Orkhon-Yenisei script
| Old Turkic script |
|
|---|---|
| Type |
Alphabet
|
| Languages | Old Turkic |
|
Time period
|
8th to 10th centuries |
|
Child systems
|
Old Hungarian |
| Direction | Right-to-left |
| ISO 15924 | Orkh, 175 |
|
Unicode alias
|
Old Turkic |
| U+10C00–U+10C4F | |
The Old Turkic script (also known as variously Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script) is the alphabet used by the Göktürks and other early Turkic khanates during the 8th to 10th centuries to record the Old Turkic language.
The script is named after the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia where early 8th-century inscriptions were discovered in an 1889 expedition by Nikolai Yadrintsev. These Orkhon inscriptions were published by Vasily Radlov and deciphered by the Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893.
This writing system was later used within the Uyghur Khaganate. Additionally, a Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century Yenisei Kirghiz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old Hungarian alphabet of the 10th century. Words were usually written from right to left.
According to some sources, Orkhon script is derived from variants of the Aramaic alphabet, in particular via the Pahlavi and Sogdian alphabets, as suggested by Vilhelm Thomsen, or possibly via Kharosthi (cf. the inscription at Issyk kurgan).
Another explanation of the script's origin aside from derivation from tamgas, an alternate possible derivation from Chinese characters was suggested by Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893. Turkic inscriptions dating from earlier than the Orkhon inscriptions used about 150 symbols, which may suggest that tamgas first imitated Chinese script and then gradually was refined into an alphabet.
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Wikipedia