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Turkic kinship terminologies represent a mixture of words of native and foreign origin, and the proportion of loanwords reflects the degree of linguistic and cultural interference between the Turkic and other Eurasian languages. As the intensity of socio-cultural relations between languages and communities increases, the proportion of loanwords in kinship vocabulary also increases. This paper provides an overview of historical, linguistic, and cultural aspects of kinship loanwords in the Turkic languages.The paper covers the following eight kinds of kin types in the Turkic languages: (1) parents, (2) siblings, (3) cousins, (4) children, (5) grandparents, (6) uncles/aunts, (7) nephews/nieces, (8) grandchildren. Due to the fact that in the conventional Turkic system of kinship, which is especially well-represented in pre-modern Turkic languages, two or three of these kins may be merged in one single term on the basis of generation and lineage branch, kinship loanwords examined are ordered by this criterion.

The paper examines the mysterious term al-wark, which–according to Maḥmūd of Kāsgarī (11th century AD)–denotes a small animal similar to a badger (Turk. borsmuk) in the Xakani language. This animal was treated as a symbol of fatness. It is suggested that the term in question was borrowed from a Tocharian source. The Indo-European term *wṛḱos (m.) ‘badger’ (originally ‘fat animal’, cf. Hittite warkant- adj. ‘fat’) is reconstructed on the basis of Indic, Greek and Anatolian lexical data.

The present state of Karaim Studies report on the Szeged Workshop on Karaim Studies, June 13th, 2014

The present article proceeds from that stream of Turcological research according to which the category of “exception”, within the context of (Turkic) vowel harmony, is to be regarded as at least misleading. From a historical point of view, the perfect vowel harmony of contemporary Turkish may be considered a later development which evolved from a primitive, regularly disharmonic system. Through a thorough scrutiny of an 18th-century Armeno-Turkish text, we add new arguments to the debate, by observing that the vowel phonology of Turkic languages seems to have been ruled by at least two colliding processes: a primitive, regular disharmony-triggered morphemic marking [RDMM] versus a transmorphemic rightward vowel harmonising [RVH]. A possible interpretation of some local “disharmonic” phenomena — fossilised remains of a primitive stress assignment? — is proposed here.

Along their long history, Turkic languages got into contact with numerous other languages, amongst which was also Chinese. Many Chinese Buddhist works were translated into Uighur, and, as a matter of course, these translations activated loans in Uighur from Chinese. Several studies have dealt with the Chinese loans in Uighur, and most of them regard Uighur cog ‘glowing heat, flame; splendour’ as a word of Chinese origin. The present paper carefully investigates the word cog and the words related to it in Old Turkic, and comes to the conclusion that the Chinese derivation of the word is not so obvious, since that explanation is aggravated by serious difficulties. Instead, on the basis of Turkic linguistic data, the author offers new ideas for explaining the Uighur word cog.

The present paper examines the origin of two Tocharian animal names, assuming that they were borrowed from an oriental source. The Common Tocharian term for ‘poisonous snake, viper’ (Toch. A ārṣal, B arṣāklo) reproduces exactly the Turkic name *arsala:n ‘lion’, whereas the Tocharian B partākto ‘camel’ seems to represent a loanword from East Iranian *pardāk(u)-tā (pl.) ‘leopards’ (perhaps created by a contamination with Altaic *aktan- ‘a castrated animal’). The phonetic aspects of both derivations are unquestionable. The semantic differences may be explained by the fact that Proto-Tocharians borrowed names of two unknown exotic animals and later they wrongly identified the word with different animals, transferring the Turkish name for ‘lion’ into ‘poisonous snake, viper’ and the Iranian name for ‘leopard’ into ‘camel’. The same process is perfectly attested in Slavonic (e.g. Polish slon ‘elephant’ < Turkish (dial.) aslan ‘lion’; Pol. wielbląd ‘camel’ < Greek elephas, -antos ‘elephant’) and many other langu...

Although the East Old Turkic runiform inscriptions were deciphered already in 1893 by Thomsen (1896), the East European runiform fragments still present a mystery: we do not exactly know whom they belong to, which language(s) they represent, etc. During the last hundred years several attempts have been made to decipher them but nobody could provide a widely acceptable interpretation. This is because of the very nature of the findings: they are few in number and short in length. Accordingly, there is a consensus among the competent scholars that the decipherment raises serious difficulties which cannot be solved for the time being.It is, however, our primary task to document and catalogue every new finding as precisely as possible in the hope that the decipherment will one day be possible.The present article will document and analyse hitherto unknown runiform inscriptions carved into two bone plates for the grip of a bow found in a late Avar cemetery at Kiskundorozsma in South-East Hungary. The article is ...

