Turkic group. Turkic group of languages: peoples, classification, distribution and interesting facts Turkic language family of peoples

TURKIC LANGUAGES, i.e. the system of Turkic (Turkic Tatar or Turkish Tatar) languages, occupy a very vast territory in the USSR (from Yakutia to the Crimea and the Caucasus) and much smaller territory abroad (the languages of the Anatolian-Balkan Turks, Gagauz and ... ... Literary encyclopedia

TURKIC LANGUAGES- a group of closely related languages. Presumably, it is part of the hypothetical Altaic macrofamily of languages. It is divided into western (Western Xiongnu) and eastern (Eastern Xiongnu) branches. The Western branch includes: Bulgar group Bulgar... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

TURKIC LANGUAGES- OR TURANIAN is the general name for the languages of different nationalities of the North. Asia and Europe, the original homeland of the cat. Altai; therefore they are also called Altai. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Pavlenkov F., 1907 ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Turkic languages- TURKIC LANGUAGES, see Tatar language. Lermontov Encyclopedia / USSR Academy of Sciences. In t rus. lit. (Pushkin. House); Scientific ed. council of publishing house Sov. Encycl. ; Ch. ed. Manuilov V. A., Editorial Board: Andronikov I. L., Bazanov V. G., Bushmin A. S., Vatsuro V. E., Zhdanov V ... Lermontov Encyclopedia

Turkic languages- a group of closely related languages. Presumably included in the hypothetical Altaic macrofamily of languages. It is divided into western (Western Xiongnu) and eastern (Eastern Xiongnu) branches. The Western branch includes: Bulgar group Bulgar (ancient ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Turkic languages- (outdated names: Turkic-Tatar, Turkish, Turkish-Tatar languages) languages of numerous peoples and nationalities of the USSR and Turkey, as well as some of the population of Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia, China, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia and... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Turkic languages- An extensive group (family) of languages spoken in the territories of Russia, Ukraine, the countries of Central Asia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia, China, Turkey, as well as Romania, Bulgaria, the former Yugoslavia, Albania. Belongs to an Altai family.… … Handbook of Etymology and Historical Lexicology

Turkic languages- Turkic languages are a family of languages spoken by numerous peoples and nationalities of the USSR, Turkey, part of the population of Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia, China, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania. The question of the genetic relationship of these languages to Altai... Linguistic encyclopedic dictionary

Turkic languages- (Turkic family of languages). Languages that form a number of groups, which include the languages Turkish, Azerbaijani, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Uzbek, Kara-Kalpak, Uyghur, Tatar, Bashkir, Chuvash, Balkar, Karachay,... ... Dictionary of linguistic terms

Turkic languages- (Turkic languages), see Altai languages... Peoples and cultures

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Languages of the peoples of the USSR. In 5 volumes (set), the collective work LANGUAGES OF THE PEOPLES OF THE USSR is dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. This work summarizes the main results of the study (in a synchronous manner)… Category: Philological sciences in general. Particular philologies Series: Languages of the peoples of the USSR. In 5 volumes Publisher: Nauka, Buy for RUB 11,600
Turkic conversions and serialization. Syntax, semantics, grammaticalization, Pavel Valerievich Grashchenkov, The monograph is devoted to converbs in -p and their place in the grammatical system of Turkic languages. The question is raised about the nature of the connection (coordinating, subordinating) between parts of complex predications with... Category: Linguistics and linguistics Publisher: Languages of Slavic Culture, Manufacturer:

About 90% of the Turkic peoples of the former USSR belong to the Islamic faith. Most of them inhabit Kazakhstan and Central Asia. The rest of the Muslim Turks live in the Volga region and the Caucasus. Of the Turkic peoples, only the Gagauz and Chuvash living in Europe, as well as the Yakuts and Tuvans living in Asia, were not affected by Islam. The Turks have no common physical features, and only their language unites them.

The Volga Turks - Tatars, Chuvash, Bashkirs - were under the long-term influence of Slavic settlers, and now their ethnic areas do not have clear boundaries. The Turkmen and Uzbeks were influenced by Persian culture, and the Kyrgyz were influenced by the Mongols for a long time. Some nomadic Turkic peoples suffered significant losses during the period of collectivization, which forcibly attached them to the land.

In the Russian Federation, the peoples of this language group make up the second largest “bloc”. All Turkic languages are very close to each other, although they usually include several branches: Kipchak, Oguz, Bulgar, Karluk, etc.

Tatars (5522 thousand people) are concentrated mainly in Tataria (1765.4 thousand people), Bashkiria (1120.7 thousand people),

Udmurtia (110.5 thousand people), Mordovia (47.3 thousand people), Chuvashia (35.7 thousand people), Mari-El (43.8 thousand people), but live dispersedly in all regions of European Russia, as well as in Siberia and the Far East. The Tatar population is divided into three main ethno-territorial groups: Volga-Ural, Siberian and Astrakhan Tatars. The Tatar literary language was formed on the basis of the middle one, but with the noticeable participation of the Western dialect. There is a special group of Crimean Tatars (21.3 thousand people; in Ukraine, mainly in Crimea, about 270 thousand people), speaking a special, Crimean Tatar language.

Bashkirs (1345.3 thousand people) live in Bashkiria, as well as in the Chelyabinsk, Orenburg, Perm, Sverdlovsk, Kurgan, Tyumen regions and in Central Asia. Outside Bashkiria, 40.4% of the Bashkir population lives in the Russian Federation, and in Bashkiria itself this titular people constitutes the third largest ethnic group, after the Tatars and Russians.

The Chuvash (1,773.6 thousand people) linguistically represent a special, Bulgarian, branch of the Turkic languages. In Chuvashia the titular population is 907 thousand people, in Tataria - 134.2 thousand people, in Bashkiria - 118.6 thousand people, in the Samara region - 117.8

thousand people, in the Ulyanovsk region - 116.5 thousand people. However, currently the Chuvash people have a relatively high degree of consolidation.

