Source: TW
Image descriptions
The holy site on the steppes on the banks of the Orkhon river in Mongolia where the first Turkic empire originated. The stone epic of the Blue Turks is carved on rock steles in the vicinity.
- An etching of the Kueltegin Inscription, Orkhon, Mongolia. Part of the great Blue Turk epic on stone.
- The headless statue of the great Blue Turk Khan: Tengrida Bilge. Was it beheaded by the chIna-s or the Soviets?
- The graves of two unknown Hun Khans in the vicinity of the famous Orkhon steles.
- An etching of the Blue Turks with lamellar armor and horse armor riding forth on a campaign with the characteristic Altaic reindeer motif still seen among the only heathen Turks surviving in the region.
- The inscription of the Blue Turk Tonyuquq the prime minister of Bilge Khan and brother Kul Tegin.
Language
The noun of old Turkic in these inscriptions had 9 cases: 4 of which nominative, accusative, instrumental and genitive are also found in IE. The verbal atmanepada-parasmaipada distinction of IE is achieved by a special case called directive. bahuvrIhI & tatpuruSha samAsa-s both prominently exist in the old Turkic of these inscriptions. Notably unlike IE most nouns do not inflect to indicate dual/plural. However a suffix “-lar/laer” can be added to make a noun collective:
- baeg:a Turkic chief. baeglaer: the aristocracy.
- aekae: elder sister; aekaelaer collective of elder sister.
This is similar to Mongolic suffix nar/ner used in the same way.
Some interrogative pronouns in old Turkic: kaem: who? kaemkae to whom? Mongolic kem: who? A ka/ paradigm interrogative was possibly a very old feature of some branch of early Eurasiatic(?)
Some numbers in old Turkic: 1=bir 2=ekI 3=uech 4=toert 5=bish 6=altie 7= yeti 8=saekiz 9=toquz 10=on 100 yuez; 10000= bir tuemaen: the last word appears in Mongolic as used for the unit of the Mongol army; bish-balieq occurs in the Orkhon steles it literally means 5 cities likely specifically means the capital of Uighurs.
Take sentences:
“khaniem khaghan-kha bashlayu baz khaghaniegh balbal tikmis”
first erected Baz Khan (Khaghan) as a balbal for my father, the Khan“bashlayu khirgiz khaghaniegh balbal tikdim”
first I erected the Kirghiz khan as a balbal
These sentences indicate that the balbal stones of the Turks were originally erected as a mark of enemy Khans they had killed in battle. Sort of reminiscent of Yessugei naming his son Temujin after the Tatar khan he had slain. One wonders if there was a parallel practice with Huns.
The original form of their ethnonym as in the Orkhon inscriptions was likely Tueruek from which the Sanskritization turuShka arose.
It is unclear if these stones marked the earlier Khans mentioned in the inscriptions or even earlier Hunnic leaders.