Old Turkic Written Monuments

This study includes an examination of the antonym of hendiadys in all old Turkish inscriptions and manuscripts. Firstly, the elements of the antonym of hen-diadys identified will be examined one by one. This examination will be supported by etymological explanations when necessary. After examining the elements of the hendiadys in terms of structure, analysis will be started in terms of semantics. Then, structural and semantic analysis of the hendiadys will be conducted. In the end, the antonym of hendiadys of the examined structures will be questioned and their place in the hendiadys classification will be examined. In the study, both the elements that make up the hendiadys and the hendiadys will be explained together with their witnesses.

This is a draft version of one of the the four papers presented in a joint panel on the Hüis Tolgoi Inscription from Mongolia (currently in the National Institute of Archeology, Ulaanbaator) with my colleagues Dieter Maue, Mehmet Ölmez, and Étienne de la Vaissière on August 31, 2017 in conjunction with 60th meeting of PIAC in Székesfehérvár, Hungary. My colleagues' papers will be uploaded to Academia.edu shortly, and currently we are working on a co-authored article.

Prof. Dr. Erhan AYDIN'ın Kronik Kitap yayınlarından çıkan üçüncü kitabı olan Türklerin Bilge Atası Tonyukuk adlı eser önsöz, giriş, 6 bölüm, Tonyukuk yazı-tındaki sözcüklerin konu tasnifi, sözcük dizini, kaynaklar, Tonyukuk yazıtının Türk runik harfli metni, yeni Türk harflerine aktarımı ve günümüz Türkçesine çevirisi, yazıtın Türk runik harfli metninin tamamı, yazıta ait çizimler, fotoğraf-lar ve indeksten oluşmaktadır. Eserin Önsöz (s. 7-8) bölümünde Türk runik harfleriyle yazılmış metinler ve kitabın içeriği hakkında genel bilgiler verilmiştir. Giriş (s. 9-14) bölümünde Türk runik harfleri hakkında genel bilgiler yer al-maktadır. Okuyucunun Tonyukuk yazıtını özgün metninden okuyabilmesi için yazıtta kullanılan Türk runik harflerinin ses karşılıkları tablo halinde verilmiştir. Tabloda harflerin diğer yazıtlarda kullanılan farklı biçimlerine yer verilmemiş-tir. Ayrıca yazıtların bulunuşu, okunuşu ve bilim dünyasına tanıtılması hakkında genel bilgilendirme yapılmıştır.

ÖZET
Moğolistan'daki Karabalgasun yazıtı Ötüken Uygur dönemine ait Türk runik harfli yazıtlardan biridir. Yazıt kısadır, fakat Eski Türk inanç sistemine ait kut kavramına ilişkin dikkat çekici bir örnek ihtiva etmesi bakımından tarihî etnografya araştırmaları açısından değerlidir. Hakkında yapılan çok sayıda çalışmaya rağmen, yazıt metni içeriği günümüze kadar tam olarak aydınlatılmamıştır. Bu makalede yazar yazıtın T. Osawa'ya ait 1996 tarihli estampajına dayanarak, yazıtla ilgili kendi okuyuş önerisini açıklamalarla birlikte vermektedir.

ABSTRACT
The Qarabalgasun II of Mongolia is an Old Turkic runic inscription chronologically attributed to the Otuken Uighur period. Although the inscription is short, it contains significant datum for historical etnography researches on the concept of qut in the beliefs system of ancient Turks. All publications so far on the subject have lacunae in the text of the inscription as well as uncertainties and ambiguities in the reading. In this article the author reviews all sources on the subject and presents a new reading and interpretation on the basis of a rubbing made by T. Osawa in 1996.