Kazakhs (636 thousand people, the total number in the world is more than 9 million people) were divided into three territorial nomadic associations: Semirechye - Senior Zhuz (Uly Zhuz), Central Kazakhstan - Middle Zhuz (Orta Zhuz), Western Kazakhstan - Younger Zhuz (kishi zhuz). The zhuz structure of the Kazakhs has been preserved to this day.

Azerbaijanis (in the Russian Federation 335.9 thousand people, in Azerbaijan 5805 thousand people, in Iran about 10 million people, in total about 17 million people in the world) speak the language of the Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages. The Azerbaijani language is divided into eastern, western, northern and southern dialect groups. For the most part, Azerbaijanis profess Shiite Islam, and only in the north of Azerbaijan is Sunnism widespread.

The Gagauz (10.1 thousand people in the Russian Federation) live in the Tyumen region, Khabarovsk Territory, Moscow, St. Petersburg; the majority of Gagauz people live in Moldova (153.5 thousand people) and Ukraine (31.9 thousand people); separate groups - in Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Canada and Brazil. The Gagauz language belongs to the Oguz branch of the Turkic languages. 87.4% of Gagauz people consider the Gagauz language to be their native language. The Gagauz people are Orthodox by religion.

Meskhetian Turks (9.9 thousand people in the Russian Federation) also live in Uzbekistan (106 thousand people), Kazakhstan (49.6 thousand people), Kyrgyzstan (21.3 thousand people), Azerbaijan ( 17.7 thousand people). The total number in the former USSR is 207.5 thousand.

People speak Turkish.

Khakass (78.5 thousand people) - the indigenous population of the Republic of Khakassia (62.9 thousand people), also live in Tuva (2.3 thousand people), Krasnoyarsk Territory (5.2 thousand people) .

Tuvans (206.2 thousand people, of which 198.4 thousand people are in Tuva). They also live in Mongolia (25 thousand people), China (3 thousand people). The total number of Tuvans is 235 thousand people. They are divided into western (mountain-steppe regions of western, central and southern Tuva) and eastern, or Tuvan-Todzha (mountain-taiga part of northeastern and southeastern Tuva).

Altaians (self-name Altai-Kizhi) are the indigenous population of the Altai Republic. 69.4 thousand people live in the Russian Federation, including 59.1 thousand people in the Altai Republic. Their total number is 70.8 thousand people. There are ethnographic groups of northern and southern Altaians. The Altai language is divided into northern (Tuba, Kumandin, Cheskan) and southern (Altai-Kizhi, Telengit) dialects. Most of the Altai believers are Orthodox, there are Baptists and others. At the beginning of the 20th century. Burkhanism, a type of Lamaism with elements of shamanism, spread among the southern Altaians. During the 1989 census, 89.3% of Altaians called their language their native language, and 77.7% indicated fluency in Russian.

Teleuts are currently identified as a separate people. They speak one of the southern dialects of the Altai language. Their number is 3 thousand people, and the majority (about 2.5 thousand people) live in rural areas and cities of the Kemerovo region. The bulk of Teleut believers are Orthodox, but traditional religious beliefs are also common among them.

Chulym people (Chulym Turks) live in the Tomsk region and Krasnoyarsk Territory in the river basin. Chulym and its tributaries Yaya and Kii. Number of people - 0.75 thousand people. The Chulym believers are Orthodox Christians.

Uzbeks (126.9 thousand people) live in diaspora in Moscow and the Moscow region, in St. Petersburg and in the regions of Siberia. The total number of Uzbeks in the world reaches 18.5 million people.

The Kyrgyz (about 41.7 thousand people in the Russian Federation) are the main population of Kyrgyzstan (2229.7 thousand people). They also live in Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Xinjiang (PRC), and Mongolia. The total Kyrgyz population of the world exceeds 2.5 million people.

Karakalpaks (6.2 thousand people) in the Russian Federation live mainly in cities (73.7%), although in Central Asia they constitute a predominantly rural population. The total number of Karakalpaks exceeds 423.5

thousand people, of which 411.9 live in Uzbekistan

Karachais (150.3 thousand people) are the indigenous population of Karachay (in Karachay-Cherkessia), where most of them live (over 129.4 thousand people). Karachais also live in Kazakhstan, Central Asia, Turkey, Syria, and the USA. They speak the Karachay-Balkar language.

Balkars (78.3 thousand people) are the indigenous population of Kabardino-Balkaria (70.8 thousand people). They also live in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Their total number reaches 85.1

thousand people Balkars and related Karachais are Sunni Muslims.

Kumyks (277.2 thousand people, of which in Dagestan - 231.8 thousand people, in Checheno-Ingushetia - 9.9 thousand people, in North Ossetia - 9.5 thousand people; total number - 282.2

thousand people) - the indigenous population of the Kumyk plain and the foothills of Dagestan. The majority (97.4%) retained their native language - Kumyk.

The Nogais (73.7 thousand people) are settled within Dagestan (28.3 thousand people), Chechnya (6.9 thousand people) and the Stavropol Territory. They also live in Turkey, Romania and some other countries. The Nogai language is divided into Karanogai and Kuban dialects. Believing Nogais are Sunni Muslims.

The Shors (the self-name of the Shors) reach a population of 15.7 thousand people. The Shors are the indigenous population of the Kemerovo region (Mountain Shoria); they also live in Khakassia and the Altai Republic. Believing Shors are Orthodox Christians.

