Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

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Zythros Jubi
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Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by Zythros Jubi »

Internal History:
Eskêl is the language spoken in most of Covasna County, eastern Harghita County, around Bicaz in Neamț county, and western Bacău County *here*, by the Eskêl (associated with Szekelys and Szekely Csangos *there*) people descended from Avars, Bulgars, Pechenegs and Cumans (with elements of Hussite refugees and Transylvanian Saxons), with a Catholic majority and Calvinist minority (~400,000 speakers). Many of Eskêl people in Maros and Aranyos seats had emigrated to Moldavia. The language has 3 major dialect groups, i.e. Eastern (Csik), Western (Udvarhely) and Southern (Haromszék); the Hétfalu subdialects in Braşov County is a subdialect of southern dialect; in Moldavia, the Szekely Csangos traditionally speak a mixed dialect, originated from Maros and Udvarhely regions and can be classified as a western dialect.

The language is influenced by Latin, Church Slavonic and Middle High German, as well as Kipchak and Oghuz branches of Turkic; Hungarian and German being the main source of transmitted loanwords. Due to its isolation in the mountains, the language was able to preserve many archaic features, while language contact used to be pervasive.

PS: there is no consensus about the origin of Szekelys, a Turkic hypothesis relates it to the Turkic tribal name Esegel/Eskil and the language and speaker's name can also be derived from it; meanwhile other peoples, including Magyars and Romanians, migrating into this area got assimilated to this language. Cf. the Wikipedia entry of Esegel:
Among other writers who mentioned Esegels, the Persian “Geography“ of 982 named Ishkils as one of three Bulgarian tribes, who were constantly conflicting among themselves.[9] Gardizi, the author of the composition Zain al-ahbar (mid-11th century), wrote: "Between possessions of Bulgars and possessions of Eskels, who also belong to Bulgars, is a Magyar area. These Magyars are also a Türkic tribe".[10] Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote that endoethnonym of the "Magyar Türks" was Savartoiaskaloi, i.e. Savart (Suvar/Sabir) and Eskel.[11] Yu.A.Zuev summarized that It is held that Eskels (Esegels) merged with Hungarians (Magyars). The ethnographic group Sekei (written form Szekler) are recognized as their descendants.[12] Esegels left a prominent trace in the Northern and Western Europe as last and first names, mostly in the form "Askel".
Last edited by Zythros Jubi on 06 Feb 2020 13:49, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by Zythros Jubi »

First of all, I should clarify the Proto-Turkic (PT) symbols that I use here, and give a preliminary analysis of its phonology, at least those dialects ancestral to West Old Turkic (hereafter WOT). All Turkic languages have vowel harmony, but it is not clear whether the original system was based on frontness or ATR vs RTR; in Kazakh, Tatar and Bashkir languages the opposition is similar to a tongue root-based one, while in most other languages the distinction is based on frontness, which I assume hereafter. The “regular” vowels are *a *ï *o *u (back) and *e *i *ö *ü (front), each with length distinction, and the long counterparts are written with double letters here. As for the value of *e, there is some debate whether there is a close-open distinction, denoted *ä and *e by some (and *e/*ẹ by Starostin), in Volga Bulgar inscriptions the former is usually transcribed with a/ā and latter with i, and in Chuvash they become a and i respectively (both long and short); the back counterpart to the latter vowel is denoted as *ë (citation needed; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Diac ... vowels.jpg), or *ạ by Starostin, which usually becomes ï in Chuvash (<ïl-> “to bring”).
It is controversial whether Proto-Turkic has diphthongs; in Starostin’s system there are *ia and *iā, the evidence is palatalizations in Oghur languages, e.g. in Chuvash *s > š (<šară> “white”), *t *d > č (<čul> “stone”), *q > j (<jun> “blood”). Golden (1980) proposed that this palatalization originated from the breaking of *aa >*ia [1], but the reflex for *siarïg in modern languages suggest a short vowel.
The evolution of Oghur vowels is complex and full of irregularities. Proto-Turkic long vowels were diphthongized in Volga Bulgar inscriptions, namely *ẹẹ >*ie (> Chuvash i), *oo >*oa~ua (> Chuvash u) ,*öö >*øɛ~yɛ (> Chuvash ăva). Even sometimes *üü became *yɛ as in the word كوان “day” *küün > *kyɛn; in other cases, the high long vowels merge with short equivalents as in *jüür₂>*dʒyr> <śĕr> “(one) hundred” [2]. Later on, the *a in first syllable usually became <u>, but this occurred after Volga Bulgar period.

