From: cluster.user@yale.edu (Cluster User) Subject: Re: Caucasoid Turks/Bulgars Date: 27 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <36ae814d.4306061@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> <36a8d455.81661202@news.yale.edu> <36AC3460.856801F6@earthlink.net> Organization: Yale University Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology,sci.lang On Mon, 25 Jan 1999 01:07:44 -0800, Robert wrote: >Cluster User wrote: >> >> 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 >> >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. > > > Interesting. I recall reading something like this in the past. Can >you point me to a source where I can read up on these Arabic turkic I presume fundamenta has them. most reiews of turkic linguistics should have many references. >inscriptions? There have, however, also been other Arab sources who >claimed that the Bulgars spoke a language all their own unrelated to >that of their neighbors. I'd go through the trouble of looking it up and >citing it, but I'm guessing you're probably more knowledgable of this >than myself (I don't know what your backround is, but I'm just a >hobbyist). Ibn-Fadlan(sp.?) himself mentions and describes a variety of >Turkic tribes by name on his way to Volga Bulgaria, but when he arrives >there, he only speaks of the saqaliba. Why the dichotomy? How sure are saqa:liba means the slavs, but it was used for other people amongst them as well. ibn fadlan's rendition is not that surprising, as it was a multi-ethnic region. fadlan simply wasn't a philologist of turkic languages, as bolgaric is divergent. >we that the inscriptions don't belong to the ancestors of the turkic >chuvash as a tribe apart from the Bulgars? When the Bulgars arrived on >the Volga, there were finnic and turkic people already there, weren't certainly finnic, but most turkic settlement was along the kuban (which you dispute!). for the kuban region we know that the tribes that migrated along with the magyars were turkic, the onogurs and others. we know this from the -r turkic loanwords in hungarian. other medieval historians and lexicographers associated it with the languages of the khazars (hawkal/balkhi/istakhri), and al-biruni with the -z turkic languages and khazar. also with "suwar". in the 13th century abu-hayyan (lexicographer of qychaq turkic). bolgars became muslim. chuvash are not, but minor traces of arabic loans in the language remain. it is presumed that they represent the outlying population, not much affected by the islam in the cities. the segment of the population more affected by islam is presumed to have been readily absorbed by the qypchaq (-z turkic) tatars whose language betrays some bolgaric words and apparently also have a tradition of associations with the bolgars. >there? > In addition, it's generally accepted that the culture possessed by >the Bulgars was a heavily sarmaticized one with Kushan elements as well. fine. on linguistic grounds such a substratum can be assumed as well. this does not mean that there was not a later turkic migration. >Physical type (brachiocephalic Europoids with rarely expressed weak >mongoloid characteristics) as well as cultural elements point to a >genesis in the Pamirs around southern Tajikistan and northern >Afghanistan. There is some evidence in the archaeological record that a >people left this region bearing stong Bulgar cultural elements (burial >practices as evidenced by necropolises) in the 2nd century for the sea >of Azov area. This, incidentally, fits in perfectly with Dobrev's on the other hand the name is recorded late 5th century, after the assumed turkic migration with the huns. >timetable with respect to his translations of the Nominalia of the >Bulgar Khans and the progenitor of the Bulgars, Avitohol. To my >knowledge, there is no evidence of turkic tribes in the Bactrian region OK. >until centuries later. Some scholars have maintained that turkic Bulgars >swept into Bactria from the Northeast and mingled with the population, >adopting the local cultural markers. They find evidence for this sort of >intrusion in about the 2nd century B.C. However, this is precisely when >the Yueh-Chih are thought to have entered Bactria, forming the Kushan >empire. Last I heard, most scholars lean towards regarding the Yueh-Chih >as Indo-European rather than Turkic people. Coincidentally, they, like OK. however all this does not necessarily mean that there was no later turkic invasion. >the Bulgars, were fond of skull deformation. As I've said, I find >Dobrev's arguments fascinating, and he cites many modern Bulgarian words >of non-Slavic origin (once thought to be Turkish holdovers) which have >exact parallels only among the Dardic languages in Pamir, and sometimes >in the Caucusus where the Bulgars sojourned. I'm probably boring you by >now, but I eat this stuff up. After all, I am of Bulgarian extraction, >one of those people who one poster on this newsgroup dismissed as people >with an "identity crisis. They have to be told that they were all heroes >suffering from the Barbaric Turks (Ottomans)." I wonder what makes this >guy thinks he's on expert on Bulgarians. Oh well... > >Robert >