.

A note on the Silk Road and the Central Asian Bridge

One can better understand the classification of Turkic languages after familiarizing with the geography of the Silk Road and the concept of the *Central Asian Bridge. During the Middle Ages, people could not use flying carpets. Any kind of travel or ethnic migration could only proceed along narrow, geographically suitable pathways extending between deserts and mountain ranges and forming a natural, permanent network of migration routes. In Central Asia, this network became known as the Silk Road. The Silk Road is often considered merely from the economic perspective, although it also played a critical military, cultural, demographic, and linguistic role being an absolutely unique, vital artery which conveyed and maintained life in Eurasia for many generations. The Huns, the Turks, the Mongols, the Gipsies, whoever passed through Central Asia, could only travel along this natural migratory system; consequently, the distribution and classification of peoples in Asia is in fact nearly predetermined by the geographical structure of its routes and adjacent areas. That's especially true of the Turkic, Mongolic, and Iranian peoples who have lived by and off the Silk Road for hundreds of years. The Silk Road was also a streaming jet of genes running in the opposite directions that contributed to the exchange of the human DNA in Eurasia. It also carried infections, such as plague, in both directions, and brought tea, paper, compass, gunpowder, and other inventions to Europe causing it to rise from the Middle Ages into the era of art, reason, technology, as well as fierce firearm warfare.

A note on clan societies

The social structure of Turkic (and other Eurasian) tribes has been based on patrilineal clans. In many way, clans [Scottish Gaelic clann, Old Irish cland "tribe, offsping"] [Also cf. semantically English kin, Old English cynn "relatives, family"] worked in the same way as modern European surnames, which are apparently nothing but remnants of the Indo-European clan structure. In Europe, the clan structure has been well-known for Celtic tribes. Until the 20th century and sometimes later, the Turkic clans dictated many laws of social living. Each man was supposed to know his family tree down to the 7th (Bashkir, Kazakh) or at least the 4th (Altayans?) generation. Each clan had a guardian spirit that could be interacted with through a shaman (kam) and specific sacrifices. It often had a legendary progenitor, whose story had been passed down in oral tradition, and who had often in turn been connected to a totem animal^[23b][25]. Moreover, a clan often possessed a cattle tamga (Mong. "brand"), which apparently correspond to the European coats of arms.

Naturally, a clan members were considered brothers and sisters, had many social responsibilities and could not intermarry either entirely (Altayans) or until the certain generation. Marriages were often arranged by parents at a very early age — sometimes even at the cradle — with a member of a specific neighboring clan. The memory of cradle or children's marriages seems to be reflected in modern life when we say that "people are destined for each other". Though generelly the marriage customs varied. For In other cases, the young man could choose his bride, and the marriage was accompanied by paying the bride price (qalïn) to the bride's family. Furthermore, judging at least by the detailed Genghis Khan's story^[23a], in case of Mongols wives and concubines could be obtained by force as war trophies. Alien clans could also be integrated into a local society, which explains why we find, for instance, Kipchak clans as far apart as the Altai Mountains and the Black Sea, which means that people with different DNA haplogroups could be part of the society speaking the same language. Of course, in the same way, we find the Smiths or, say, small groups of Italian settlers, as far as Canada and Australia.

As it has been attempted to show in [On the origins of Turkic ethnonymy]^[1], the name of the strongest and richest clan was often passed to the confederacy of clans, and sometimes, after a thousand years or so, to the name of language. Continuing the example with the Smiths, we could make a reconstruction of a certain male, apparently a blacksmith, that lived in England during a certain period before the 10th century, and if the English clan structure were fully developed, the English language could presently be called something like "Smithish" or "Smithonian". Sometimes, such language naming was done almost deliberately in the course of the 20th century, for instance the failure to realize that the word Kypchak functioned basically just as a family name resulted in its rather unfounded extrapolation in Baskakov's classification [see below]. Moreover, in practice the Smith family name was probably reinvented and readopted many times, so not all the Smiths are related to each other; by the same token, not anyone who is called a Tatar or Kypchak has in fact anything to do with the original progenitor of Tatars or Kypchaks. In many cases, trying to find the original meanings of Turkic ethnonyms seems to be quite pointless, since they often do not contain any more meaning than, say, Archer, Hawkins or Green, so unreasonable ethnonymic guessing is a constant source of errors and folk etymologies.

As Radloff explains in the 1860's^[23b], the 19th century's Kazakh social structure — which is apparently a typical representation of the early Turkic societies in general — was built in the following way. At the basement of the social pyramid, 6-10 families formed an aul (a village) that used the same pattern of migration throughout the year. The head of the aul was usually the oldest and the richest man to which the most aul members were personally related. At winter camps, several auls formed a larger conglomeration, where the judicial power belonged to a bey, the richest alderman that was able to settle any conflicts or disputes between different auls. Several clan subdivisions of this type formed a full clan, where the internal matters were usually settled by a council of beys. At times, a group of clan subdivision could branch off the rest to form a new clan that would receive the name of the ruling bey. Finally, to defend from external enemies or to invade them and capture their pastures, cattle or slaves, a number of these clans could be united into a horde headed by an electable khan. The rulers and their clans were known as ak sök "white bone", whereas the common people as kara kalk "black people" or kara sök "black bone".