As for the consonant system, Starostin et al. Reconstructed *p *b *m *t *d *n *l *ĺ (l₂) *r *ŕ (r₂) *s *č (c) *ń (ɲ) *j *k *g *ŋ (I use the symbols in parentheses hereafter); *k and *g are supposed to have velar and uvular variants in accordance with vowel harmony, but usually not distinguished in reconstructions. *l₂ and *r₂ became *ʃ and *z in Common Turkic (CT), and *l and *r in Oghur languages, it is unclear whether they were originally fricatives or liquids; the former is possibly *ɬ [3], and the latter might be a variant of *r at the end of morphemes (citation needed), and partly originated from a cluster *rs as in the case of *gör-s > Common Turkic *göz (Chuvash <kuś>) [4]. It is unlikely that this phoneme used to be voiceless for its reflex in Common Turkic is *z, and it is possibly pronounced as Czech <ř>, or a dialectal variant of the cluster *rs realized as *rz, cf. *tiir₂ “knee” vs. *tiirsgek “elboe”.. Another source of CT *ʃ is PT *l₂c, which usually correspond to Chuvash <ś>, but sometimes <vś>, cf. *kül₂cün “loan” became Chuvash <kivśĕn>, cf. Hungarian kölcsön [5]. I have no idea how *kia was pronounced (velar or uvular) as it became *qa in CT.

References:
1. Peter B. Golden, Khazar Studies, Akademiai Kiadó, Budapest, 1980;
2. András Róna-Tas, A Volga Bulgarian Inscription from 1307, Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Tomus XXX (2), pp. 153-186 (1976);
3. Anton Antonov and Guillaume Jacques, Turkic kümüš ‘silver’ and the lambdacism vs sigmatism debate, 2011;
4. Sergei Starostin, http://starling.rinet.ru/cgi-bin/query. ... g&morpho=0;
5. László Marácz, Revisiting the theory of the Hungarian vs Chuvash lexical parallels, The state of the art of Uralic studies: tradition vs innovation, Proceedings of the ‘Padua Uralic seminar’, University of Padua, November 11-12, 2016
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by Zythros Jubi »

The Eskel language has some peculiarities not found in most or all Turkic languages, including some traits of Balkan Sprachbund:
1.Stem-initial stress and vowel reduction;
2.The gradual loss of vowel harmony (not shown in spelling) due to vowel reduction;
3.The palatalization contrast due to Slavic and Romanian influence;
4.Default SVO word order;
5.A prepositional definite article a/ak, deriving from an emphasis particle *ok;
6.The lack of interrogative particle (as in Azeri);
7.Calques and loanwords from East Romance - Balkan Slavic language area;
8.The original genitive is merged with dative (distinct from allative), and the dative is used in nominal/predicative usage but not in attributives (i.e. like “mine” “yours”), and possession is usually expressed as [ possessor in nominative + possessum plus possessive marker ] e.g. Iván könöv-i [John book-3SG.POSS] “John’s book”, ak apá-m sembyr-ňyn ak könöv-e [the father-1SG.POSS friend-3SG.POSS-DAT the book-3SG.POSS] “my father's friend's book”, Kü köňű ak Iván-on [this book the John-DAT] “This book is John’s”, cf. Be býr-tym kü könöv-e Iván-on [I gave-PAST.1SG this book-ACC John-DAT] "I gave the book to John";
*Note: Initially accusative merged into dative -(n)A, and genitive was -(n)In (Bi býr-tym kü könöv-e Iván-a); then the genitive was rarely used and the possessor became increasingly zero-marked (Iván(-on) könöv-i) except for attributive use (Kü köňű ak Ivaan-on). Meanwhile under the influence of Balkan Sprachbund, the suffix -(n)In gradually shifted to dative, and re-established as a case distinct from accusative.