TURKIC LANGUAGES, a language family distributed 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, Turkmen - in Turkmenistan, Kazakhs - in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz - in Kyrgyzstan, Uzbeks - in Uzbekistan; Kumyks, Karachais, Balkars, Chuvash, Tatars, Bashkirs, Nogais, Yakuts, Tuvinians, Khakassians, Altai Mountains - in Russia; Gagauzians - in the Transnistrian Republic) and beyond - in Turkey (Turks) and China (Uyghurs). Currently, 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 (according to another terminology - R-languages). The only living representative of this group is the Chuvash language. Individual glosses are known in written monuments and borrowings in neighboring languages from the medieval languages of the Volga and Danube Bulgars. The remaining 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) , “northwestern” or “Kypchak” languages (Karaite, Crimean Tatar, Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, Tatar, Bashkir, Nogai, Karakalpak, Kazakh, Kyrgyz), “southeastern” or “Karluk” languages (Uzbek, Uyghur), "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. AD; b) Sayan group (Tuvan and Tofalar languages); c) Khakass group (Khakass, Shor, Chulym, Saryg-Yugur); d) Gorno-Altai group (Oirot, Teleut, Tuba, Lebedin, Kumandin). The southern dialects of the Gorno-Altai group are close in a number of parameters to the Kyrgyz language, together with it constituting the “Central-Eastern group” of Turkic languages; some dialects of the Uzbek language clearly belong to the Nogai subgroup of the Kipchak group; Khorezm dialects of the Uzbek language belong to the Oghuz group; Some of the Siberian dialects of the Tatar language are moving closer to 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 (apparently dating back to the Sogdian script), Uyghur script (later passed from them to the Mongols), Brahmi, Manichaean script, and Arabic script. Currently, writing systems based on the Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic alphabet are common.

According to historical sources, information about the Turkic peoples first surfaces in connection with the appearance of the Huns in 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 reached 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 determination of the time of separation of the Bulgar group. Therefore, a number of scientists directly connect the beginning of the movement of the Huns with the separation and departure of the Bulgars to the west. 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 south-eastern 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 north-west - 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 Southern Kazakhstan in the 4th century. AD The Huns' invasion of Europe begins at the end of the 5th century. in Byzantine sources the ethnonym “Bulgars” appears, denoting a confederation of tribes of Hunnic origin that occupied the steppe between the Volga and Danube basins. Subsequently, the Bulgar confederation is divided into the Volga-Bulgar and Danube-Bulgar parts.

After the breakaway of the “Bulgars,” the remaining Turks continued to remain in the territory close to their ancestral home until the 6th century. AD, when, after the victory over the Ruan-Rhuan confederation (part of the Xianbi, presumably the proto-Mongols, who defeated and ousted the Huns at one time), they formed the Turkic confederation, which dominated from the mid-6th to the mid-7th century. over a vast territory from the Amur to the Irtysh. Historical sources do not provide information about the moment of the split from the Turkic community of the ancestors of the Yakuts. The only way to connect the ancestors of the Yakuts with some historical reports is to identify them with the Kurykans of the Orkhon inscriptions, who belonged to the Teles confederation, absorbed by the Turkuts. They were localized at this time, apparently, to the east of Lake Baikal. Judging by the mentions 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 a center in Talas) and eastern Turkuts (otherwise known as “blue Turks”), the center of which remained the former center of the Turkic empire Kara-Balgasun on the Orkhon. Apparently, the collapse of the Turkic languages into the western (Oghuz, Kipchaks) and eastern (Siberia; Kyrgyz; Karluks) macrogroups is associated with this event. In 745, the eastern Turkuts were defeated by the Uyghurs (localized southwest of Lake Baikal and presumably at first non-Turkic, but by that time already Turkified). Both the Eastern Turkic and Uyghur states experienced strong cultural influence from China, but they were no less influenced by the Eastern Iranians, primarily Sogdian merchants and missionaries; in 762 Manichaeism became the state religion of the Uyghur empire.

In 840, the Uyghur state centered on the Orkhon was destroyed by the Kyrgyz (from the upper reaches of the Yenisei; presumably also initially non-Turkic, but by this time a Turkic people), the Uyghurs fled to East 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 reached us. Another group of fugitives settled in what is now the Chinese province of Gansu; their descendants may be the Saryg-Yugurs. The entire northeastern group of Turks, except the Yakuts, can also go back to the Uyghur conglomerate - as part of the Turkic population of the former Uyghur Kaganate, which moved north, deeper into the taiga, already during the Mongol expansion.

In 924, the Kyrgyz were forced out of the Orkhon state by the Khitans (presumably Mongols by language) and partially returned to the upper reaches of the Yenisei, partially moved west, to the southern spurs of 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, which was dominated by the Karluks - a Turkic tribe that originally lived to the east of the Uyghurs, but by 766 moved west and subjugated the state of the Western Turkuts, whose tribal groups spread to the steppes of Turan (Ili-Talas region , Sogdiana, Khorasan and Khorezm; while Iranians lived in the cities). At the end of the 8th century. Karluk Khan Yabgu converted to Islam. The Karluks gradually assimilated the Uyghurs living to the east, and the Uyghur literary language served as the basis for the literary language of the Karluk (Karakhanid) state.

Part of the tribes of the Western Turkic Kaganate 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 that represented the ethnic basis of the current Kipchak 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, and restrictions on the compatibility of phonemes are common. At the beginning of the original Turkic words do not occur l,r,n, š ,z. Noisy plosives are usually contrasted by strength/weakness (Eastern Siberia) or by dullness/voice. At the beginning of a word, the opposition of consonants in terms of deafness/voicedness (strength/weakness) is found only in the Oguz and Sayan groups; in most other languages, at the beginning of words, labials are voiced, dental and back-lingual ones are voiceless. Uvulars in most Turkic languages are allophones of velars with back vowels. The following types of historical changes in the consonant system are classified as significant. a) In the Bulgarian group, in most positions there is a voiceless fricative lateral l coincided with l in sound in l; r And r V 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 their non-recognition or recognition of the Altai kinship of languages is statistically connected with this, respectively. b) Intervocalic d(pronounced as an 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; accordingly, they talk about r-,t-,d-,z- And j- languages.

