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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Sept 29, 2007 0:53:31 GMT 3
In Europen sources the Bulgars were first mentioned in 354 AD and earlier in Armenian and Syrian sources. Golden says that the sources before 480 are vague. The name Bulgar cannot come for Bulga for some very simple reasons - the pronounsiation of the name is different, the structure is different - the root is Bulg and has suffix -ar. A suffix usually cannot consist of only one letter/sound. It can be different in Modern Bulgarian but the description given by Golden is very logical. If you check the Orkhon Inscriptions, you can find the verb Bulġa-. It was that only an -r was added to that core verb to make it a name, which is very common in Turkic (another example is Ḳačar [Qachar/Qajar]). The Bulgarian ruler was never called Khan (Khan - Su Bagi). In all inscriptions it's written Kanasubigi and then translated in Greek- ruler send from the Gods. Kana - ruler(some Persian dialects,Pamirian languages), Subaga - divine,from the Gods(Sanskrit) But note that in Old Turkic, the sound KH did not exist (it was during the Middle Turkic [starting from the 10th century onwards] period when that sound appeared) and the title Khan was in fact Ḳan (Qan). You said yourself that Kana means ruler - it is obvious that it comes from the Altaic title meaning Ruler. I have a Sanskrit dictionary and I checked for Subaga but such a word does not exist in Sanskrit, as I have seen. Tarkan is actully mentioned in sanskrit too. That title also does not exist in my dictionary. On the other hand, according to Annamarie von Gabain, the title Tarḳan (Tarqan) is Turkic, or at least Altaic. As I said we cannot judge by a few words as the bulgars were in a union with turkic speakers,so they adopted some words and terms, but a s whole their language was iranic as it is seen on most inscriptions. And vice versa. Plus, I still trust Tekin's work. About the Volga Bulgars - they had a link with bashkirs and Kypchak people and as I said, they were islamised by turkic people, not by Persians or Arabs. It is not clear if the Bashqurts (Bashkirs) were totally Turkic at that time, because it might be possible that they might have been Turkified Ugrians or a mixture of Ugrians and Turkics. The Ḳïpčaḳs (Qypchaq, Kuman) did not arrive to the region before the 13th century. But we know that the Volga Bulġars spoke a distinct form of Turkic even before that. Another note: it was the On Oġurs or Volga-Kama Bulġars who introduced Turkic Steppe culture to the Magyars, who were a forest-dwelling Ugric people before they started their migrations. That is why they adopted the name On Oġur (Ten Tribes), because they were also made up of ten tribes. Plus, it was after this when the Byzantine Romans started calling the Magyars as "Turks". Also Ibn Fadlan who travelled to the turkic people and the Bulgars(volga Bulgars) describes huge cultural and visual differences between the turkic people and the Bulgars. Because the Oġurs had come to the region in the early centuries of AD, whereas the Ḳasars/Ḫazars (Khazars), Pečeneks and Oġuz migrated there in the following centuries. Besides, it is normal for Ibn Faḍlān to show differences between the Volga Bulġars and other Turkic peoples, because the Pečeneks and Oġuz were still dominantly nomadic (even though the Oġuz had started to settle down on the banks of Jaxartes, but the majority were nomads) while the Ḫazars and Bulġars had become sedentary already. I don't know if there's an online verson of the epos. Thank you. By the way, you still did not answer this question asked by me: About the art. You should have known that hunting figures and mythological scenes are very common in the steppes and they did not belong to a single group of peoples. Just like horse riding or archery  |
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Sept 29, 2007 1:09:13 GMT 3
Oh sorry I have one more question: how are you sure that the treasure found at Nagyszentmiklós is Bulgarian? Because it dates to a period when the Bulġars or Bulgarians did not live at that region, right? Am I wrong?