Özet: Dillerde kelimelerin anlamını güçlendirmek için başvurulan yollardan biri olan ikilemelere Eski Uygur Türkçesinde de sıkça rastlanmaktadır. Eski Uygur Türkçesindeki ikilemeler incelendiğinde, bazı kelimelerin değişmesine rağmen aynı anlamın muhafaza edildiği görülür. Şöyle ki A, B ve C kelimeleri ele alındığında “A - B”, “A - C”, “B - A”, “B -
C”, “C - A”, “C - B” şekillerinde ikilemeler oluşturulabilmektedir. Bu çalışmada, bu şekilde yer değiştiren ikilemelerin tespiti ve tasnifi ortaya konarak bunlar üzerinden değerlendirmeler yapılacaktır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Eski Uygur Türkçesi, ikilemeler, yer değiştirme, ikileme grupları, köprü ikileme
ABSTRACT
Reduplications is one of the ways that referenced to strengthen the meaning of words in languages. Reduplications used frequently in Old Uighur Turkish and when these are research, despite the changes of some words, same meaning is seen that have been preserved. That is, for example, A, B, C words. These words can be created reduplications in forms of “A - B”, “A -C”, “B - A”, “B - C”, “C - A”, “C - B”. In this study, detection and classification of Old Uighur Turkish reduplications in this way will be explained; than these datas are evaluated.
Key Words: Old Uighur Turkish, reduplications, metathesis, reduplication groups, bridge reduplication

This article is a sequel to the interpretation of the Khüis Tolgoi inscription published in the previous issue of the Journal Asiatique. The Bugut inscription is at least twenty years older than the Khüis Tolgoi inscription, being probably erected in 584 AD but no later than 587 AD. It is a quasi-builingual, with two inscriptions on the same stone: Sogdian that has been extensively studied before by Kliashtornyi, Livshits, and Yoshida, and the inscription in Brāhmī, that has not been properly studied before (only wild speculations regrding the identity of its language without any attempt to discuss the data have been published so far). Based on Dieter Maue's reading, which was greatly facilitated by 3D photography, I was able to interpret the inscription and to establish the identity of its language, which turned out to be essentially the same as the language of the Khüis Tolgoi inscription: an early Mongolic language, quite closely related to the Middle Mongolian of the thirteenth-fourteenth century in spite of 600 years that separate them. This discovery has many important consequences for linguistic history and history of Central Asia, among which the most important are: first, the fact that the oldest language on the steppe of the "Ataic" type is Mongolic, and not Turkic, and second that this Mongolic language was the official language of the first Turkic khaganate, which in its turn explains why we have no inscriptions in Old Turkic before the second khaganate.

The article proposed is devoted to the revision of the view on related to the interpretation of the word qut in the monuments of Old Turkic runic writing as a kind of substance that given to the nomadic ruler by the Heaven (divine charisma) and associated with the concept of supreme power. The paper examines the fragments contained the word qut in Old Turkic monuments to show that it's such interpretation prevailing in the scientific tradition can be acceptable for selected contexts, but unreasonable in general. The author of the article proposes to interpret them without a dependence imposed by theories. It is possible to analyze same contexts based on the ethnographic data. As a result, it looks quite adequate the understanding of qut in the monuments of Old Turkic runic writing as "vital force" or a kind of "vital energy", maybe "health indicator", that is a characteristic which all living things possess. It should not at all affect the interpretation of the word analyzed the use of it both in the same context with mentions of Täŋri ('Heaven') and in combinations with the word qaghan. At least, following the contexts of the monuments in general, a qaghan, with the exception of his functions implied by his position, is otherwise no different from other representatives of the societies of Early Turks.

Published in: XXXI Международный конгресс по источниковедению и историографии стран Азии и Африки: Россия и Восток. К 100-летию политических и культурных связей новейшего времени. 23–25 июня 2021 г.: Материалы конгресса / Отв. ред.: Н.Н. Дьяков, П.И. Рысакова, А.О. Победоносцева Кая. СПб.: Изд-во Студия «НП-Принт», 2021. Т. 1. С. 234–235.
<The idea of a paper consisted in following sense. I want to propose such a new translation of the initial lines of the Küli čor inscription: (1) …[(a)lpïn : (ä)rd(ä)min] üčün : (a)p[a] [t(a)rq(a)n] čїq(a)n tońuquq : (a)t(ï)γ b(e)rm(i)š (2) […]tdoqda : jügtürmiš : ïšb(a)ra čїq(a)n küli čor bolm(ï)š [küli čor tońuquq (3) q(a)pγ(a)n q(a)γ(a)n : il(i)ntä : q(a)rïp : (ä)dgü b(ä)ŋi : körti : uluγ : küli čor : s(ä)k(i)z on : j(a)š(a)p : joq bol[tï] ‘(1) […] … because of [his bravery and manly qualities] Apa Tarqan Čїqan Tońuquq gave [him] a name/title (2) [...] [when] ... rised, he became Ïšbara Čїqan Küli Čor. Küli Čor (and) Tońuquq (3) during the reign of Qapγan Qaγan grew old and experienced great joy. Having lived eighteen old Uluγ Küli Čor ceased to exist’>