Notes on transcription

The UTF encoding, let alone the IPA signs, were avoided right from the beginning for reasons of compatibility, consequently the present system of transcription and transliteration may seem slightly unusual.

ü, ö is used as in Turkish or German; ï is a back vowel similar to the Russian <bI> letter or the Turkish <I>; ê is mostly schwa as in "about", but in some languages may denote a different sound; N is the nasal /ng/; x is usually a velar <kh> similar to the Russian <x> or Spanish <j> or stronger; sh as in English; zh as in "treasure" or less palatalized; ð (in Bashkir, Turkmen) as in "this"; ß as in "thump"; s' (in Chuvash) is a palatalized form of /s/ similar to the Russian <Cb> with the soft sign at the end or a soft /s/ to some extent similar to the Japanese <sh>; d' is a palatalized /d/ in Altay Turkic similar to the very light pronunciation of <J> in English; J is a sound similar to <j> in "Jack" or a strongly palatalized /d'/;

q and G are respectively voiceless and voiced deep velars (or even uvulars); [Note that <q> is the traditional way to denote the voiceless "throaty" sound in English, usually of Arabic, cf. "Quran", or Turkic origin, cf. "Nissan Qashqai"; even though this sound must have been the original Proto-Turkic phoneme, it seems to be falling out of use throughout the Turkic history, being slowly replaced by /k/ and /g/ from Russian, Greek and other western languages. In other words, the /k/:/q/ distinction is in fact often non-phonemic: the /q/ is usually pronounced in /qa/, /qu/, /qo/, /qï/, but moved forward allophonically in /ke/, /ki/. Moreover, younger Russian-influenced speakers may replace it by /k/ or attenuate it in all the cases.];

*P/B (in Tuvan, Tofa, Proto-Turkic) is a way to denote reconstructed phonemes probably intermediate between /p/ and /b/ as in Mandarin or some Mongolic languages; D- (in Yugur, Tuvan) is a reconstructed phoneme probably intermediate between /t/ and /d/ as in Mandarin; -D- (in Old Turkic, intervocal) is a reconstructed phoneme that was probably similar either to the Spanish intervocal -d- or the interdental English /ð/; *S (in Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic) is a reconstructed phoneme with much surrounding controversy, probably similar either to the palatalized /s'/ as in Chuvash or the Japanese /sh/ or the Russian /sch/ or even the English /J/; *R (in Proto-Turkic) is a reconstructed trill, probably a mixture of /r/ and /z/ as in Czech; *L (in Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic) is a reconstructed palatalized lateral fricative similar to the one in modern Khalkha Mongolian, essentially a mixture of /l/ and /s/; *H marks intense aspiration or a similar reconstructed phoneme; ' after vowels (in Chuvash) marks stress; the pronunciation of certain other phonemes may in fact be unconfirmed, unattested or unknown.

The Turkic languages do not have any clearly defined rules for the dynamic stress as the European languages do, and the stress seems to vary depending on the intonation, but separate words are normally pronounced with the stress on the final syllable, e.g. usually Tatar /tah-TAR/.

Attempts at the Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic reconstruction

Any kind of reconstruction of a proto-language is more of an art than an exact science, so inevitably it should be taken with a grain of salt. For this reason, there was some substantial disagreement between Yusuf Gürsey and me (2009-10) on a number of issues in Proto-Turkic, e.g. the problem of the initial S*- vs. y*, the initial t-/d-, b-/m- controversy, the final -q in Chuvash, etc. In any case, I tried to perform the reconstruction to the best of my knowledge.

Listen to the audio with Proto-Bulgaro-Turkic 1-10 numbers as they might have sounded circa 1500 BC.
(If it doesn't open by itself, save and rename .wav to .mp3; repetitions reflect possible variations).

Modern Chuvash /cha-VAHSH, chuh-VUSH/, cf. Russified pronunciation /choo-VUSH/ is still spoken in the Chuvash Republic (capital: Cheboksary /chehbok-SAR-eh/) and is believed to be the direct descendant from the language of Volga Bulgaria (ancient capitals: Bolghar and Bilar; the latter was a large city about 2 miles across). Volga Bulgaria was founded c. 670, roughly between the modern cities of Kazan and Samara, near the confluence of the Volga /VOL-ga/^[26] and Kama /KAH-ma/^[26] River. Commanding the middle Volga, this state controlled trade between the northern Europe and Persia, and was similar in this respect to the Kievan Rus /KEE-ee-van ROOS/ that controlled the Dnepr /NEE-per/^[26] River. Volga Bulgaria was Islamized in 922 after being visited by an Arab writer and diplomat Ibn-Fadlan. Curiously, his famous account inspired a modern book, whose plot was used to make The 13th Warrior movie starring Antonio Banderas. Volga Bulgaria was destroyed during the Tatar-Mongol invasion in 1236. Consequently, Middle Chuvash has been strongly affected by Tatar. Today, the "Devil's Tower" in the Yelabuga /ye-LAH-booga/ town on the Kama River (fig. left below) is one of the few standing remnants of this long gone civilization, although the 13-14th cent. buildings in Bolghar (fig. right below) also preserve its spirit. In 1552, the Russians seized Kazan /ka-ZAN/^[26] further affecting the Chuvash language and culture. In any case, the standalone position of Chuvash among other Turkic languages is rather indisputable, much of its lexical core is quite archaic, and it can be seen as one of the most valuable data sources for the purposes of Bulgaro-Turkic reconstruction. There are 1.04 million speakers (2010)^[24d], most of them bilingual in Russian. As an example, here's a very lovely folk song (mp3) in Chuvash with an English translation — note certain Slavic features in music and phonology.