9.Nominal and attributive clauses are preceded by relative pronouns like in Gagauz, e.g. Od-ap ki Miháľ kyl-et. [want-1SG.PRES REL Michael come-3SG.PRES] ”I want Michael to come.”; Byl-me-p nemge ak orolč balčna-ľ[know-NEG-1SG why the war start-3SG.PAST] “I don’t know why the war started”
10.Future tense formed by an auxiliary verb originally meaning “want/wish”; (om)
11.The use of converbs and Slavic-style aspects;
12.Noun compounding a la Hungarian and German.
Last edited by Zythros Jubi on 08 Feb 2020 19:57, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by dva_arla »

Finally found your conlang's scratchpad (I hope you won't regard my post in the r-Turkic thread as spam). As I've stated there I'm taking a break from the conlang I'm working in, and I;d be happy to help with yours.

First, let me drop in some literature dealing with Volga Bulghar and Khazarian:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23657270?s ... b_contents
https://www.academia.edu/12830239/THE_K ... o=download
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23657772?s ... b_contents

The first in particular is the most detailed and interesting of the three. The writer, being the good scholar he is, has also in the bibliography left some interesting sources... The second deals with the Turkic inscription from Hungary and at least makes a point that the shift d > ð > z > r (a common litmus test in Turkology), happening in Chuvash, also happened in the in the Nagyszentmiklos inscriptions, while Khazar failed to shift z > r.

And there is this chart from Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuvash_l ... vowels.jpg

I can't verify its verity though... would like your opinion. I don't even know where the guy making these pull off. It does give a general outline of the trends, however he chart is too simple to be true.

As for the Uralic piece of the puzzle:

https://books.google.co.id/books?id=TM2 ... 0languages
I have no idea how *kia was pronounced (velar or uvular) as it became *qa in CT.
Either Centum-style depalatisation happened, or that it was pronouced something like /kɯa/ > /qɯa/. It would most certainly became /ja/ in Eskêl-le (?), just like it did in Chuvash, possiibly trough an intermediate /χja/ > /hja/ > /ja/. The word for 'blood' in Eskel could be then jån ~ jon.

Some fruits for thought regarding Hungarian phonology:

1. Hungarian lowered Proto-Uralic *ŭ (> o), *i, *ĭ (> e),and *ü◌̆ (>ö) (breve indicates reduced vowels). This change is regular, unlike some others listed below.
2. Hungarian mostly merged Proto-Uralic *ä and *e.
3. It would seem that of the Hungarian back vowels, /o/ (coming from Proto-Uralic *o, *ŭ) changes to /a/ sometimes, under unclear circumstances. This change occurs frequently enough though; both outcomes occurring as often as the other. You can either incorporate this change into Eskel, or if you don't want to work out this cr*p, retain only short /o/, as did Slavic.
4. There is a tendency, in Hungarian, to sporadically round *e. Some examples I picked from Wiktionary: *peljä > fül "ear", Turkic *jẹ̄miĺč > *O.Magy gyimilcs > gyümölcs "fruit", however *wete > víz "water". This change is sporadic; some words changed thus and some didn't, some dialects would affect a certain word to be changed and some would have its variant, and there are to this shift lots of examples and counter-examples.
5. Hungarian uses o and ö as epenethetic vowels.
6. Vowel length in Hungarian seems to mostly derive from final-vowel loss and compensatory lengthening, with the original Proto-Uralic length having perhaps been neutralised by the time of Old Hungarian, only leaving some traces here and there. The conditions governing lengthening is quite complicated and inconsistent (perhaps you know more on this?)