The vocalism of most Turkic languages is characterized by synharmonism (similarity of vowels within one word) in row and roundness; The synharmonic system is also being reconstructed for Proto-Turkic. Synharmonism disappeared in the Karluk group (as a result of which the opposition of velars and uvulars was phonologized there). In the New Uyghur language, a certain semblance of synharmonism is again being built - the so-called “Uyghur umlaut”, the preemption of wide unrounded vowels before the next i(which goes back to both the front *i, and to the rear * ï ). In Chuvash, the entire vowel system has changed greatly, and the old synharmonicism has disappeared (its trace is the opposition k from velar in anterior word and x from the uvular in a back-row word), but then a new synharmonism was built along the row, taking into account the current phonetic characteristics of vowels. The long/short opposition of vowels that existed in Proto-Turkic was preserved in the Yakut and Turkmen languages (and in residual form in other Oguz languages, where voiceless consonants were voiced after the old long vowels, as well as in Sayan, 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 the loss of intervocalic voiced ones (Tuvinsk. sō"tub"< *sagu and under.). In Yakut, the primary wide long vowels turned into rising diphthongs.

In all modern Turkic languages there is a force stress, which is morphonologically fixed. In addition, for Siberian languages, tonal and phonation contrasts were noted, although not fully described.

From the point of view of morphological typology, Turkic languages belong to the agglutinative, suffixal type. Moreover, 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.

Grammatical categories of names in Turkic languages – number, belonging, case. The order of affixes is: stem + 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 is h. is marked, unit form. h. – unmarked. In particular, in the generic meaning and with numerals the singular form is used. numbers (Kumyk. men at gördüm " I (actually) saw horses."

Case systems include: a) 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 applicative definition and with many postpositions; b) accusative case (aff. *- (ï )g) – case of a definite direct object; c) genitive case (aff.) – the case of a concrete referential adjectival definition; d) dative-directive (aff. *-a/*-ka); e) local (aff. *-ta); e) ablative (aff. *-tïn). The Yakut language rebuilt its case system according to the model of the Tungus-Manchu languages. Usually there are two types of declension: nominal and possessive-nominal (declension of words with aff. affiliation of the 3rd person; case affixes take a slightly different form in this case).

An adjective in Turkic languages differs from a noun in the absence of inflectional categories. Having received the syntactic function of a subject or object, the adjective also acquires all the inflectional categories of the noun.

Pronouns change by case. Personal pronouns are available for 1st and 2nd persons (* bi/ben"I", * si/sen"You", * Bir"We", *sir“you”), demonstrative pronouns are used in the third person. Demonstrative pronouns in most languages have three degrees of range, e.g. bu"this", šu"this remote" (or "this" when indicated by hand), ol"That". Interrogative pronouns distinguish between animate and inanimate ( kim"who" and ne"What").

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

Voices of the Turkic verb: active (without indicators), passive (*- ïl), return ( *-ïn-), mutual ( * -ïš- ) and causative ( *-t-,*-ïr-,*-tïr- and some etc.). These indicators can be combined with each other (cum. gur-yush-"see", ger-yush-dir-"to make you see each other" yaz-holes-"make you write" tongue-hole-yl-"to be forced to write").

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

Non-verbal forms are historically gerunds and participles in the function of a predicate, formalized by the same indicators of predicability as nominal predicates, namely postpositive personal pronouns. For example: ancient Turkic. ( ben)beg ben"I am bek" ben anca tir ben"I say so", lit. “I say so-I.” There are different gerunds of the present tense (or simultaneity) (stem + -a), uncertain-future (base + -Vr, Where V– vowel of varying quality), precedence (stem + -ip), desired mood (stem + -g aj); perfect participle (stem + -g an), postocular, or descriptive (stem + -mïš), definite-future tense (base +) and many more. etc. The affixes of gerunds and participles do not carry voice oppositions. Participles with predicate affixes, as well as gerunds with auxiliary verbs in proper and improper verbal forms (numerous existential, phase, modal verbs, verbs of motion, verbs “take” and “give” act as auxiliaries) express a variety of fulfillment, modal, directional and accommodation values, cf. Kumyk bara bolgayman"looks like I'm going" ( go- deepr. simultaneity become- deepr. desirable -I), Ishley Goremen"I am going to work" ( work- deepr. simultaneity look- deepr. simultaneity -I), language"write it down (for yourself)" ( write- deepr. precedence take it). Various verbal names of action are used as infinitives in various Turkic languages.