Note that most musical clips below are well-chosen and have pleasant, unusual or enthralling tunes, so we do recommend you listen to them as part of this ethnography study.

Chuvash traditional dress (left); the reconstruction of the Bolghar City (right)
the original Volga Bulgar tower in Yelabuga near the Kama river (left below)
the restored buildings dating from the Golden Horde period (right below)

This taxon, named Turkic Proper herein, excludes any Bulgaric languages. It is also sometimes confusingly known as common Turkic, which may have misleading associations with Proto-Turkic or even certain Turkic conlangs.

The late homeland of Proto-Turkic Proper was evidently located near the Altai-Sayan Mountains /al-TY^[26], sah-YAHN^[26]/, most likely near northwestern ridges of the Altai between 900 BC and 300 BC. This conclusion^[3] can be drawn from the following evidence: (1) the historical distribution of the early Turkic tribes and the result of backtracking their migration vectors; (2) the location of the center-of-gravity point of the maximum language diversity among Turkic; (3) archaeological estimations; (4) the meticulous glottochronological analysis. Similar hypotheses were suggested, in fact, at least as early as the 19th century^[25].

This Proto-Turkic period seems to match the onset of the Iron Age in West Siberia, when iron daggers and horse riding became widespread, which might have contributed to the active spread of the early Turkic dialects. The glottochronologically determined time depth of the Proto-Turkic split, therefore, seems to be greater than that of Slavic or Romance (c. 1600 years) but more or less similar to that of Germanic.

Apparently, there existed three main early dialects: (1) Eastern that moved towards Lake Baikal thus forming Proto-Yakutic, (2) Central that initially stayed near the Altai, (3) Southern that migrated into Dzungaria and Mongolia.

Despite considerable separation between these earliest branches, some of the Turkic languages within the internal subgroups may still retain a great deal of mutual intelligibility due to their recent diversification, common borrowings or posterior contacts.

Linking the early Turks to "Siberian Scythians"

After the beginning of the Iron Age in West Siberia somewhere between 700 BC and 300 BC, rich archaeological sites in the region of the Tian Shan, Altai and Sayan mountains mark the presence of the so called "Siberian Scythians" (see the Pazyryk /pah-ze-RIK, pah-zeh-REK/ culture in the Altai Mountains, the Tagar /ta-GAR/ culture along the upper Yenisei /YE-ne-SEY/^[26], the Uyuk /oo-YOOK/ culture in Tyva). These archaeological cultures include burial mounds, horse burials (usually regarded as typically Turkic by archaeologists), gold bead clothing (the Arzhan kurgan, Uyuk culture) and other gold artifacts, iron weapons, horse harness, chariots, petroglyphs, mummies in permafrost, remnants of clothing including well-preserved carpets, and other exceptional finds. Despite the name, no direct relatedness to the true western Scythians of Herodotus can be demonstrated in any possible way. The term "Scythian" as used in this context is a purely archaeological designation describing the mutual resemblance of the Iron Age cultures of Central Eurasia that used similar iron weaponry, horse harness, and particularly, the very specific artistic style with dynamic gold and bronze animal figurines. Therefore, based on the temporal and geographic coincidence, we can infer^[3] that these archaeologically attested ethnic groups could in fact have formed the basis for the late Proto-Turkic (Proper) unity and the early Turkic dialects after their initial spilt, although this is still controversial.

Additionally, both the early Chinese records and the anthropological and genetic studies point to the presence of "European invaders" including an unusually high concentration of the Proto-Indo-European R1a1 haplogroup in the Altay-Sayan area, which matches the high R1a1 concentration in modern Altay and Kyrgyz people and other easternmost ethnic groups of Central Asia. These findings may lead to the representation of the early Turks as people of European (Caucasian) rather than Mongoloid descent.

Essentially, Yakuts are the Turkic group resulting from the expansion along the Lena River all the way to the Arctic Ocean (probably after the 13th century). The tribal confederacy of Proto-Sakha, known as Kurykan /koo-reh-KAHN/, supposedly lived on the western shores of Lake Baikal c. 6-10th centuries. Sakha has many Mongolic lexical borrowings, and some of its vocabulary comes from an unknown source, though there are many important archaic Turkic features, as well. Russian cultural loanwords are also very typical. In any case, Sakha seems to be highly deviant in many respects, having little to do with Tuvan or Khakas. Generally, there isn't much doubt that the Yakutic subgroup should be viewed as an important, early-splitting branch of the Turkic languages.

This subgroup includes Altay, Khakas, Tuvan and their dialects. It probably corresponds to the descendants of the so called Yenisei Kyrgyz, a historically important group of eastern Turkic tribes that were attested under various names in Chinese chronicles between 200-900 AD, but which dissolved after the 13th century's Mongol invasion. Their territory was also mentioned under the name Kirgizskaya Zemlitsa "The Kirgiz Land" during the clashes with Russians in the 17th century.