The word kıyın / kıyn, meaning ‘punishment’ in the north line 8 of the Tonyukuk I and east 2 line of the Şine Usu inscription, has been interpreted in different ways by the researchers. The word is in nYiX format in T1 K8; in ŞU D2 it is written in NYIK format. The word was often used in the kın form in the old Uighur and Karahanlı Turkish texts. The kıyın / kıyn form of the word, though rare, has been witnessed in old Uighur and Karahanlı Turkish texts. This can be explained by Gabain’s n - y dialect detection. At this point, it is understood that the voice at the end of the original form of the word is /ñ/. But why is the voice at the end of the word not written with the sign /ñ/ ( J ) testimonies in inscriptions? It is possible to find answers to this question with two suggestions. In this article, after the testimonies of the word kıñ in the old Turkic inscriptions, the /n/ and /yn/ forms in the old Uighur and Karahanlı Turkish texts will be emphasized. In the light of the information obtained later, it will be explained whether the word is a root or a derived form. In the continuation of the study, it will be tried to prove the thought that is defended by referring to the words that are understood to derive from the root form in question. As a result of some research conducted in this study, it will be possible to reach some data on how the letter order in /ñ/ voice should be.

Bu çalışmanın konusu, Kül Tegin ve Bilge Kağan Yazıtları'nda geçen ve Türgeş kağanının ordusu için kullanılan otča bwrča ifadesidir. Bu benzetme, Wilhelm Radloff'un çalışmasından başlayarak günümüze kadar yalnızca yazıtlarla ilgili yayınların değil, müstakil çalışmaların da konusu olmuş, defalarca irdelenmiş ve farklı açıklamalarda bulunulmuştur. Bu makalenin amacı, önceki okuma, etimoloji ve açıklamaları bir araya getirerek bunlar içinde hangisinin en ikna edici olduğunu belirlemektir. Sonuç olarak, otča borča okuması ile "ateş ve toz bulutu gibi" anlamlandırmasının en muhtemel yorum olduğuna karar verilmiştir.
The subject of this study is the phrase otča bwrča used to describe the army of Türgäš Qagan in the Kül Tegin and Bilgä Qagan inscriptions. From Wilhem Radloff's study to the present day, this simile has been the subject not only of publications on the inscriptions but also of independent studies. It has been scrutinized several times, and different explanations have been put forward. The purpose of this article is to bring together the previous readings, etymologies, and explanations, and to determine which of them is the most convincing. In conclusion, it is found that the most likely interpretation of the phrase is to read it as otča borča, meaning 'like fire and a cloud of dust'.

The article analyses the one fragment of Old Turkic inscription Altïn-Köl I (Ye 28) found in Khakassia in which the author, following by W. Radloff and A. N. Bernštam, finds the term with the sense ‘clan, origin, kin’ in the argued phonetic form täk. For the reconstruction an additional linguistic data was used as well as the context of the phrase was reasoned by attracting materials from other Old Turkic runic writing monuments of the Yenisei River valley.