Side note: changes nos. 1 and 3 must be relatively recent; they must have happened after contacts with Oghur Turks (c.a 900-1200 A.D). 'The loanwords "török" and "gyümölcs" corroborates this.

I'll post more once something pops in mind, and I have time and energy to commit these sorts of small essays here. Társá! (< *taŋrï saŋa)

N.B. does the Board ban vulgarities (the f-word etc.)?
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by Zythros Jubi »

Thanks for your suggestions. I mainly got https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing from Conworkshop user Lme15 (see his conlang https://conworkshop.com/view_language.php?l=QLK, which is inspired by Volga Bulgar), but there's not much material about this conlang yet (see https://conworkshop.com/view_post.php?t ... 69a9ae9ff9).

The diachronics of Hungarian that I found is on KneeQuickie. The lowering of high short vowel seems to be an area feature of Volga-Kama Region, since similar sound changes have also happened in Tatar, Bashkir and Chuvash (sorry I'm not familiar with Uralic languages); it's implausible to apply Hungarian sound changes to Proto-Turkic, although I've attempted to shift the stress to initial syllable early on and then drop the final vowel, this makes it difficult to distinguish 3rd possessive nominal forms and dative forms from the stem.

I've read the books and papers he gave me, but they're almost all on Volga Bulgar language(s), and only a small part were about Hunnic and Khazar. The latter languages are less attested than the former, and were yet to be deciphered (Hunnic is unclassified). The languages of Pannonian Avar and Danube Bulgars remain a mystery too (the interpretation of Turkic inscriptions in Bulgaria is also controversial). I have no idea how large the difference was between Danube and Volga Bulgar languages. Epitaphs from Volga Bulgaria show that at 13-14c the plural suffix was already *-säm like in Chuvash; and the word for "to do, to make" is *to- (from the meaning of "to give birth to"), cf. *ɣijarät tonan = "having build", in which it functions as an auxiliary verb as Japanese suru, Turkish etmek and Uzbek qilmoq, turning a noun (often a loanword) into a verb, to name only a few. There are no evidence as to whether these changes/features took place in Danube Bulgar/Pannonian Turkic dialects.
The second deals with the Turkic inscription from Hungary and at least makes a point that the shift d > ð > z > r (a common litmus test in Turkology), happening in Chuvash, also happened in the in the Nagyszentmiklos inscriptions, while Khazar failed to shift z > r.
However I've read in Khazar Studies that Khazar runiform has <oqurïm> for "I read (past)"; the shift d > r can happen without the voiced fricative stage. As a Chinese, I've heard that Fuzhou/福州 dialect has a word-medial sandhi which turns /t/ and /l/ into [ɾ], and the Tongling/铜陵 dialect has /ɾ/ for Middle Chinese /d/ (定母).
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by dva_arla »

The lowering of high short vowel seems to be an area feature of Volga-Kama Region, since similar sound changes have also happened in Tatar, Bashkir and Chuvash (sorry I'm not familiar with Uralic languages)
Spot on! I also noticed that Hungarian vowel-lowering is also shared by its sisters Khansi and Manty, as can be seen here:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstr ... ralic/nime
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstr ... i%C5%8Bere

Curiously, vowel-lowering is not to be found in the Permic language, with whom the Magyars were supposed to have some contact with...

By the way, an important factor that you should take into account in developing Eskel is when its speakers separated from the Oghur urheimat. This variable is very crucial, since some sound changes would come into effect or not depending on when the Eskel migrated into Europe. You should also take into consideration the path they take, which foreigners they came into contact with, major events such as war, etc. I bet that if the An Lokshan Rebellion or the Heavenly-Kingdom War didn't happen, then Modern Chinese would sound quite different (that, or the gov't would have picked a different Sinitic language as standard).
this makes it difficult to distinguish 3rd possessive nominal forms and dative forms from the stem
Actually, my conception of a Pannonian Oghur language would involve a confusion of the a/e harmony and the i harmony due to vowel-lowering, causing the latter to be taken over by the former. This would have implications on several phonological and morphological aspects of the language, among them the merger of the accusative and dative, as happened in Chuvash.
the plural suffix was already *-säm like in Chuvash
Any idea how this suffix came to be? It is phonetically irreconcilable with the -lar suffix of Common Turkic.