The Yenisei Kyrgyz originally inhabited the Minusinsk Depression in Khakassia (Minusinsk /mee-noo-SINSK/ is a city near Abakan, the capital of Khakassia). This is a geographically suitable plain with steppes, lakes, and valleys located along the upper Yenisei between the Kuznetsk Alatau /kooz-NETSK AH-lah-TOU/, Western, and Eastern Sayan ridges. Protected by these mountains, the Minusinsk Depression has relatively mild climate convenient for agriculture, to the extent that even cherry and apricot orchards have been grown there at least since the 19th century. By proceeding south, up the Yenisei River, and after crossing the Western Sayan, one can arrive into the interconnected Tuva Depression, where the Tyva Republic is located, and then, by following further along the uppermost reaches of the Yenisei, into northern Mongolia, inhabited by Tuvan-related ethnic groups (Tsaatans /tsah-TAHN/ and Soyots /saw-YOT/).

A note on the pronuciation of Tuva and Tyva must be added: the traditional Anglophone pronunciation is /TOO-va/, though the name of the country itself has been formally changed in the 1990's to Tyva /tuh-VAH/, which is closer to the Turkic original, whence the modern discrepancy.

Whereas Tuvans often still live in classical yurts, many Khakas and Altay peoples may have lived in dugout log huts, leading semi-nomadic lifestyle, suitable for fishing, crop cultivation and metal working. It is in fact these types of dwellings that are typically found in archaeological sites across West Siberia in the Bronze and Iron Ages.

The Proto-Altay-Sayan or Proto-Yenisei-Kyrgyz tribes seem to be identifiable with the Tashtyk /tash-TIK/ archaeological culture (2nd BC-5th AD) famous for their stunning, poignant funerary masks showing rather European features.

Another striking trait is the odd ethnological resemblance of Altay and Tuvan shamans to the North American Indians, which may be far from coincidental, judging by the proximity of Yeniseian, which has recently been shown to be linguistically related to Na-Dene (see Dene-Yeniseian superfamily). The genetic studies (conducted since 1997) too demonstrate high concentration of Native American mtDNA lineages in Tuvan, Soyot, Khakas, Altay, and Buryat population [Zakharov (2003)].

The Yenisei Kyrgyz are said to have destroyed the Uyghur (= Gökturk) Empire in Mongolia and its capital Ordu-Balïq /or-DOO bah-LIK/ in 840 AD, which caused the final dissipation of the Orkhon /or-HON/ Turkic peoples, but led to the rise of the Yenisei Kyrgyz Kaganate (840-1207).

The Altay and Khakas languages and dialects seem to be rather archaic, and contain relatively few non-Turkic loanwords in their basic vocabularies, except for abundant borrowings into cultural vocabulary from Russian. Generally, Altay and Khakas, along with Kyrgyz of Kyrgyzstan, may provide some example of what late Proto-Turkic may have sounded like.

The Altay and Khakas population has been historically subdivided into over a hundred clans, known as seoks (sö:k "bone"), which suppose patrilineal genetic descendence from a common progenitor.

On the meaning of Kyrgyz (Note: all ethnonymic remarks are unavoidably hypothetical.)
The word "Kyrgyz" probably originates from the name or alias of an ancient clan progenitor. This name must have spread to several other clans and finally become overused and ambiguously applied to many ethnic groups of various descent. It is supposed herein that the word by itself seems to have the same root as in *kyr- "to break" or as in *kork- "to fear" and may contain a reduplication of *kyr-kyr > *kyr-kyz with the first -r retained before the consonant. Words of the same phonological shape in Turkic of West Siberia seem to allude to terror and force, cf. Tuvan korgysh, Khakas xorGïs, Kyrgyz korkush "fear, terror"; Kazakh qurtu "exterminate", qïrqu "shearing, cutting"; Altai kïr "erase", kïrkïsh "shearing", Sakha kïrgïs "fight, destroy each other", etc. A more popular but less likely version is that it originates from "qIrq + iz" (forty + an unknown suffix). The outdated ethnonym "Karagas" for Tofa(lar) may be just another way to pronounce "Kyrgyz"; moreover, note the direct retention of this ethnonym in Fuyu Kyrgyz in China.

However, curiously and quite confusingly, the modern generic self-appellation of Khakas and Altay peoples is Tadarlar (Tatars), probably since the days of the widespread usage of this term in the Russian Empire of the 18-19th century, which implies that the historiographic significance of the name Yenisei Kyrgyz should not be exaggerated.

The Tuvan-Tofa subgroup represents those ethnic groups that settled further to the south in the Western and Eastern Sayan mountains. Geographically, Tuvans, Tofalars and Todzhins can be seen as those Yenisei Kyrgyz people that migrated a little further upstream from Khakassia into Tyva and settled down along the uppermost reaches of the Yenisei River. Glottochronologically, the Tuvan-Tofa subgroup must have separated from Proto-Khakas and Proto-Altay by about 250 AD^[2]. The Tuvan languages and dialects are rather peculiar and exhibit many unusual words, including Mongolic borrowings, so, for the most part, they cannot be understood by the Turks of Central Asia or even their closest Khakas-Altai neighbors. The self-appellation "Tofa" or "Tïva" might in some way be related to the name of the Tuba /too-BAH/ River (allegedly formerly known as Ul) in the Minusinsk Depression near Abakan, though this is controversial.