Scripts (writing systems) usually belong to specific languages and have temporal, spatial and cultural characteristics. The evolution of scripts has been the subject of research for a long time. This is probably because the long-term development of human thinking is reflected in the surviving script relics, many of which are still undeciphered today. The book presents the study of the script evolution with the mathematical tools of systematics, phylogenetics and bioinformatics. In the research described, the script is the evolutionary taxonomic unit (taxon), which is analogous to the concept of biological species. Among the methods of phylogenetics, phenetics classifies the investigated taxa on the basis of their morphological similarity, and does not primarily examine genealogical relationships. Due to the scarcity of morphological diversity of scripts’ features, random coincidences of evolution-independent features are much more common in scripts than in biological species, thus phenetic modelling based solely on morphological features can lead to erroneous results. For this reason, phenetic modeling has been extended with evolutionary considerations, thereby allowing the modelling uncertainties observed in the script evolution to be addressed due to the large number of random coincidences (homoplasies) characterizing each script. The book describes an extended phenetic method developed to investigate the script evolution. This data-driven approach helps to reduce the impact of the uncertainties inherent in the phenetic model due to the large number of homoplasies that occur during the evolution of scripts. The elaborated phenetic and evolutionary analyses were applied to the Rovash scripts used on the Eurasian Steppe (Grassland), including the Turkic Rovash (Turkic Runic/runiform) and the Székely-Hungarian Rovash. The evaluation of the extended phenetic model of the scripts, the various phenograms, the script spectra and the group spectra helped to reconstruct the main ancestors and evolutionary stages of the investigated scripts.

There is many publications on Old Turkic Inscriptions form Mongolia. Most of them look like a kind of "transliteration". Following paper discusses such points and suggests principles of a new edition.  Turkish version published at: “Eski Türk Yazıtlarının Yeni Bir yayımı nasıl Olmalıdır?”, I. Uluslararası Uzak Asya’dan Ön Asya’ya Eski Türkçe Bilgi Şöleni, 18-20 Kasım 2009, Afyonkarahisar 2010: 211-219.

This paper is a research on the tribal name jū-wù 居勿 mentioned in Chinese chronicle “Xīn Táng Shū” (“New History of Tang dynasty”) in connection with the Yenisei Qïrqïz people. The author proves the identity of this pronunciation with the name of tribal group kömül ~ kümül known from Old Turkic runic inscriptions of the Yenisei River basin, and comes to the conclusion, that the tribal group played an important role in political life of the Yenisei Qïrqïz tribal union during at least the period of 841–863, which was the time of Qïrqïz invasion in the Eastern Turkestan, where jū-wù 居勿 had been fixed by Chinese authors.

This article is written in order to reread the first word of the sixth line of the western face of the I. Tuńukuk Inscription and reevaluate the sentence accordingly. In the article, it is suggested that the verbal base with -sAr conditional suffix, written as b2Ül2s2r2, should be read and interpreted as bö:lä- ‘to bellow’, and Old Anatolian Turkish, Turkmen, and Turkish verb mölä- is used as a proof to the reading bö:lä-.

Orkhon inscriptions contain some differences from other old Turkic inscriptions and manuscripts. Some font character used in these inscriptions, grammatical structures, semantic connotations and words in context are some of the elements that make up these differences. Besides their differences, inscriptions and manuscripts have common elements. In the context of these partnerships, the examination of the inscriptions of Orkhon in terms of vocabulary contributes to the understanding of these inscriptions. At this point, determining the root forms of some derived words is an important issue. The authors of the inscriptions were aware of the root forms of the words in which they used their derived forms. Although this type of root forms are absent in the context, structures with derived forms are called forward element. In this article, forward elements seen in the Orkhon inscriptions will be determined. This determination will contribute to the determination of the partnership and connections of the Orkhon inscriptions in terms of vocabulary with other inscriptions and manuscripts. The determination of root forms has an important place in understanding the richness of the Orkhon inscriptions in terms of vocabulary. In the study, the structures determined as derived forms will be analyzed structurally and semantically until they reach the root form. This study will also contribute to the understanding of word derivation, semantic dimensions of words, voice changes and developments in inscriptions and manuscripts, and the dialect differences of the Turkic language in that period. In addition, deep etymological explanations of the mentioned words will be made.
Özet: Orhon yazıtları, diğer Eski Türk yazıt ve el yazmalarından kimi farklılıklar içermektedir. Bu yazıtlarda kullanılan kimi yazı karakterleri, dil bilgisel yapılar, anlamsal çağrışımlar ve bağlam içerisinde geçen sözcükler söz konusu farklılıkları oluşturan kimi unsurlardır. Farklılıklarının yanında yazıt ve el yazmaları ortak unsurlar barındırmaktadır. Bu ortaklıklar bağlamında Orhon yazıtlarının söz varlığı açısından incelenmesi, bu yazıtların anlaşılmasında katkılar sunmaktadır. Kimi türemiş sözcüklerin kök biçimlerinin tespiti bu noktada önemli bir konudur. Yazıtların yazarları, türemiş biçimlerini kullandıkları sözcüklerin kök biçimlerinden haberdardılar. Bu tip kök biçimleri bağlam içerisinde yer almayıp türemiş biçimleri bulunan yapılara ileri öge denilmektedir. Bu yazıda, Orhon yazıtlarında görülen ileri ögeler tespit edilecektir. Bu tespit, Orhon yazıtlarının diğer yazıt ve el yazmaları ile söz varlığı açısından ortaklık ve bağlantılarının saptanmasına katkılar sunacaktır. Kök biçimlerin saptanması, Orhon yazıtlarının söz varlığı açısından zenginliğini anlamakta önemli bir yere sahiptir. Çalışmada, gövde biçim olarak belirlenen yapılar kök biçime ulaşıncaya kadar yapısal ve anlamsal açıdan çözümlenecektir. Bu çalışma, yazıt ve el yazmalarında sözcük türetiminin, sözcüklerin anlamsal boyutlarının, ses değişim ve gelişimlerinin ve o dönemde Türk dilinin lehçe farklılıklarının anlaşılmasına da katkılar sunacaktır. Ayrıca üzerinde durulan sözcüklerin derin etimolojik açıklamaları yapılmış olacaktır.