From the point of view of syntactic typology, Turkic languages belong to the languages of the nominative structure with the predominant word order “subject - object - predicate”, preposition of definition, preference for postpositions over prepositions. There is an isafet design – with the membership indicator for the word being defined ( at baš-ï"horse head", lit. "horse head-her") In a coordinating 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 in this case turns into the corresponding participle or gerund). Wed: Kumyk. ak saqal"white beard" ak sakal-ly gishi"white bearded man" booth-la-ny ara-son-yes"between the booths" booth-la-ny ara-son-da-gyy el-well orta-son-da"in the middle of the path passing between the booths" sen ok atgyang"you shot an arrow" Sep ok atgyanyng-ny gördyum“I saw you shoot the arrow” (“you shot the arrow – 2 liters singular – vin. case – I saw”). When a predicative combination is inserted in this way, they often speak of the “Altai type of complex sentence”; indeed, Turkic and other Altaic languages show a clear preference for such absolute constructions with the verb in the non-finite 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 Altai languages. A comparison of the general vocabulary of the Turkic languages allows us to get an idea of the world in which the Turks lived during 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 based on horse breeding (using horse meat for food) and sheep breeding; agriculture in an auxiliary function; the great role of developed hunting; two types of housing - winter stationary and summer portable; fairly developed social division 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 names of body parts, verbs of movement, sensory perception, etc. is 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 been in contact. These are primarily Mongolian borrowings (in the Mongolian languages there are many borrowings from the Turkic languages; there are also cases when a word was borrowed first from the Turkic languages into the Mongolian ones, and then back, from the Mongolian languages into the Turkic languages, cf. ancient Uyghur. irbii, Tuvinsk irbiš"leopard" > Mong. irbis > Kyrgyzstan irbis). In the Yakut language there are many Tungus-Manchu 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 ancient Uyghur there are many borrowings from Sanskrit and Tibetan, primarily from Buddhist terminology; in the languages of Muslim Turkic peoples there are many Arabisms 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 the Russian language. The earliest are borrowings from the Danube-Bulgarian language into Old Church Slavonic ( book, drip"idol" - in the word temple“pagan temple” and so on), from there they came to Russian; there are also borrowings from Bulgarian into Old Russian (as well as into other Slavic languages): serum(common Turkic) *jogurt, bulg. *suvart), bursa“Persian silk fabric” (Chuvash. porzin< *bariun< Middle-Persian *aparešum; trade between pre-Mongol Rus' and Persia went along the Volga through the Great Bulgar). A large amount of cultural vocabulary was borrowed into the Russian language from late medieval Turkic languages in the 14th–17th centuries. (during the time of the Golden Horde and even more later, during times of brisk trade with the surrounding Turkic states: ass, pencil, raisin,shoe, iron,Altyn,arshin,coachman,Armenian,ditch,dried apricots and many more etc.). In later times, the Russian language borrowed from Turkic only words denoting local Turkic realities ( snow leopard,ayran,kobyz,sultanas,village,elm). Contrary to popular belief, there are no Turkic borrowings among Russian obscene (obscene) vocabulary; almost all of these words are Slavic in origin.

a family of languages spoken by numerous peoples and nationalities of the USSR, Turkey, part of the population of Iran, Afghanistan, Mongolia, China, Romania, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania. The question of the genetic relationship of these languages to the Altai languages is at the level of a hypothesis, which involves the unification of the Turkic, Tungus-Manchu and Mongolian languages. According to a number of scientists (E. D. Polivanov, G. J. Ramstedt and others), the scope of this family is expanding to include the Korean and Japanese languages. There is also the Ural-Altaic hypothesis (M. A. Kastren, O. Bötlingk, G. Winkler, O. Donner, Z. Gombots and others), according to which T. Ya., as well as other Altai languages, together with the Finno-Ugric languages, constitute languages of the Ural-Altai macrofamily. In Altaic literature, the typological similarity of the Turkic, Mongolian, Tungus-Manchu languages is sometimes mistaken for genetic kinship. The contradictions of the Altai hypothesis are associated, firstly, with the unclear use of the comparative historical method in the reconstruction of the Altai archetype and, secondly, with the lack of precise methods and criteria for differentiating original and borrowed roots.

The formation of individual national T. i. preceded by numerous and complex migrations of their carriers. In the 5th century the movement of Gur tribes from Asia to the Kama region began; from 5-6 centuries Turkic tribes from Central Asia (Oguz and others) began to move into Central Asia; in the 10th-12th centuries. the range of settlement of the ancient Uyghur and Oghuz tribes expanded (from Central Asia to East Turkestan, Central and Asia Minor); the consolidation of the ancestors of the Tuvinians, Khakassians, and Mountain Altaians took place; at the beginning of the 2nd millennium, Kyrgyz tribes moved from the Yenisei to the current territory of Kyrgyzstan; in the 15th century Kazakh tribes consolidated.

[Classification]

According to modern geography of distribution, T. i are distinguished. the following areas: Central and Southeast Asia, Southern and Western Siberia, Volga-Kama, Northern Caucasus, Transcaucasia and the Black Sea region. There are several classification schemes in Turkology.

V. A. Bogoroditsky shared T. I. into 7 groups: northeastern(Yakut, Karagas and Tuvan languages); Khakass (Abakan), which included the Sagai, Beltir, Koibal, Kachin and Kyzyl dialects of the Khakass population of the region; Altai with a southern branch (Altai and Teleut languages) and a northern branch (dialects of the so-called Chernev Tatars and some others); West Siberian, which includes all dialects of the Siberian Tatars; Volga-Ural region(Tatar and Bashkir languages); Central Asian(Uyghur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Karakalpak languages); southwestern(Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Kumyk, Gagauz and Turkish languages).

The linguistic criteria of this classification were not sufficiently complete and convincing, as well as the purely phonetic features that formed the basis for the classification of V.V. Radlov, who distinguished 4 groups: eastern(languages and dialects of the Altai, Ob, Yenisei Turks and Chulym Tatars, Karagas, Khakass, Shor and Tuvan languages); western(adverbs of the Tatars of Western Siberia, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Bashkir, Tatar and, conditionally, Karakalpak languages); Central Asian(Uyghur and Uzbek languages) and southern(Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Turkish languages, some southern coastal dialects of the Crimean Tatar language); Radlov especially singled out the Yakut language.

F.E. Korsh, who was the first to use morphological characteristics as the basis for classification, admitted that T. i. originally divided into northern and southern groups; later the southern group split into eastern and western.