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Post by sarmat on Sept 29, 2007 6:23:11 GMT 3
And Sarmat, welcome aboard  Thank you |
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Post by sarmat on Sept 29, 2007 6:43:22 GMT 3
I showed two transcriptions from the runic inscriptions from northern Bulgaria above. Both are iranic. The Chuvash language is a Bulgar-Turkic and has many iranic words that could be heard in Bulgarian too. Volga,Black(Caucasian) and Balkan Bulgarians adopted foreign languages because of the surrownding tribes(they mixed on some level but not a high level) - the volga and Caucas Bulgars adopted Turkic languages,because they were surrownded by turkic people,ruled by turkic people and got their religion from the turkic people. These are false claims. First of all there is enough evidence that Balkan Bulgars spoke Turkic language. The few inscription in Bukgar written Cyrrilic and Greek alphabet which survived were translated and their language is definetely Turkic. I can send you the whole paper about this written by some scholars from Sankt Petersburg University in Russia. That language is very similar to Chuvash and had a lot of paralels with other modern Turkic languages, language of great Turks and proto-Turkic. Secondly, I don't see any reasons for Bulgars "to Turkinize," even if their Iranic speakers originally. Just and example, both Finno-Hungarian tribes and Alan tribes although under Turkic (Hunnish) domination were able to keep their language. Hungarians which were a part of Onogur Confideration didn't switch to Turkic and speak it to this day. The same with Alans who actually succesfully lived in the North Caucasus steppe untill the 14th century (until Tamerlane) invasion and spoke their Iranic language. They still speak it to this day, despite the constant Turkic domination in that region. Thus there is no enough evidence to suggest that there was a overwhelming tendency of Turkinization of tribes living in the steppe between Volga and Danube, at least until the Golden Horde times. Thirdly, there were no Turkic surroundings for Volga Bulgars, where they could get "Turkinized." Apparently, the region was inhabbitied by Finno-ugrian tribes, before Bulgars (first Turks who settled their permanently) came. So, Bulgars already spoke Turkic language when they came there. And in fact, due to the surroundings the language was heavily influenced by Finno-ugrian languages there. This is clearly shown on the example of Chuvash language which some linguists call "Turkic language with very heavy Finno-Ugrian influence." |
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Post by sarmat on Sept 29, 2007 6:55:39 GMT 3
Again, this proves nothing. All the steppe Nomads, even before common era where heavily influenced by the so called "Beast style" and artistic style which is believed to develop among Skythians, from Skythians it spread though out the great Steppe. The examples of the "Beast style" art are very common in the Hunnish kurgans found in modern Chinese Manzhuria and Southern Siberia. By that time the "beast style" became the characteristic feature of Nomadic art, regardless of particular ethnicity. The same is actually true about very many aspect of nomadic life style. Like for example Tamgas, a lot of Turkic and Mongolian Tamgas actually resemble Skythian and Sarmat Tamgas. I actually believe that Tamgas appeared among Skythians first and then were adopted later by other Steppans. More over, the statue of man's headed winged bull is not a good example of original Skytho-persian and even Iranian art. This creature is called "Shedu" in chaldeic language it has a semitic origin and appeared first in ancient Mesopothamia. Later Persians just also built statues of shedu, but only due to the inflence of Mesopothamian civilization. This is not the best example to illustrate "original" "irano-skythian" art. |
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Post by sarmat on Sept 29, 2007 7:17:20 GMT 3
About the lack of evidence about the belief in the Sky - read the Alan Epos. Sorry, dear Balkhani, I actually read the only Alan epos we have now and it is called the "Tale of Narts" Narts are kind of epic creatures mighty and powerful very similar to ancient Greek mythology's giants. Actually, all the Caucasus nations more or less similar version of the "Tale of Narts" including Cherkassians, Chechens etc. because the origins of this epos are Caucasian not Skytho-Iranian There is nothing in Nart epos suggesting that ancient Alans had religion similar to the faith of Tangri or "believe in the sky." We know that Alans worshipped many Gods, and also Sun and fire, which is very similar to the depiction of the Skythian religion given by Herodot, but there is no evidence what so ever saying about the "cult of sky" among Alans. |
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Post by sarmat on Sept 29, 2007 7:32:40 GMT 3
Their language was also Indo Europen - from the Indo -Iranian group. Words such as Shar, Kushta, Kuche, Hubost, Zhena, Brat, Kaka, Kurpa, Chembas, Na, Nana, Khazna etc. have survived in the Bulgarian language to this day. Man, this really starts to look like a make up now. We have similar words in Russian language: Shar, Kuche, Zhena, Brat, Na, Khazna etc.. I don't know why those neo Bulgarian revisionists took these obvious words which actually are present more or less in all the Slavic languages. Does it mean that all the Slavs are descendants of "Bulgaro-Iranians" now? If those words are present in Bulgarian language now, they are coming from its Slavic roots, not from this mythical "Iranian Bulgars" I also have to say that Slavs indeed were influenced by Skythians and have a number of words coming from Skythian language, like for example. Bog-God, Svet-light etc. these are Iranic words. They were borrowed because ancient Slavic tribes were neighbors of Skytho-Sarmatian Nomades in the region of modern Ukraine for many centuries. Later, actually some Skytho-Sarmatians were absorbed by ancient Slavs. Herodotus in his "History", wasn't able to distinguish some southern Slavic tribes from Skythians and he calls them "Skythians-plowmen." Of course. Skythians couldn't be plowmen because they were nomades and it's commonly believed now that "Skythians-plowmen" were actually Slavs. Summarizing, those "Bulgaro-Iranian" words you have cited are not "Bulgaro-Iranian" they are Slavic, and even if some of them do have Iranic roots they were adopted by Slavs from Skytho-Sarmatians many centuries before Bulgars reached the Balkan penninsula. |
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Post by sarmat on Sept 29, 2007 8:18:12 GMT 3
BTW, I just read an article in Bulgarian wikipedia about this "Irano-Bulgar" theory, where it is called no more than "fantastic."
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Post by Balkhani on Sept 30, 2007 14:41:03 GMT 3
Wikipedia is as reliable source as asking a fork a question and waiting for it to answer.
About the objects I showed - It's not only the mystical scenes but the type of the artefacts too. They are NOT turkic. You'll say that the Bulgars mixed with iranic tribes - well,why havend the other turkic people of that region mixed to such a high level by blood,culture and language as the Bulgars?
