From: cluster.user@yale.edu (Cluster User)
Subject: Re: Caucasoid Turks/Bulgars
Date: 22 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT
Message-ID: <36a8d455.81661202@news.yale.edu>
References: <369E3BE1.5C45@sbu.ac.uk> <77li2j$qi0$1@whisper.globalserve.net> <369F52FE.2B6@sbu.ac.uk> <77rc86$auj$1@brokaw.wa.com> <36A444B3.F3B70F1C@alum.mit.edu.-> <7827sb$269$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36A52D70.9E372DD2@alum.mit.edu.-> <36A556AB.9927BD29@montclair.edu> <36a63533.58309714@news.yale.edu> <7866ud$i9m$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> <36cdb21e.883120019@news.wxs.nl> <36A7FCC8.79790A6B@earthlink.net> <36d77e23.1000882888@news.wxs.nl>
Organization: Yale University
Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology,sci.lang

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999 13:51:26 GMT, mcv@wxs.nl (Miguel Carrasquer Vidal)
wrote:

>On Thu, 21 Jan 1999 20:21:28 -0800, Robert <Robdimi@earthlink.net>
>wrote:
>
>>However, Peter Dobrev, a Bulgarian anthropologist championing the
>>Pamiric hypothesis, has used Dardic and other eastern Iranic cognates to
>>decipher the inscriptions. [...] The evidence he cites to buttress his 
>>argument is quite persuasive, at least to a layman such as myself. 
>
>Well, I didn't exactly claim the Bolgars were all Turkic, just that
>some (R-)Turkic speaking people were among them, as suggested by the
>fact that Chuvash is now spoken in former Bolgaria on the Volga.  

volga bolgar is known from some inscriptions in arabic script and is
definitely a turkic language (of the -r variety), which can be
described as "old chuvash" if you like. also medieval accounts, like
the lexicographer mahmud al-kashgari testify that it was a variety of
turkic.

>
>It's true that the inscriptions adduced by Dobrev don't look Turkic
>at all.  However, Dobrev isn't able to make much sense of them by
>interpreting them as Iranian either.  Unfortunately, this doesn't
>stop Dobrev from "translating" the inscriptions.  If no suitable
>Iranian (Pamiri) word is found, Dobrev does not hesitate to provide
>Celtic, Chechen, Georgian or "Sumero-Akkadian" parallels.  Anything
>goes (except, apparently, Turkic).
>
>On the basis of Dobrev's materials, it seems safest to say that
>Danube Bolgarian (like Hunnish) is a language of as yet unknown
>affiliation, probably with a number of Turkic and Iranian loanwords.
>
>=======================
>Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
>mcv@wxs.nl
>Amsterdam