In the refined scheme proposed by A. N. Samoilovich (1922), T. i. divided into 6 groups: p-group, or Bulgarian (the Chuvash language was also included in it); d-group, or Uyghur, otherwise northeastern (in addition to Old Uyghur, it included Tuvan, Tofalar, Yakut, Khakass languages); Tau group, or Kypchak, otherwise northwestern (Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, Kyrgyz languages, Altai language and its dialects, Karachay-Balkar, Kumyk, Crimean Tatar languages); tag-lyk-group, or Chagatai, otherwise south-eastern (modern Uyghur language, Uzbek language without its Kipchak dialects); tag-ly group, or Kipchak-Turkmen (intermediate dialects - Khiva-Uzbek and Khiva-Sart, which have lost their independent meaning); Ol‑group, otherwise southwestern, or Oghuz (Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, southern coastal Crimean Tatar dialects).

Subsequently, new schemes were proposed, each of which attempted to clarify the distribution of languages into groups, as well as to include ancient Turkic languages. For example, Ramstedt identifies 6 main groups: Chuvash language; Yakut language; northern group (according to A.M.O. Ryasyanen - northeastern), to which all T. I are assigned. and dialects of Altai and surrounding areas; western group (according to Räsänen - northwestern) - Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Karakalpak, Nogai, Kumyk, Karachay, Balkar, Karaite, Tatar and Bashkir languages, the dead Cuman and Kipchak languages are also included in this group; eastern group (according to Räsänen - southeastern) - New Uyghur and Uzbek languages; southern group (according to Räsänen - southwestern) - Turkmen, Azerbaijani, Turkish and Gagauz languages. Some variations of this type of scheme are represented by the classification proposed by I. Benzing and K. G. Menges. The classification of S. E. Malov is based on a chronological feature: all languages are divided into “old”, “new” and “newest”.

The classification of N. A. Baskakov is fundamentally different from the previous ones; according to his principles, the classification of T. i. is nothing more than a periodization of the history of the development of Turkic peoples and languages in all the diversity of small clan associations of the primitive system that arose and collapsed, and then large tribal associations, which, having the same origin, created communities that were different in the composition of tribes, and therefore in composition tribal languages.

The considered classifications, with all their shortcomings, helped to identify groups of T. i., genetically related most closely. The special allocation of the Chuvash and Yakut languages is justified. To develop a more accurate classification, it is necessary to expand the set of differential features, taking into account the extremely complex dialect division of T. i. The most generally accepted classification scheme when describing individual T. i. The scheme proposed by Samoilovich remains.

[Typology]

Typologically T. I. belong to agglutinative languages. The root (base) of the word, without being burdened with class indicators (there is no class division of nouns in T. Ya.), in the nominative case can appear in its pure form, due to which it becomes the organizing center of the entire declension paradigm. The axial structure of the paradigm, i.e. one that is based on one structural core, influenced the nature of phonetic processes (tendency to maintain clear boundaries between morphemes, an obstacle to deformation of the paradigm axis itself, to deformation of the base of the word, etc.) . A companion to agglutination in T. i. is synharmonism.

[Phonetics]

It manifests itself more consistently in T. I. harmony on the basis of palatality - non-palatality, cf. tour. evler-in-de ‘in their houses’, Karachay-Balk. bar-ai-ym ‘I’ll go’, etc. Labial synharmonism in different T. i. developed to varying degrees.

There is a hypothesis about the presence of 8 vowel phonemes for the early common Turkic state, which could be short and long: a, ә, o, u, ө, ү, ы, и. The question is whether there was I in T. closed /e/. A characteristic feature of further changes in ancient Turkic vocalism is the loss of long vowels, which affected the majority of T. i. They are mainly preserved in the Yakut, Turkmen, Khalaj languages; in other T. I. Only their individual relics have survived.

In the Tatar, Bashkir and ancient Chuvash languages, there was a transition from /a/ in the first syllables of many words to labialized, pushed back /a°/, cf. *kara ‘black’, ancient Turkic, Kazakh. kara, but tat. ka°ra; *at ‘horse’, ancient Turkic, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Kazakh. at, but tat., bashk. a°t, etc. There was also a transition from /a/ to labialized /o/, typical for the Uzbek language, cf. *bash ‘head’, Uzbek. Bosch There is an umlaut /a/ under the influence of /i/ of the next syllable in the Uyghur language (eti ‘his horse’ instead of ata); the short ә is preserved in the Azerbaijani and New Uyghur languages (cf. kәl‑ ‘come’, Azerbaijani gәl′‑, Uyghur. kәl‑), while ә > e in most T. i. (cf. Tur. gel‑, Nogai, Alt., Kirg. kel‑, etc.). The Tatar, Bashkir, Khakass and partly Chuvash languages are characterized by the transition ә > and, cf. *әт ‘meat’, Tat. it. In the Kazakh, Karakalpak, Nogai and Karachay-Balkar languages, diphthongoid pronunciation of some vowels at the beginning of a word is noted, in the Tuvan and Tofalar languages - the presence of pharyngealized vowels.

The most common form of the present tense is -a, which sometimes also has the meaning of the future tense (in the Tatar, Bashkir, Kumyk, Crimean Tatar languages, in the T. Ya. of Central Asia, dialects of the Tatars of Siberia). In all T. I. there is a present-future form in ‑ar/‑yr. The Turkish language is characterized by the present tense form in ‑yor, the Turkmen language - in ‑yar. The present tense form of this moment in ‑makta/‑makhta/‑mokda is found in Turkish, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, Crimean Tatar, Turkmen, Uyghur, Karakalpak languages. In T. I. There is a tendency to create special forms of the present tense of a given moment, formed according to the model “gerund participle in a- or -yp + present tense form of a certain group of auxiliary verbs.”

The common Turkic form of the past tense on -dy is distinguished by its semantic capacity and aspectual neutrality. In the development of T. i. There has been a constant tendency to create the past tense with aspectual meanings, especially those denoting duration. action in the past (cf. indefinite imperfect type of Karaite alyr eat ‘I took’). In many T. I. (mainly Kypchak) there is a perfect formed by attaching personal endings of the first type (phonetically modified personal pronouns) to the participle in ‑kan/‑gan. An etymologically related form in ‑an exists in the Turkmen language and in ‑ny in the Chuvash language. In the languages of the Oguz group, the perfect for -mouse is common, and in the Yakut language there is an etymologically related form for -byt. The plusquaperfect has the same stem as the perfect, combined with the past tense stem forms of the auxiliary verb 'to be'.