By the way, which Sinitic language/ "dialect" do you speak, just for curiosity's sake?
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by dva_arla »

By the way, I just read that the Magyars only got to "Volga Turkistan" in 500-700 AD:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian ... tory#Early westward migrations (before 600 AD – c. 750 or 830 AD)

so that the vowel-lowering couldn't have happened before then. The sound change must have spread thorughout the Volga and may have affected Khanty-Mansy separately. The Permic languages are perhaps not affected because their speakers live far enough from the Volga's shores (?).
I've heard that Fuzhou/福州 dialect has a word-medial sandhi which turns /t/ and /l/ into [ɾ], and the Tongling/铜陵 dialect has /ɾ/ for Middle Chinese /d/ (定母).
The shift can be also heard in the North-American pronounciations of intervocalic /t/ and /d/ in English (better, bottle, middle, etc.)
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by Omzinesý »

dva_arla wrote: 19 Dec 2019 13:25
1. Hungarian lowered Proto-Uralic *ŭ (> o), *i, *ĭ (> e),and *ü◌̆ (>ö) (breve indicates reduced vowels). This change is regular, unlike some others listed below.
It's actually very possible that *u: vs. *u and *i: vs. *i: already had a qualitative distinction (high vs. near high or mid-high) in Proto-Uralic. Finnic just made funny things and has them contrast only quantitatively.
Finnic and Mari are the only languages preserving *ü. Hungarian merges it with *i and later redevelops rounded front vowels.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by dva_arla »

Omzinesý wrote: 19 Dec 2019 18:55 [Hungarian merges it with *i and later redevelops rounded front vowels.
Most P. Uralic roots with *ü, as can be seen in the link below, yields /ö/.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category ... lic_lemmas

By the way, /ü/ in Hungarian may be partly derived from the rounding of front-vowels.

ü
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by Zythros Jubi »

dva_arla wrote: 19 Dec 2019 17:26
this makes it difficult to distinguish 3rd possessive nominal forms and dative forms from the stem
Actually, my conception of a Pannonian Oghur language would involve a confusion of the a/e harmony and the i harmony due to vowel-lowering, causing the latter to be taken over by the former. This would have implications on several phonological and morphological aspects of the language, among them the merger of the accusative and dative, as happened in Chuvash.
the plural suffix was already *-säm like in Chuvash
Any idea how this suffix came to be? It is phonetically irreconcilable with the -lar suffix of Common Turkic.

By the way, which Sinitic language/ "dialect" do you speak, just for curiosity's sake?
First I need to correct my previous citation: <oqurïm> appears in The Khazarian Letter from Kiev and and its Attestation in Runiform Script by L. Ligeti, in which he interpreted the last vowel as <ï>, a new glyph invented by Khazars instead of <ü>. I have no idea why Chuvash doesn't seem to have the reflex of *oku-, but uses <vala->. I searched on http://samahsar.chuvash.org, but no result is found about its etymology; is it possible that it comes from *ok-la-/*og-la-?
вăла (вы̆ла), читать, Чебокс. См. вула, вола, вала, воло.
I also want to recommend a book Историческая морфология чувашского языка (Levitskaya 1976), but unfortunately my knowledge of Russian is negligible. The book presented various theories about Chuvash etymology, including the plural suffix: from *sam "number" (cf. Hungarian szám, Turkish san), or from *-sajïn "every", and so on.