The archaeological sites of the Uyuk culture reveal striking round burials under kurgans with unique gold artifacts (Arzhan-1, Arzhan-2)^[11][12] dating to 800-600 BCE, usually identified with the rather chimerical "Siberian Scythians".
Note that the Tuvan and Tofa(lar) spelling systems may contain voiced symbols, such as <b>, <d>, <g>, which in practice denote the so called "weak" consonants that are normally pronounced as unvoiced in the beginning of a word or as semi-voiced in the intervocal position, as opposed to <p>, <t>, <k>, which denote aspirated consonants.

The Khakas subgroup includes at least the following representatives: (Standard) Khakas /ha-KUS, hhuh-KAHS/ (which is basically a rather artificial literery 20th century's koine based on Sagai) and several more true-to-life vernacular languages, such as Sagai /sa-GY/ (presently, the most commonly spoken vernacular Khakas to the east of the Kuznetsk Alatau Mountains), Kach(a) (Russian "kAchinskiy"; actually from the old self-appellation /qa:sh/; now rare, though still active in the beginning of the 20th century), Kyzyl (almost extinct), Koibal, Beltir (extinct); Mras-Su Shor, Kondom Shor (meaning the Shor people living along the Mrassu and Kondom Rivers near the Kuznetsk Alatau); Middle Chulym /choo-LIM/ (spoken along the middle course of the Chulym River in the north, now at the verge of extinction), possibly Lower Chulym (acc. to a local researcher, the last speaker died in 2010). According to Baskakov, the subgroup may even include some of the northern Altai dialects.

The modern ethnonym "Khakas" was rather artificially created only in 1918, patterned on the then-supposed reading of Chinese chronicles [see the discussion in the published correspondence by Yakhontov, Butanayev (1992)]^[13]. This word is still out of use in Khakas communities, except for formal occasions, with the self-appellation "Tadar(lar)" being used instead; the latter ethnonym is also generally accepted among the Altay people. The reason why the original generic name for Khakas appears to be lost must be connected to the long-standing differentiation of the Altay-Sayan subgroup.

The Khakas peoples had traditionally practiced nomadic herding, agriculture, hunting, and fishing, but were mostly Russified and Westernized in the course of the 20th century.

Shor (2840 speakers (2010) ^[24d]), further in the Kuzentsk Alatau, is a small ethnic group closely related to Khakas people. The Shor people that lived in forested areas between the Altai and Kuznetsk Alatau created peculiar songs, such as Pörü "The wolf" (performer: Chiltis Tannagasheva). It really doesn't go well with the modern studio, telling an entirely different story of prehistoric survival.

Fuyu Kyrgyz is an often omitted and oddly located, presently nearly extinct variant of Khakas in northeastern China. It is now remembered only by the elderly and only to a very small extent. It was originally distributed to the northwest of Harbin along the Nenjiang River near a town called Fuyü, hence the odd exonym; the self-appellation is in fact Gyrgys or Xyrgys. The Fuyü Kyrgyz seem to have been exiled form Khakssia to Dzungaria in 1703-06 and then resettled to China in 1761 after the conquest of Dzungaria by the Qing Empire. They apparently belongs to the Khakas subtaxon (cf. namir < Khakas nanmïr "rain"; suG "water"). They were studied by Hu, Zheng-Hua (1982), and recently revisited by Butanayev (2005) from Khakassia. No detailed description is available (in Mandarin only?). Religion: originally shamanism, then Lamaism.

The Chulym /choo-LIM/ river (the tributary of the Ob) is a long way to the north from any Khakas or Altay areas. Local villages seem to be situated at the very edge of the world: there are basically hardly any human settlements to the north of them for a good thousand miles, nothing but taiga and marshland. In the 20th century, Chulym was studied by Dulzon (1940-60's) and Biryukovich (1970's). After their formal recognition in 2001 as a separate ethnicity, the Chulym people managed to set up their own village festivals and language lessons. Precontact way of living: fishing, millet and barley cultivation, dug-out dwellings. Religion: shamanism before the 18th century, presently atheic or orthodox. 355 persons, only 45 speakers (2010)^[24d] (cf. 380 speakers in 1970's). [Note that there exists another Chulym River, the tributary of Lake Chany]

Subgroup 2c:
Altay (Turkic)

The Yenisei-Kyrgyz migrants to the Altai Mountains

The Altay (Turkic) subgroup is a complex assortment of rather poorly studied dialect-languages with ambiguous classification, some of which may exhibit proximity to Khakas, while others to the Tian-Shan Kyrgyz. The peculiarities of the lesser Altay languages are frequently underestimated or completely ignored.
There are now 65.500 nominal speakers of the Altay languages (2002), though the local dialects quickly fall out of use.
According to Baskakov (1969)^[7], who studied some of the Altay languages in vivo after the WWII, the subgroup may have the following structure:

The North Altay Turkic subtaxon includes:
(1) Kumandy /koo-MAHN-deh, koo-mahn-DEE/ (2890 persons, c. 740 speakers (2010)^[24d];
(2) Chalkan /chal-KAHN/ or Kuu /KOO/ (1180 persons, all bilingual in Russian; named after the Kuu ("Swan") River);
(3) Tuba /too-BAH/ (rather intermediate between North and South, 1965 persons, 230 speakers (2010)).