In all T. languages, except for the Chuvash language, for the future tense (present-future) there is an indicator ‑yr/‑ar. The Oghuz languages are characterized by the form of the future categorical tense in ‑adzhak/‑achak; it is also common in some languages of the southern area (Uzbek, Uyghur).

In addition to the indicative in T. i. There is a desirable mood with the most common indicators - gai (for Kipchak languages), -a (for Oguz languages), imperative with its own paradigm, where the pure stem of the verb expresses a command addressed to the 2nd letter. units h., conditional, having 3 models of education with special indicators: -sa (for most languages), -sar (in Orkhon, ancient Uyghur monuments, as well as in Turkic texts of the 10-13th centuries from East Turkestan, from modern languages in phonetically transformed form preserved only in Yakut), -san (in the Chuvash language); The obligatory mood is found mainly in the languages of the Oghuz group (cf. Azerbaijani ҝәлмәлјәм ‘I must come’).

T. I. have a real (coinciding with the stem), passive (indicator ‑l, attached to the stem), reflexive (indicator ‑n), reciprocal (indicator ‑ш) and forced (indicators are varied, the most common are ‑holes/‑tyr, ‑t, ‑ yz, -gyz) pledges.

Verb stem in T. i. indifferent to the expression of aspect. Aspectual shades can have separate tense forms, as well as special complex verbs, the aspectual characteristics of which are given by auxiliary verbs.

Melioransky P. M., Arab philologist on the Turkish language, St. Petersburg, 1900;
Bogoroditsky V. A., Introduction to Tatar linguistics, Kazan, 1934; 2nd ed., Kazan, 1953;
Malov S. E., Monuments of ancient Turkic writing, M.-L., 1951;
Studies on comparative grammar of Turkic languages, parts 1-4, M., 1955-62;
Baskakov N. A., Introduction to the study of Turkic languages, M., 1962; 2nd ed., M., 1969;
his, Historical-typological phonology of Turkic languages, M., 1988;
Shcherbak A. M., Comparative phonetics of Turkic languages, Leningrad, 1970;
Sevortyan E.V., Etymological Dictionary of Turkic Languages, [vol. 1-3], M., 1974-80;
Serebrennikov B.A., Gadzhieva N.Z., Comparative-historical grammar of Turkic languages, Baku, 1979; 2nd ed., M., 1986;
Comparative-historical grammar of the Turkic languages. Phonetics. Rep. ed. E. R. Tenishev, M., 1984;
Same, Morphology, M., 1988;
Grønbech K., Der Türkische Sprachbau, v. 1, Kph., 1936;
Gabain A., Alttürkische Grammatik, Lpz., 1941; 2. Aufl., Lpz., 1950;
Brockelmann C., Osttürkische Grammatik der islamischen Literatursprachen Mittelasiens, Leiden, 1954;
Räsänen M. R., Materialien zur Morphologie der türkischen Sprachen, Hels., 1957 (Studia Orientalia, XXI);
Philologiae Turcicae fundamenta, t. 1-2, , 1959-64.

They are distributed over a vast territory of our planet, from the cold Kolyma basin to the southwestern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Turks do not belong to any specific racial type; even among one people there are both Caucasians and Mongoloids. They are mostly Muslim, but there are peoples who profess Christianity, traditional beliefs, and shamanism. The only thing that connects almost 170 million people is the common origin of the group of languages now spoken by the Turks. Yakut and Turk all speak related dialects.

Strong branch of the Altai tree

Among some scientists, disputes still persist over which language family the Turkic language group belongs to. Some linguists identified it as a separate large group. However, the most generally accepted hypothesis today is that these related languages belong to the large Altai family.

The development of genetics has made a major contribution to these studies, thanks to which it has become possible to trace the history of entire nations in the traces of individual fragments of the human genome.

Once upon a time, a group of tribes in Central Asia spoke the same language - the ancestor of modern Turkic dialects, but in the 3rd century. BC e. a separate Bulgarian branch separated from the large trunk. The only people who speak languages of the Bulgar group today are the Chuvash. Their dialect is noticeably different from other related ones and stands out as a special subgroup.

Some researchers even propose placing the Chuvash language into a separate genus of the large Altai macrofamily.

Classification of the southeast direction

Other representatives of the Turkic group of languages are usually divided into 4 large subgroups. There are differences in details, but for simplicity we can take the most common method.

Oguz, or southwestern, languages, which include Azerbaijani, Turkish, Turkmen, Crimean Tatar, Gagauz. Representatives of these peoples speak very similarly and can easily understand each other without a translator. Hence the enormous influence of strong Turkey in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, whose residents perceive Turkish as their native language.

The Turkic group of the Altai family of languages also includes the Kipchak, or northwestern, languages, which are spoken mainly on the territory of the Russian Federation, as well as representatives of the peoples of Central Asia with nomadic ancestors. Tatars, Bashkirs, Karachais, Balkars, such peoples of Dagestan as the Nogais and Kumyks, as well as Kazakhs and Kyrgyz - they all speak related dialects of the Kipchak subgroup.

The southeastern, or Karluk, languages are solidly represented by the languages of two large peoples - the Uzbeks and the Uyghurs. However, for almost a thousand years they developed separately from each other. If the Uzbek language has experienced the colossal influence of Farsi and the Arabic language, then the Uyghurs, residents of East Turkestan, have introduced a huge number of Chinese borrowings into their dialect over many years.