I can speak some Wu varieties, i.e. a little Shanghai and Suzhou dialects, and some Hangzhou dialect which is essentially a variety Mandarin with voice contrast like Tongling. The information about Tongling dialect was obtained from a book in university library, which shows that every Middle Chinese voiced obstruent becomes a voiced sonorant, e.g. b>β, d>ɾ, g>ɣ/ʑ, dz>z; these changes are rare among Sinitic languages, esp. the second one. I suppose in Proto- or Common Turkic these changes also take place in medial and final voiced stops, but behave differently in different dialects/varieties, hence d>ð>j in Oghuz, Kypchak and Karluk, d>ð>ɾ in Oghur, d>ð>z in some Siberian languages, and probably d>ð>θ>t in Yakut.
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by Zythros Jubi »

In addition, Ligeti also mentioned the two roots in Hungarian with <z> corresponding to PT *gd, namely búza "wheat" <*bugdaj (cf. Chuvash <pări>) and túzok "bustard" <*togdaq. One may expect *gd>*ɣð>*wz but whether Chuvash had z>r is a mystery; personally I assume it was *r2 that changed to *z rather than reversely. In Chuvash it might have been *gd>*ɣð>*ɣɾ>*ɾ; the original form Hungarian borrowed from was probably *buɣða(j) and that *ð was preserved (did not become a flap) due to being in a cluster.
By the way, I just read that the Magyars only got to "Volga Turkistan" in 500-700 AD:

By the way, an important factor that you should take into account in developing Eskel is when its speakers separated from the Oghur urheimat. This variable is very crucial, since some sound changes would come into effect or not depending on when the Eskel migrated into Europe. You should also take into consideration the path they take, which foreigners they came into contact with, major events such as war, etc. I bet that if the An Lokshan Rebellion or the Heavenly-Kingdom War didn't happen, then Modern Chinese would sound quite different (that, or the gov't would have picked a different Sinitic language as standard).
The Heavenly-Kingdom War didn't have much affect Modern Chinese standard; however it caused depopulation in many areas, resulting in replacement of Wu by Mandarin. History amateurs on Chinese internet usually overestimate the effect of a certain event (rarely known in the West or among Arabs), such as the Battle of Taraz, which is believed to be the start of spread of Islam into Central Asia. The original idea for Eskel is the survival scenario and modern descent of a Danube Bulgar variant (including tribes like Kabar, Khalyzians etc.), heavily influenced by Cuman and Pecheneg (the former is closely related to Kazakh, while the latter is poorly attested, and I don't know whether it's closed related to Gagauz), plus an experiment on language contact. In the Paradox Interactive game Crusader Kings II, Turkic peoples in medieval Hungary were labeled as Khazars, and I wonder if there were actually Khazar immigrants.

Another source of inspiration is the concepts of "Danube (Carpathian) Sprachbund" and "Onogur Sprachbund" from Eugene Helimski's Areal groupings (Sprachbünde) within and across the borders of the Uralic language family: A survey. I just wanted to make a Turkic language forming a sprachbund with Hungarian.

By the way, the outcome of final *k/g in Chuvash and Hungarian loanwords is a mystery. Agyagási's reconstruction of so-called Western Old Turkic (WOT) is rather different from Old/Common Turkic, including change of final *k to *ɣ, and *a to *ï. Is the final *k > *ɣ a regular change, whether following a front or back vowel? All instances of final <x> in Chuvash are due to borrowing, otherwise they would've disappeared, aren't they?
Ezek a következők: *z > r; *š > (lč) > l; *s(i/ï-) ~ *s(ā-) > s(i̯a-) > š-; q(ā-) > q(i̯a)- > χ(i̯a)- > y(a)-, t(ā-) > t(i̯a-) > č(a-); *y- > j̆ - > ś-;
*ya- > ï-; *q- > χ-; *-d- > -z- > -r-; *-Cg- > -Cγ- > C; -*η > -m; *-n > -m; *o-, *ō-, *ö- > v(a), v(e); *i-, *ï- > yi-, yï; *a > ï. Róna-Tas ehhez még hozzátette a szókezdő *tā- > č-, a bármilyen helyzetben végbemenő *ti/tï > či valamint a szóközépi és szóvégi helyzetben lejátszódó -*η > -g > -0 és -*η > -n
változásokat.
k.ótör. yüzük, ny.ótör. *j̆ürüγ → őm. *j̆ürüγ >> gyűrű
(in Hungarian a vowel + final γ became a long vowel, and in Chuvash γ simply disappeared, and no native words in WOT ended in *x/k?)

