From: Robert Subject: Re: Caucasoid Turks/Bulgars Date: 21 Jan 1999 00:00:00 GMT Message-ID: <36A7FCC8.79790A6B@earthlink.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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> To: mcv@wxs.nl X-Posted-Path-Was: not-for-mail Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-ELN-Date: 22 Jan 1999 04:13:02 GMT X-ELN-Insert-Date: Thu Jan 21 20:15:20 1999 Organization: EarthLink Network, Inc. Mime-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: sci.archaeology,sci.anthropology,sci.lang Miguel Carrasquer Vidal wrote: It is possible that r-Turkic (Bolgar) speaking peoples > were among the tribes known as Huns, Avars, Khazars and Bulgars. The > Chuvash are certainly descended from the Volga Bulgars (the other > branch of the Bulgars became known as the Danube Bulgars after they > invaded the Balkans and founded an empire based on modern Bulgaria. > The Danube Bulgar language is extinct, and modern Bulgarian is a > Slavic language). Recent evidence suggests that tribes such as Bulgars and Avars might not have been turkic after all. The Bulgars, for example, are thought to have left their ancient homeland in the vicinity of ancient Bactria for the Caucusus region (Great Bulgaria) at a time when the historical and archaeological record does not attest to there being any turks in that region. Generalizations about Bulgar nomadism appear similarly exaggerated when we consider that fortresses in Danubian Bulgaria at Preslav and Pliska mirror those at Greater Bulgaria and the eastern style of architecture of Bactria, attesting to architectural skill atypical of nomads. Similarly, claiming Bulgars as Turkic people because they had "khans" might be inaccurate, since an Iranian group such as the Alans also had khans. Further, in the Pamiro-dardic languages, to which ancient Bulgarian might have been related to, the word khan means a "man of high position." Many of the names of Bulgar khans are even thought to be of Iranian derivation, such as Boris, Asparuch, Kardam, Assen, etc. The namebook of the ancient Bulgar khans, when translated by turkologists using turkish cognates for words denoting months and years, have yielded inaccurate results for the period of time historians know each khan in question ruled. The error percentage is as high as 70%, causing turkologists to claim the Bulgars' historians were unsophisticated and simply made mathematical errors. However, Peter Dobrev, a Bulgarian anthropologist championing the Pamiric hypothesis, has used Dardic and other eastern Iranic cognates to decipher the inscriptions. His results regarding the khan namebook? 0 percent error rate. The evidence he cites to buttress his argument is quite persuasive, at least to a layman such as myself. Robert