Esiz is one of the most frequently occurring words in the Old Turkic Runic inscriptions. Based on the meaning given in Diwanu Lughat at-Turk by al-Kashgari esiz is understood as alas, an interjection expressing sorrow, regret and compassion.
However, the fact that it can be inflected with the suffixes of possession or plurality demonstrates that esiz is a noun serves as
an interjection, in other words it is a secondary interjection.
The aim of this paper is to find out the initial lexical meaning of esiz. In order to do that the author uses the lexicographic data relating to esiz and its denominative form esirke- in both
historical and contemporary Turkic languages.
The author claims that the lexical meaning of esiz in the Old Turkic Runic texts should be as follows: dear, valuable,
worthy.
Key Words: esiz, esirke-, suffix +XrkA-, Turkic runic inscriptions, Yenisey.

Old Turkic inscriptions from Mongolia cover around 1000 words. Around 20 % of Old Turkic vocabulary belongs neighbor cultures. I have dealt such words in a series article. This is second one: From gongzhu 公主 (kunčuy)to महाराज mahārāja (maqarač) // Yaklaşık 1000 kelimelik sözvarlığı olan Eski Türk yazıtlarında % 20 civarında yabancı unsur bulunmaktadır. Bir seri yazı ile bu konuyu ele aldım. Bu makalede gongzhu 公主 (kunçuy) sözünden महाराज mahārāja (makaraç) sözüne kadarki kelimeleri ele aldım.

Eski Türk yazısıyla Moğolistan ve Moğolistan sınırlarının dışında yazılmış yazıtlarla ilgili olarak her geçen yıl yeni keşifler ortaya konmaktadır. Özellikle son 25 yılda konuyla ilgili çalışmalar ve alan araştırmaları artmış, eskiden bulunmuş yazıtlar hakkında ayrıntılı yeni bilgiler öğrenirken yeni yazıtlardan da haberdar olmaya devam etmekteyiz. Bunlardan birisi de 2010 ve 2011 yıllarında varlığından haberdar olunan, 2015’te de ilk metin yayımı yapılan ‘Dongoyn Şiree’ yazıtlarıdır. Söz konusu yazıtta 1100’ün üzerinde kelime yer alsa da toplam söz varlığı 20’yi bulmaz. Bu 20 kelime içerisinden özellikle eleŋime sözünün açıklanması zordur. Bu kısa yazıda söz konusu kelimenin açıklanmasına ilişkin önerimiz yer almaktadır. // Every passing year, researchers make important discoveries on the inscriptions written in Old Turkic script both in and out of the borders of Mongolia. Especially in the past 25 years, with an increase in field works, we continue getting some new further information on the inscriptions already known and also hearing about the newly-introduced ones. The subject of this paper is one of the latter, “Dongoin Shiree” an inscription introduced in 2010-2011 and published in 2015. Although there are more than 1100 words written on this inscription, the total vocabulary of it consists of a maximum of 20 words. Among those 20 words, eleŋime is one of the words which are hard to explain. In this short paper, we will suggest an explanation for the word in question.