The South Altay Turkic subtaxon includes at least the following languages:
(1) Standard Altay, or Altay-kizhi /al-TUY kee-ZHEE/ from kizhi "person", or Altay (Proper). There are 74.230 persons formally listed as "Altayans", c. 56.000 speakers (2010)^[24d]. Before 1948, the Altay people were confusingly named "Oyrots" after the subgroup of Mongolic languages due to their interaction with the Dzungarians in the 18th century, though Radloff (1860's) called them "Altayans".
(2) Teleut /te-leh-OOT/ (used as standard before 1917; 2640 persons, 975 speakers (2010)); for a typical example of the Teleut speech, see this clip (it is probably pretty close to what late Proto-Turkic sounded like);
(3) Telengit /te-len-GIT/ (situated further in the mountains, thus is less affected by external influence; 3710 persons (2010), mostly village dwellers).

Generally speaking, Altay (Turkic) is sometimes seen as rather intermediate between Khakas and Kyrgyz languages. However, much of the Altay vocabulary seems to match Khakas, and to a lesser extent, Tuvan, therefore, according to the present study^[1], Altay (Turkic) is viewed as part of the Altay-Sayan subgroup, being closely related to Khakas. Also, note that much of the southern Altai Mountains are part to eastern Kazakhstan, which may explain certain non-Altay-Sayan features in Altay Turkic as a result of secondary interaction with Kazakh.
Also note that the Altai Republic (capital: Gorno-Altaysk) and the Altai Krai /al-TY KRY/(administrative center: Barnaul /bar-na-OOL/) are geographically connected but politically different federal subjects of the Russian Federation that should not be conflated. Altay peoples are mostly situated in the Altay Republic, whereas Altai Krai is presently almost entirely Russian-speaking.

Kyrgyzstan /KIR-giz-STAHN/(capital: Bishkek /bish-KEK/) is a small mountainous country in the Tian Shan Mountains near Lake Issyk Kul /EE-sek KOOL/^[26], originally situated along the northeastern part of the Silk Road. The legendary history of the Kyrgyz people, including battles against Kitans and Dzungarians, are described in the Epic of Manas /ma-NAHS/, an extremely long, orally transmitted poem first mentioned in the 16th century and written down in 1885. Kyrgyzstan was integrated into Russia in 1876, but eventually became independent in 1991. Youngsters often no longer speak Russian. Kyrgyz /kr-GIZ; keer-GEEZ/ was known as "Kara-Kyrgyz" before 1920s. C. 4 million speakers. Religion: formally Muslims, though Islam did not take much root among Kazakh, and even less so, among the Kyrgyz people in the 19th century or earlier, so both languages are relatvely free of Arabic borrowings and Islamic tradition.
Listen to the song Age 18 from the 1960's peformed by Zhanetta Bobkova (2009) — a nice voice, and the poetry and the girl (and the numerals) — as well as another old song: Ömür daira "The River of LIfe" by Kochkoro.

The Republic of Kazakhstan /KAH-zak-STAHN/ (capital: Astana /AHS-ta-NAH/) is just that giant, eye-catching spot on the map of Central Asia. Despite its large size, much of central Kazakstan's territory is in fact semi-desert continental steppe with most population concentrated in the northern area along the border with Russia or near the Tian Shan Mountains. Note the former capital Almaty /AHL-ma-TEE/ probably from Kyrgyz Alma-To: "Apple Mountain"). Historically, the Kazakh /ka-ZAHK^[26], ka-ZAHH/ people seem to be just those Kyrgyz nomads that spread beyond their original Jeti-Su homeland and the Chu river near the Tian-Shan after the 1460's, and whose language was afterwards strongly affected by the Noghai and Tatar dialects of the dissolved Golden Horde. In the 17th-18th centuries the country was divided into the three zhüzes (jüzes) (large confederacies of Kazakh tribes). Since the 1820's, Russians in Kazakhstan began to use Kazakhstan's territory for coal mining, agriculture, nuclear tests, and launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Kazakhstan became independent in 1990, emerging as a huge Central Asian power with rapidly growing economy and relatively high level of urbanization. Kazakh and Kyrgyz are mutually intelligible, and the Kazakh people were even named "Kazak-Kyrgyz" or "Kaisak-Kyrgyz" between the 1730's and 1920's (the self-appellation seemed to be Kazakh, though) [see e.g. Melioranskiy (1894)^[14]]. Cf. an old Kazakh saying, "Kazakh and Kyrgyz are one kin, but who in the world made Sart? (=a Chagatai city dweller, trader, an Uzbek)." (/qazaq qyrGyz bir tuGan, sart shirkindi kim tuGan/) C. 12 million speakers. Listen to the Jalgan ay folk song by Asemkhan from the Xinjiang autonomous region in China where Kazakh is also spoken — a nice and pure eastern Kazakh pronunciation and admirable voice.

