The Khazar language

The Khazar Khaganate left no text in its own language. The Khazar correspondence of the tenth century is in Hebrew.^[1] Runiform inscriptions found in the Khazar lands have been ascribed to the Khazars and to other peoples, and no interpretation of them has been accepted.^[2] Everything that is known of the language comes from words that other writers took down, and from what a few geographers say of it.^[3]

The words look Turkic. How near they stand to the Common Turkic of the Orkhon inscriptions, and how near to the Oghur languages of the Bulgars, is the question.^[3]

The word list

All the material in the literary sources has been gathered in one list of some fifty entries. It draws on Arabic, Byzantine, Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew and Persian texts and on the Old Russian chronicle.^[4] The list gives these results.

The titles are those of the Göktürk world. The bulk of the Khazar titles is the same as that known to the Turkic peoples of the time, and in almost every respect it is the same as the titles of the Göktürks.^[3] The ruler’s title is qaghan. The Arabic geographers, the Armenian and Georgian historians, the Greek chroniclers, the Persian authors and the Old Russian chronicle all write it, and the Cambridge letter writes it in Hebrew letters.^[5] The Hudud al-Alam of 982 says that the king of the capital, Atil, is called Tarkhan Khaqan.^[6] The tenth-century Arabic and Byzantine sources name a second dignitary, the bek, who stands beside the khagan.^[7] The Byzantine emperor Constantine VII writes the word pech.^[8] See the dual kingship and the khan.

The rank of shad is recorded for the Khazars as the second in power after the khagan up to the ninth century.^[9] By the tenth century the bek seems to have taken its place.^[9] The titles yabgu, tarkhan and tudun are on the list too.^[3]

Most personal names are Turkic. Two are probably Iranian. They are Hazar and Kundajiq, the second with a Turkic diminutive suffix.^[3] Some names and titles remain unexplained. In part this is because the texts garble them, and in part because there is no comparative material.^[3]

The place names of the lower Volga and the Don are Turkic: Sarkel and Atil, or Itil.^[3] The forms of the river name that Turkic languages have today are Adil, Atil, Adal, Edil, Idel and İdil.^[10] The names of the North Caucasus, Balanjar, Samandar and Varachan, are of another kind. Substrate elements seem to dominate there.^[3]

One word comes with its meaning. Constantine VII says that Sarkel means “white house” among the Khazars.^[8] The name is analysed as sar-kel, and the first element is taken to be an Oghur word for “white” or “light”, of the shape that Chuvash keeps. Only this one name on the list may be specifically Oghur, and even here the matter is not clear.^[11] The title tudun argues against an Oghur language, because an Oghur form would have r where tudun has d.^[3]

The remarks of the geographers

Istakhri, writing in the tenth century, says that the king of the Khazars is called bak in their language.^[12] He says that the language of the Bulgars is like that of the Khazars, that the Burtas have a different language, and that the language of the Rus is unlike those of the Khazars and the Burtas.^[13] In another place he says that Khazar is unlike Turkic and Persian and that no other tongue shares any of its characteristics.^[14]

The two remarks seem to contradict each other. Some scholars resolve them through the Oghur languages. The Bulgar language was akin to Chuvash, and the Khazar language was akin to it. An Oghur dialect, with l and r for š and z, would not be understood by speakers of Common Turkic, and this may be what Istakhri means by saying that the Khazars do not speak Turkic.^[15] Others hold that Istakhri contradicts himself and that his information, which is not first-hand, is suspect. They take his remark on the Bulgars to refer to an earlier time, when Oghur reigned in Volga Bulgaria.^[16]

The tongue of the Kabars

Constantine VII tells that the Kabaroi were of the race of the Khazars. After a civil war a part of them fled and settled with the Turks, as he calls the Hungarians, in the land of the Pechenegs. They taught the Turks the tongue of the Khazars, “and to this day they have this same language, but they have also the other tongue of the Turks”.^[17] The passage shows that a Khazar tongue was distinct from the tongue of the Hungarians in the tenth century. It does not say what the tongue was. See the Kabars.

Classification

Four views are held.

The first places the Khazars with the Oghur peoples and sets Khazar beside Bulgar, on the strength of Istakhri’s remark.^[18] The second rests on the word list. It finds little in the list that is specifically Oghur, concludes that the Khazars were Turks, and leaves open which kind.^[19] The third holds that Itil, Sarkel and a few other names are the oldest layer of Khazar, and that the other words belong, by their sound, to the northern Oghuz, the Pecheneg and Uz, with whom Khazar mixed in the ninth and tenth centuries.^[20] The fourth sees the state as multilingual. A Turkic ruling group may have made its own variety the language of the state and caused other groups to use it, as a written language beside their own.^[21]

The list does not settle the matter, because the Khaganate was a union of tribes. It held Turkic groups that spoke standard and Oghur dialects, and also Finno-Ugrians, Iranians and Slavs, and some of these may have been the informants of the writers.^[3] Only texts could give a definite answer.^[22]

The runiform signs

The runiform inscriptions of the Khazar lands would be the one direct witness. About thirteen of their signs are close to signs of the Orkhon stones, and the language behind them is thought probably Turkic.^[23] The Hebrew Kiev letter was once thought to contain a runiform word, and that interpretation is now disputed.^[24] The article on the runiform inscriptions of the Khazar lands sets the finds out. Until an interpretation is accepted, they add nothing to the word list.

References

^ The Khazar correspondence
^ Erdal 2004, p. 4
^ a b c d e f g h i j Golden 1980, p. 262
^ Golden 1980, p. 113,192,262
^ Golden 1980, p. 192–193
^ Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1970, p. 161–162
^ Golden 1980, p. 162
^ a b De administrando imperio; Porphyrogenitus 1967 (New Revised Edition; Greek text and English translation), p. 183
^ a b Golden 1980, p. 206
^ Golden 1980, p. 229
^ Golden 1980, p. 240,262
^ al-Iṣṭakhrī; Dunlop 1954, p. 91
^ al-Iṣṭakhrī; Dunlop 1954, p. 98
^ al-Iṣṭakhrī; Golden 1980, p. 56
^ Dunlop 1954, p. 98,186
^ Golden 1980, p. 56
^ De administrando imperio; Porphyrogenitus 1967 (New Revised Edition; Greek text and English translation), p. 175
^ Golden 1980, p. 52
^ Golden 1980, p. 262–263
^ Golden 1980, p. 56–57
^ Erdal 2004, p. 2
^ Golden 1980, p. 263
^ Vásáry 1993, p. 57–58
^ Zieme 2000, p. 377

Sources

Literature

Peter B. Golden, Khazar Studies, Vols. I–II (1980)
Douglas M. Dunlop, The History of the Jewish Khazars (1954)
Marcel Erdal, A Grammar of Old Turkic (2004)
V. Minorsky, Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, "The Regions of the World": A Persian Geography 372 A.H. – 982 A.D., translated and explained, with the preface by V. V. Barthold, 2nd ed. (1970)
Constantine Porphyrogenitus; Gyula Moravcsik (ed.); R. J. H. Jenkins (trans.), De administrando imperio (1967 (New Revised Edition; Greek text and English translation))
István Vásáry, Doğu Avrupa'nın Runik Alfabe Sistemleri Üzerine (1993)
Peter Zieme, Runik Harfli Birkaç Pasaj Üzerine Kimi Yorum Önerileri (2000)