Northern Turkic languages

The geography of the Turkic group of languages is wide and varied. The Yakuts, Altaians, in general, some indigenous peoples of northeastern Eurasia, also unite into a separate branch of the large Turkic tree. Northeastern languages are quite heterogeneous and are divided into several separate genera.

The Yakut and Dolgan languages separated from the single Turkic dialect, and this happened in the 3rd century. n. e.

The Sayan group of languages of the Turkic family includes Tuvan and Tofalar languages. Khakassians and residents of Mountain Shoria speak languages of the Khakass group.

Altai is the cradle of Turkic civilization; to this day, the indigenous inhabitants of these places speak Oirot, Teleut, Lebedin, Kumandin languages of the Altai subgroup.

Incidents in a harmonious classification

However, not everything is so simple in this conditional division. The process of national-territorial demarcation that took place on the territory of the Central Asian republics of the USSR in the twenties of the last century also affected such a subtle matter as language.

All residents of the Uzbek SSR were called Uzbeks, and a single version of the literary Uzbek language was adopted, based on the dialects of the Kokand Khanate. However, even today the Uzbek language is characterized by pronounced dialectism. Some dialects of Khorezm, the westernmost part of Uzbekistan, are closer to the languages of the Oghuz group and closer to Turkmen than to the literary Uzbek language.

Some areas speak dialects that belong to the Nogai subgroup of the Kipchak languages, hence there are often situations when a Ferghana resident has difficulty understanding a native of Kashkadarya, who, in his opinion, shamelessly distorts his native language.

The situation is approximately the same among other representatives of the peoples of the Turkic group of languages - the Crimean Tatars. The language of the inhabitants of the coastal strip is almost identical to Turkish, but the natural steppe inhabitants speak a dialect closer to Kipchak.

Ancient history

The Turks first entered the world historical arena during the era of the Great Migration of Peoples. In the genetic memory of Europeans there is still a shudder before the invasion of the Huns by Attila in the 4th century. n. e. The steppe empire was a motley formation of numerous tribes and peoples, but the Turkic element was still predominant.

There are many versions of the origin of these peoples, but most researchers place the ancestral home of today's Uzbeks and Turks in the northwestern part of the Central Asian plateau, in the area between Altai and the Khingar ridge. This version is also adhered to by the Kyrgyz, who consider themselves the direct heirs of the great empire and are still nostalgic about this.

The neighbors of the Turks were the Mongols, the ancestors of today's Indo-European peoples, the Ural and Yenisei tribes, and the Manchus. The Turkic group of the Altai family of languages began to take shape in close interaction with similar peoples.

Confusion with Tatars and Bulgarians

In the first century AD e. individual tribes begin to migrate towards Southern Kazakhstan. The famous Huns invaded Europe in the 4th century. It was then that the Bulgar branch separated from the Turkic tree and a vast confederation was formed, which was divided into the Danube and Volga. Today's Bulgarians in the Balkans now speak a Slavic language and have lost their Turkic roots.

The opposite situation occurred with the Volga Bulgars. They still speak Turkic languages, but after the Mongol invasion they call themselves Tatars. The conquered Turkic tribes living in the steppes of the Volga took the name of the Tatars - a legendary tribe with which Genghis Khan began his campaigns that had long disappeared in the wars. They also called their language, which they had previously called Bulgarian, Tatar.

The only living dialect of the Bulgarian branch of the Turkic group of languages is Chuvash. The Tatars, another descendant of the Bulgars, actually speak a variant of the later Kipchak dialects.

From Kolyma to the Mediterranean

The peoples of the Turkic linguistic group include the inhabitants of the harsh regions of the famous Kolyma basin, the resort beaches of the Mediterranean, the Altai mountains and the table-flat steppes of Kazakhstan. The ancestors of today's Turks were nomads who traveled the length and breadth of the Eurasian continent. For two thousand years they interacted with their neighbors, who were Iranians, Arabs, Russians, and Chinese. During this time, an unimaginable mixture of cultures and blood occurred.

Today it is even impossible to determine the race to which the Turks belong. Residents of Turkey, Azerbaijanis, and Gagauz belong to the Mediterranean group of the Caucasian race; there are practically no guys with slanted eyes and yellowish skin. However, the Yakuts, Altaians, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz - they all bear a pronounced Mongoloid element in their appearance.

Racial diversity is observed even among peoples who speak the same language. Among the Tatars of Kazan you can find blue-eyed blonds and black-haired people with slanted eyes. The same thing is observed in Uzbekistan, where it is impossible to deduce the appearance of a typical Uzbek.

Faith

Most Turks are Muslims, professing the Sunni branch of this religion. Only in Azerbaijan do they adhere to Shiism. However, some peoples either retained ancient beliefs or became adherents of other great religions. Most Chuvash and Gagauz people profess Christianity in its Orthodox form.

In the northeast of Eurasia, individual peoples continue to adhere to the faith of their ancestors; among the Yakuts, Altaians, and Tuvans, traditional beliefs and shamanism continue to be popular.

During the time of the Khazar Kaganate, the inhabitants of this empire professed Judaism, which today's Karaites, fragments of that mighty Turkic power, continue to perceive as the only true religion.

Vocabulary

Together with world civilization, Turkic languages also developed, absorbing the vocabulary of neighboring peoples and generously endowing them with their own words. It is difficult to count the number of borrowed Turkic words in East Slavic languages. It all started with the Bulgars, from whom the words “drip” were borrowed, from which “kapishche”, “suvart” arose, transformed into “serum”. Later, instead of “whey” they began to use the common Turkic “yogurt”.

The exchange of vocabulary became especially lively during the Golden Horde and the late Middle Ages, during active trade with Turkic countries. A huge number of new words came into use: donkey, cap, sash, raisin, shoe, chest and others. Later, only the names of specific terms began to be borrowed, for example, snow leopard, elm, dung, kishlak.