Baraba Tatars, Tomsk Tatars and Tobol-Irtysh (or just Sibir) Tatars are historical Turkic population of West Siberia.
Presently, Baraba, /ba-RAH-ba/ are a tiny spot of village dwellers that originally inhabited the area around large Lake Chany /chah-NEE, chah-NEH/, along the Om River /awm/ (hence, the name of the large and important Siberian city of Omsk, founded in 1716) and the adjacent Baraba Steppe. The Baraba people were first attested by 1595, and described by Messerschmidt -Strahlenberg expedition in 1721,^[16] the famous field study that, among other discoveries, led to the early establishment of the Altaic family by Strahlenberg. The Baraba legends mention their relatedness to the Khanate of Sibir (1495-1582)^[16d] and the Samoyedic population,^[16] which seems to be true. However, unique grammatical differences (e.g. the bara-tï-n "you go" present tense) and the lack of certain Kypchak-Kimak-related features (e.g. the -ar future instead of -achaq)^[16d] lead to a suggestion that Baraba might the remnant of the early Great-Steppe tribes of the Baraba and Kulunda Steppe that had lived between the Ob /awb/ and Irtysh Rivers before 500-700 AD and then intermingled with Kimaks. Some specific features relate Tobol-Irtysh Tatar to Baraba; also, note the possible existence of Chulym/Baraba interaction (cf. üts : üts "three"). The language seems to have been contaminated by Kazan Tatar during the 20th century. The ethnonym Baraba does not mean bar-ba "don't go" or similar, as explained in folk etymology, but is probably related to the legendary clan progenitor Baram.^[16d][1] Economy: settled, non-nomadic population that lived in wooden homes, practiced crop cultivation, animal husbandry, hunting, fishing.^[16e] Religion: originally shamanism, Islamized. About 4000 persons are cited^[16f], but few actual native speakers.

A Baraba woman (c. 2005)

Clickable, based on ethnographic maps (1964)^[24e]

The deviant Bashkir phonology (ch > s, s > h, z > ð) is sometimes explained by the absorption of a Ugric substratum. Curiously, Bashkirs might at least partly descend from Proto-Hungarians (Magyars /ma-JAR/) of the Hungaria Magna and the other closely-related Ugric tribes (as well as possibly from Bulgaric). Proto-Hungarians were mentioned as still speaking Hungarian c. 1235 by Friar Julian, but were apparently linguistically assimilated by the Tatars during the expansion of the Golden Horde, which seems to date the emergence of the Bashkir dialect to after the 13th century. Between 1220 and 1234, the Bashkirs were fighting the Mongols, preventing their expansion to the west, but then voluntary joined the Moscovy in 1557.
Judging by the rather unreasonable proximity of Bashkir and Kazan Tatar languages, which must have almost necessarily involved some secondary interaction, Bashkir may have been afterwards affected by the Kazan Tatar immigration to the Ural Mountains^[1].
The ethnonym "al-Bashkïrt" by itself had existed much earlier and was first mentioned in the Arab sources c. 840, and then attested by Ibn-Fadlan near the Emba /EHM-ba/ River and the confluence of the Volga and Kama in 922. Therefore, there is some terminological discrepancy: in linguistics the word "Bashkir" seems to refer to a relatively recent phenomenon, whereas its historical attestation is much older.
Nomadic animal husbandry until the 18th century. Religion: Islam since the 950s, but mostly non-religious since the Soviet period. Population: 1.3 million speakers, most of them bilingual in Russian. Listen to Kiler keshe, kemder bar "Someone's coming, someone's there (at the gate)" with the typical sights of the Southern Ural.

Crimean Karaites /KA-re-ite/^[26] are a rather odd and presently very small branch of adherents of Karaite Judaism, based on the reading of the Tora itself rather than its interpretations. Their exact origins are obscure, though they seem to be descendants of a Jewish sect (probably from the Ottoman Empire) that, by the 13th century, must have switched to Polovtsian spoken in the Crimean Peninsula. Being socially detached, this language must have branched off in the same way as Ladino and Yiddish, becoming known as Karaim, meaning in Hebrew "those who read (the scriptures)", though the terms Karaite and Karaim are frequently conflated. The connection with Khazars has been speculated as early as the 19th century but is poorly corroborated. In 1392, a part of the Crimean Karaites were relocated to Lithuania thus forming Trakai (Lithuanian) Karaim. During the WWII, the Karaites were saved from extermination after managing to demonstrate their formal dissociation from Judaism. Karaites were literate and many were quite influential despite their small population. Presently, only c. 600 persons in the Crimea (2002), 257 in Lithuania (1997), c. 1000 in other countries. Self-appellations: Qïrïm qaraylar, Qaray, etc.

The Kumyk /koo-MIK, koo-MEK/ people occupy the steppeland along the northwestern coast of the Caspian Sea in Dagestan, which is probably one of the most ethnically complex federal unities in the world. Neither Kumyk, nor Nogai own their formal autonomy. The Kumyk origins are unclear, though their geographical position and notable dialectal differentiation indicates they arrived to the Caspian before the Nogais, that is before the mid-16th century, which is supported by the foundation of Shamkhalate of Tarki in the 1440's. Considering that Tarki Village near Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, has often been associated with the legendary Samandar, formed along the Silk Road and destroyed in 969, the direct descendancy from Khazars has often been claimed. Historical economy: agriculture, fishing, settled living in villages. Printed books since the mid-19th century. Religion: Sunni Islam. Population: 502.000 persons, 426.000 speakers (2010)^[24d]. Self-appellation: qumuq. Dialects: Hasavyurt and Buynaksk (Standard Kumyk), Kaytaksk, Podgorny, Tersk.