The present paper discusses some special cases of gerunds in the attribute position. This phenomenon is rather exceptional, because gerunds usually are defined as being adverbs. Word class shift is generally ruled out for Turkic languages. As will be argued, there might be exceptions from this rule. In this context, constructions based on direct speech on the one hand and some going back to postverbials on the other seem especially interesting.

Grammaticalisation is an umbrella term for a set of partly unrelated processes that share a common result, namely the emergence of grammatical units. Although the Turkic languages represent a relatively homogeneous family of closely related languages, they are highly variegated in terms of how they express modal categories. The multitude of expressions stems from a restricted set of developments that can be empirically documented. This paper investigates heterogeneous specimens of expressions of modality in the Turkic languages and identifies the mechanisms that underlie the diachronic and synchronic variation that can be observed in Turkic modal constructions.

The article furnishes about 25 authentic examples of double passive marking in Turkish possibility verbs. Double passive marking in verbs not marked for possibility and possibility verbs with a passive marker after the auxiliary (instead of before it as in the standard Turkish grammars) as well as some examples where passive marking occurs only after the possibility morpheme are studied. The examples are discussed against the backdrop of an innovative theory which involves an opposition of an internal and an external circle of referents. As a result, a semantic interpretation is offered for these morphologically special cases of the Turkish voice system. Material from older stages of Turkish (Ottoman) as well as some other historical and living Turkic languages is also discussed.

The Dede Qorqud Oġuznameleri are a collection of heroic stories in a Middle Oghuz variety with Eastern Anatolian linguistic features that distinguish this text pronouncedly from contemporaneous texts in Ottoman Turkish sensu proprio. This contribution examines the expressions of modality attested in this text. It establishes an inventory of the morphological and morpho-syntactic items expressing modal notions such as event modality, epistemic modality and the moods, and addresses diachronic as well as typological issues. All types of modal expressions found in the text are illustrated by examples.

In the investigation of the prehistory of the Yakut language only few and not very reliable sources are at our disposal. Although these sources are very important, some are not available for the researchers, or not prepared to meet modern linguistic/philological requirements. The main aim of this paper is to present the Yakut material of Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica , a famous work of P. S. Pallas published in 1811, for further research. In addition, etymological notes and remarks on the naming conventions of Yakuts are also included. In the appendix all the Yakut materials of the Zoographia , 135 different items altogether, are presented in a systematic way, with the comparison of data from the corresponding works of D. G. Messerschmidt and J. G. Gmelin.

The paper focuses on the contacts between the populations in the forest of the Kama region and the southern steppe region during the Iron Age (8th c. BC-5th c. AD) and early Middle Ages. The research was primarily based on archaeological material. The ramified river systems of the Volga, Kama, Vyatka and Belaya actually provided the main routes for contact between the forest of the Kama region and the southern steppe. During the period in question, new technologies, household activities, and elements of material and spiritual culture penetrated the forest of the Kama region through the trade routes of antiquity and by the mediation of various ethnic groups speaking Iranian, Finno-Ugric and Turkic languages.

This paper investigates the origin of suffixes in Turkic languages with forms similar to -?aru ~ -garu and -ra ~ -ra, -ru ~ -ru, -ri ~ -ri, referred to in grammars as markers of a “directive case”. There has been considerable uncertainty about the historical development of these suffixes as case markers, leading to a number of attempts to reconstruct their original form and function in both Proto-Turkic and Proto-Altaic, all of which have proven inconclusive. This study examines the problem from a new perspective. It begins with a reassessment of attempts at reconstruction, considering the various benefits and shortcomings of each approach. Then, based on morphological and syntactic data from Old Turkic, it offers a reconstruction of the original form and function of the directive case in pre-Old Turkic.

Tree cult of the Turks has been practised for centuries, but cult under fruit trees like pear-tree has not been noticed. In this article traces of the pear-tree cult in the Caucasus is outlined. The Karachay-Balkar Turks living in the Caucasus denote pear with the word kertme, while it is not so in the majority of Turkic languages. This word was borrowed by Hungarians most probably around the Kuban river north to the Caucasus before the conquest of the Carpathian Basin, their later homeland. Hungarians might also have acquired the worship of the pear-tree that time and in that area, because already in the first written sources (in the form of family- and place names) it is well documented. Hints of the pear cult can also be seen in the children's songs in connection with the 'pear-tree'. We can state that the pear-tree cult was known in the Kuban region before 680-700 A.D., for the Hungarians left for Etelkoz in those years and did not return there ever after.

The paper gives an overview of earlier research on the Turkic loan words in Hungarian from the Middle Ages until the work of L. Ligeti. It discusses the main achievements of Ligeti, who would be a hundred years old this year. Finally the paper outlines the main aims and methods according to which the authors work on a new etymological dictionary of the Old Turkic elements in the Hungarian language. Three sample articles close the paper.