Özet Bu makalede ben özellikle Uygur dili ve onun çağdaş ağızlarında Orhon döneminden kalan birçok kelimeyi göstermekle beraber, şimdiye kadar söz konusu olan bazı eski Türk kelimelerinin diğer Türk dillerindeki anlamını dikkate alarak bu sözcüklerle ilgili anlamlandırma teklifi sunmaya çalışacağım. Abstract This article presents some Old Turkic words, which are still existed in modern Uyghur and its dialects. Furthermore, some new assumptions are put forward about the meaning of some Old Turkic words, which haven't been enough clarified before.

The article is concerned with the problem of the origin of Old Turkic runic writing as a socio-cultural phenomenon. Some scholars regard the emergence of writing among the Old Turkic peoples as an attribute of a certain level of complexity of society. However, it is not easy to justify the necessity and practical usage of writing in the nomadic societies. Large political units, established by nomads, were based upon tribal organization and, therefore, were fragile and ephemeral. Historical experience was preserved by oral tradition within each tribe. The strength and durability of a political unity under the rule of one of those tribes could be maintained with the help of force of arms or ideology. The conception of over-tribal power is not convincing. The same can be said about the political unity which included most of Turkic-speaking tribes and was headed by the tribe Türk. The qaghans of the so-called First Türk Empire used Sogdian writing system. However, it is difficult to imagine any practical importance of inscriptions on stone made in Sogdian for common nomadic people. It seems that the installation of monuments with inscriptions in Old Turkic during the period of the Second Türk Empire was nothing more than the reproduction of the same practice. These were texts of political content, justifying the greatness of the Türk qaghans. Those who were destined to listen to the speeches of the qaghan included his own relatives, ministers (buyruq), and tribal chiefs (bäg). It is hardly probable that wider circles of nomadic population used any writing. It is possible that those ministers and, partly, tribal chiefs could transmit to the people the words of the leader. At the same time, inscriptions of the Second Türk Empire were primarily epitaphs. Originally being borrowed from the Chinese, the custom of perpetuation of famous persons in practice put aside the value of these constructions as monuments of writing. These inscriptions reflect the views of the Türk elite on historical realities relevant to the period in which their life and activities took place. They were not a product of historiography as to imply the presence of historical memory and historical consciousness. Also, these texts reflect a nomadic vision of the possibility of the existence of tribal unions under the primacy of only one of them, with which all the other identify themselves. One can see here a reverberation and a written expression of stereotypes typical for traditional nomadic world view. After the decline of the dynasty of Türk qaghans the chiefs of the Uighur tribe adopted all political traditions of the nomadic empire and continued the development of its institutions. So, a new stage of Old Turkic statehood and Old Turkic culture started. In Uighur period of the history of the steppe empire the writing tradition had a better chance to develop. The early inscriptions of Uighur qaghans are more restrained than those of the Türk ones, in their style and content, but they use the system of time counting based on the Chinese calendar more successively, and the presentation of historical events is more consistent. It is reasonable to assume that the development of written culture in the Uighur period was caused by the adoption of Manichaeism and, even more, by the increase of agriculture and the growth of settled population. It also can be assumed that the Uighurs developed a written tradition using the potential laid by Türk qaghans who could not realize it. The Türks only set the trend, promoting the possibility of the spread of original writing system among the Turkic-speaking population of Steppe Eurasia, which eventually found application in its various corners, but never became the official writing of nomadic empires.

When and where did the Turks first emerge? Who were the neighbours of the Turks when they first emerged in Central Asia, what was the contacts an interactions of the Turks with them like? Were the Huns Turks or some other ethnic group? Was Old Turkish related to Mongolian and Manchu-Tungus? What was the origin of the Old Turkish alphabet, and when, where, how and by whom was it invented? While reading the letters of Sir Gerard Clauson, the famous English Turkologist and author of An Etymological Dictionary of Pre-Thirteenth Century Turkish, the most comprehensive etymological dictionary of Old Turkish, to the Russian Turkologist and Tuva expert Leonid Potapov, you will also find Clauson’s answers to these questions.