About the words in russian language - in Russian there are many Bulgarian words - 1. The Bulgars lived in a huge part of today's Russian federation. 2. Russians got many Bulgarian words trough the old bulgar language ("church slavonic").Not to mention the Alans being a part of Russia.
Also, as far as I know "kuche" - dog in Russian is sobaka? Kushta - home,house is dom? Shar is a typical Bulgarian word found on Bulgar inscriptions and means colour,sharachii - painter.
You're right that Slavs mixed with the scythians (mostly the South,who are most likely scytho-getae/thracian and the eastern who are scythian+germanic or baltic). But still the Bulgarian is the language with irnaic grammar and over 2000 words, not Polish, Russian, Ukrainian etc.
Pashto(I believe or another Pamirian language)
Bra na hub zhinka
Bulgarian:
Brat na hubava zhena (zhenkain some dialects)
Meaning - Brother of a beautiful woman.
In Russian it should be something like "Brat krasavici"?
The treasure of Nagy sent Miklos is dated to 8-9 century and these lands were already in Bulgaria then.
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Oct 1, 2007 23:21:31 GMT 3
Well, we have already prooven that the Bulgars (not their Slavic-speaking subjects, modern Bulgarians) were speakers of the Western Dialect of Old Turkic (you can also check the Hungarian language for Old Western/Oghur Turkic words that passed to Hungarian). Every Western Turkologist also accepts this. Still, thank you for your contributions Thanks to you, I now have enough evidence to proove that the Scythians and Sarmatians spoke Iranic ;D Oh and about the art. That is Common Steppe Beast Art Style so it does not belong to a single people, thus it prooves nothing. |
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Post by Balkhani on Oct 2, 2007 2:11:18 GMT 3
So how did we prove it? I could post many studies of the proto-bulgar language but most of them are not in english and are not posted online and i don't have time to copy them.
But then again language does not mean anything ,as it was proven many times that the nations change their language. A fact is that the Bulgar culture is semi-nomadic, Sarmatian and that the Bulgars were Caucasoids(europoids).
About the art 1. The scenes on the objects are not very typical for turkic art and mythology(for example , the lion has always been some sort of a sacred animal in Bulgar mythology, while in turkic mythology the lion is rarely mentioned if at all). But I say again the style is not turkic (I'm not talking only about the mythologyval scenes on the objects but the crafting and and type as a whole).
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Post by aca on Oct 2, 2007 10:53:11 GMT 3
Balkhani, do you know that the words you mentioned earlier (like "kuche", "Kushta", "Shar") also exist in other southern Slavic languages (Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian - " kuche"-"small dog", " kucha"- "house", " shara" - a sort of line, symbol or painting. These words are not of Bulgarian origin, but of Indo-Europian. For example the english word "house", as well as scandinavian "hus" has the same root as the word "kucha". Also ancient Kuchean word "tkacher" has the same root as Russian "docher", Serbian "kcher" or English "doughter"; also compare Tokharian "ek", Slavic "oko", English "eye"; Tokharian "klautke/klau", Slavic "krug"; Tokharian "salyi", Slavic "sol", English "salt"; Tokharian "malkwer", Slavik "mleko", English "milk", and so on. So your theory proves nothing but that the Bulgarian language is a Slavic one In Serbian it would be "Brat ubave zhene" or in other dialect "brat na ubavu zhenu" - (the word "zhenka" means "female (animal)") so again your theory proves nothing but that Bulgarian is a Slavic language. Having a theory and then doing a research trying to prove it, is not a scientific method, and almost always leads to wrong conclusions. I think that your theory of Sarmatian origin of Bulgars is in fact strongly influenced by the animosity between Bulgarians and Turks wich accured during the Ottoman era (and didn't stop to this day). That is why Bulgarians will never accept the idea that their ancestors might have been of Turkic origin. |
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Oct 2, 2007 23:19:35 GMT 3
You are right my dear Yabghu. In fact, modern Bulgarians got nothing to do with the Early Medieval Bulġar-Oġur Turks except the name because they are descendents of Thraco-Slavic subjects of this Turkic state.
Dear Balkhani, please do not post anything in non-English languages unless you also provide a translation, because it is against the rules of our host, Proboards.
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Post by Balkhani on Oct 3, 2007 0:30:02 GMT 3
Have I posted anything in non-english without translation?
Anout Bulgarian words being present in Croatian and serbian The word kushta has no analogue in Slavic languages,excep Eastern "Serbian" dialects, Eastern Serbia is populated mainly by Bulgarians, also not to mention the Panonain Bulgars and Serbia being a part of the Bulgarian Empire for a very long time.
Kuche in bulgarian does not mean "small" dog but just a dog. Kutre is a small dog (same as tajik or pashto Kutray).
Again, I say it - These words could be seen on Bulgar inscriptions as well as many other words. So what does that mean - the Bulgars spoke an indo-euroean language. They wrote from left to right, unlike the turkic people who wrote from up to down or from right to left, had indo-europen grammar and mostly indoeuropen words(mostly iranic) and a few turkic ones.
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Post by H. İhsan Erkoç on Oct 3, 2007 1:39:22 GMT 3
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