Salar /sa-LAR/ is a language of controversial classification. According to legends, the Salar people are said to have moved into approximately the same location as the Yugur people, Xunhua /shoon-HWAH/ Salar Autonomous County in western China, from Samarqand, Uzbekistan or the Khorasan Province c. 1370, in other words, during the rise of Tamerlane. This could have been accomplished by traveling along the Silk Road. Traditional Turkology usually describes Salar as "Oghuz", however there is a conspicuous absence of any typical Oghuz-Seljuk innovations. The striking phono-semantic mutations, grammatical similarity to Yugur (including the loss of conjugation), and the strong Chinese influence (e.g. native numbers no longer in use, phonological adaptations, the sporadic use of "shï" as copula, etc.) also tend to contradict this grouping. By no means should Salar be mindlessly viewed as just "Oghuz"— rather it seems to be the outcome of creolized transition from the local Middle Yugur substratum to one of the closely located Turkic languages such as early Chagatai or late (Toquz) Oghuz, additionally with some Chinese and probably even Dongxiang and Tibetan influence. Religion: Islam. C. 100.000 ethnic Salars, but the language is now mostly spoken only by the elder. Listen to this lovely traditional Salar song.

Figs: left to right, examples of the Karakhanid architecture:
(1) A decoration with swastikas; (2) Burana Tower, Balasagun;
(3) Aisha Bibi Mausoleum, Taraz, Kazakhstan;
(4) Mausoleum in Uzgen, western Kyrgyzstan; (5) a Karakhanid Minaret, Bukhara (1127)

Khalaj /ha-LAHJ/ (not to be confused with a Northwest Iranian language of the same name) is a poorly classified Turkic language in western Iran near Tehran, which is famous for several unusual features, such as the initial h- where other languages have only vowels, the intervocal -d- as in hadaq "foot" and the long vowels. Khalaj had been mentioned in a legend recited by Mahmud al-Kashgari, and then was discovered and studied in vivo first by Minorsky (1906) and then by Doerfer (1978), who nearly went to the extent of viewing Khalaj as one of the most basic and early-diversified Turkic languages. However, according to other studies^[10b][1], Khalaj is tentatively classified as a relatively late offshoot of the Karakhanid expansion, which is supported by (1) the post-Karakhanid sonorization pattern; (2) the presence of intervocalic -D- (as in aDaq) in Orkhon-Kharakhanid; (3) the lack of profound historical changes glottochronologically consistent with an earlier separation and other features. Khalaj has also been strongly affected by Azeri or other Seljuk-Oghuz languages, as well as the local Iranian adstratum. Economy: agriculture, nomadic sheep breeding. 42 000 speakers, mostly bilingual in Farsi.

The ethnonym Oghuz /aw-GOOZ/ most likely goes back to a personal name of a legendary progenitor, described in several versions of the oral legends collected in the Oghuz-nama ("The Oghuz Narratives"), with the earliest known record by Rashid al-Din dating to the end of the 13th century. The name or alias itself may presumably have meant öqüz "bull, ox" implying force and vigor. The earliest known Oghuz people were a tribal confederacy of the 6th century residing near the Orkhon Göktürks and subjugated by them. At the time, they were already regarded as a tribe different from Tür(ü)k, Tatar and Kïrgïz. The ethnonym was first attested as Altï Oghuz (The Six Oghuz) in a Yenisei inscription, and then as the Toquz Oghuz (The Nine Oghuz), Sekkiz Oghuz (The Eight Oghuz) in the Orkhon writings in Mongolia, and as the Üch Oghuz (The Three Oghuz) near Kyrgyzstan. By 775, the Oghuz tribes were situated near Talas in Sogdiana, so we may assume they have arrived there as part of a mass migrations to the Western Göktürk Kaganate. Apparently, they eventually traveled along the Syr-Darya /SIR DAR-ya/^[26] (Yaxartes) River towards its delta in the Aral Sea where they formed the Transoxanian Oghuz confederacy with its capital Yangi-Kent and a ruler titled yabgu (=prince). There in the Transoxanian steppeland, they were witnessed by several Arab travelers, including a vivid description by Ibn-Fadlan in 922. Mahmud al-Kashgari (1072) mentioned several Oghuz towns, some of which have been rediscovered by archaeologists; he also stated that "Turkmen" and "Oghuz" meant essentially the same, which implies that the modern-day Turkmen people must be the direct descendants of the Transoxanian Oghuz. At the time, the name Turkmen apparently could be applied to any Islamized Turks.
The Oghuz dialect-language of the 11th century is documented in Al-Kashgari's writings mostly as unconnected words and phrases. In the course of the 12th century, the Transoxanian Oghuz tribes apparently migrated towards the Kopet-Dag Mountains or dissipated due to the Kypchak expansion to the west. According to a poorly supported hypothesis, they could also be connected to the Pecheneg raids into the Kievan Rus, but the origins of the latter are highly controversial.

The remnants of Juvara, an Oghuz city discovered by archaeologists near the Aral Sea in 2008

A Turkmen bride

Ashgabad Trade Center

Seljuk (Oghuz) archer