Kara bodun ifadesinin en eski örnekleri eski Türk yazıtlarındadır. Eski Uygur ve Karahanlı Türkçesi metinlerinde de tanıklanan ifade, araştırmacılar tarafından farklı biçimlerde okunup anlamlandırılmıştır. Kara sözcüğünün burada sıfat olarak mı yoksa doğrudan bir ad olarak mı kullanıldığına yönelik çeşitli görüşler vardır. Bu farklı görüşler ışığında, kimi araştırmacılar ifadeye ‘avam, sıradan, basit halk’ anlamını yüklemiştir. Böylesi bir anlamlandırmayı destekleyecek dilsel malzemenin Eski Türkçenin söz varlığında bulunması ise oldukça şüphelidir. Yapılan bu çalışmada, kara ve bodun sözcükleri arasındaki yapısal ilişkinin ne olduğu sorununa çözüm aranacak ve ifadenin karşıladığı anlam açıklığa kavuşturulmaya çalışılacaktır. Şimdiye dek özellikle kara sözcüğünün kökeni ve karşıladığı anlamlar üzerine çeşitli araştırmalar yürütülmüştür. Çalışmada, yöntemsel açıdan öncelikle kara sözcüğü üzerinde durulacaktır. Ancak önceki çalışmaların tekrarına düşülmemesi adına, burada kara sözcüğü eski Türk yazıt ve el yazmalarının söz varlığında geçen tanıklamalarıyla yalnızca kara bodun ifadesini açıklamak açısından incelenecektir. Yazının devamında, kara bodun ifadesini açıklamakta önemli veriler sunması olası olan kara baş, kara égil bodun, kara kamag bodun, kara kamag sü ile kara suw ifadeleri ve bu ifadelerde geçen sözcükler üzerinde durulacaktır. Yazının son bölümünde ise kara bodun ifadesi üzerine yoğunlaşılacaktır.

The oldest examples of the kara bodun expression are in the old Turkic inscriptions. The expression, which is witnessed not only in the old Turkic inscriptions but also in the old Uyghur and Karakhanid Turkic texts, has been read and interpreted in different ways by the researchers. There are different opinions about whether the word kara is used here as an adjective or directly as a noun It is highly doubtful that linguistic material supporting such an interpretation exists in the vocabulary of old Turkic. In this study, a solution to the problem of the structural relationship between the words kara and bodun will be sought and the meaning of the expression will be clarified. Until now, various studies have been carried out especially on the origin of the word kara and its meanings. In the study, first of all, the word kara will be emphasized in terms of methodology. However, in order to avoid repetition of previous studies, the word kara will be examined here, with the testimonies of old Turkic inscriptions and manuscripts in the presence of vocabulary, only to explain the term kara bodun. In the rest of the article, the expressions of kara baş, kara égil bodun, kara kamag bodun, kara kamag sü and kara suw and the words used in these expressions will be examined. In the last part of the article, the expression of kara bodun will be focused on.

The old Turkic script was written on paper as well as on stones. The manuscripts written in the old Turkic script contain some differences from the old Turkic inscriptions. Some grammatical structures, semantic associations, expression methods and techniques, and words used in context in these manuscripts are some of the elements that make up these differences. Besides their differences, inscriptions and manuscripts have common elements. Examining the manuscripts in terms of vocabulary in the context of these partnerships contributes to understanding these manuscripts. At this point, determining the root forms of some derived words is an important issue. The authors of the manuscripts were aware of the root forms of the words in which they used their derived forms. Although this type of root forms are absent in the context, structures with derived forms are called forward element. In this article, forward elements seen in the manuscripts will be determined. This determination will contribute to determining the partnership and connections of the manuscripts in terms of vocabulary with inscriptions. The determination of root forms has an important place in understanding the richness of the manuscripts in terms of vocabulary. In the study, the structures determined as derived forms will be analyzed structurally and semantically until they reach the root form. In addition, etymological explanations of the mentioned words will be made.