What do you think about this? Chuvash doesn't seem to have *tï > č but has *sï > š. As for the condition of *a > *ï I have no idea too. The voicing and devoicing of Proto-Turkic *d and *g is even more problematic.

References:
Nyugati ótörök és magyar kapcsolatok: tanulságok az ogur hangtörténet számára, Agyagási Klára, 2013;
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by dva_arla »

Zythros Jubi wrote: 20 Dec 2019 06:57 is it possible that it comes from *ok-la-/*og-la-?
Plausible; word initial *o can become va- or vӑ-. From Wiktionary etymologies, I get the impression that short *o- is also diphtongised initially; are such cases a regular development, irregular, or did Wiktionary neglect to mark vowel length?
Battle of Taraz
... is just one among the occasional frontier battles which have happened since the Han dynasty. The battle wouldn't have much impact on the Chinese, since they didn't suffer any crushing defeat then; it was the Caliphate who learnt paper-making.
Chuvash doesn't seem to have *tï > č but has *sï > š.
Just found this m8 : https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%87%D ... 85#Chuvash
*tiakïgu > чӑх
By the way, the outcome of final *k/g in Chuvash and Hungarian loanwords is a mystery. Agyagási's reconstruction of so-called Western Old Turkic (WOT) is rather different from Old/Common Turkic, including change of final *k to *ɣ, and *a to *ï. Is the final *k > *ɣ a regular change, whether following a front or back vowel? All instances of final <x> in Chuvash are due to borrowing, otherwise they would've disappeared, aren't they?
Word-final *k and *q seems to be preserved in Chuvash (the latter > x); it was *-g and *-ɣ that disappeared. (Again, I got my conclusion from Wiktionary etymologies). My idea for Eskel would be to push the shift further by also eliding the resulting final vowel. E.g. *ellig '50' > *elli > él or íl. Meanwhile, final k and x would be in Eskel eliminated much later, so that the vowel they succeed would stay intact: *kïrk '40' > hére / heré (compare Hungarian gyűrű < *yüŕük).

Also, -k seems to be, or to be part, of a Chuvash deminutive/nominative suffix (кӑмрӑк, катмак, хӑрӑк), perhaps derived from the suffix *-gak or *-k.

By the way, do you still live in China? If so, do you live, or is your hometown also in the [Ng]u region? 'Zonhei' perhaps?
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by Zythros Jubi »

Well, I'm not certain where my ancestors came from; it is complex and definitely from many places.

As for the Chuvash word for 'six', its <ultă>, so tï is usually unaffected except when preceded by an a? However, according to Agyagási and Erdal's The Khazar Language, the diphthong *ia comes from a long version of a, BTW Erdal's A Grammar of Old Turkic stated that *e comes from long *ä. These are contradictory to Starostin's system.
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by dva_arla »

Zythros Jubi wrote: 20 Dec 2019 19:21 so tï is usually unaffected except when preceded by an a?
in order words, when the ï is part of a glide (glides being more prone cross-linguistically to palatalisation than singleton front-vowels).
However, according to Agyagási and Erdal's The Khazar Language, the diphthong *ia comes from a long version of a, BTW Erdal's A Grammar of Old Turkic stated that *e comes from long *ä. These are contradictory to Starostin's system.
Conflicting theories and reconstruction can be confusing (I think you or someone on the board said something to the effect). Anyway, there need not be any contradiction between those two, since (if I'm not mistaken) Starostin talks about Proto-Turkic, while Erdal talks about Old/Common/"Proto-non-Oghur" Turkic. Oghur and CT must've merged the vowels different ways; I reccomend this article I just found:

https://www.christopherculver.com/langu ... tml#d0e797

This might explain, for instance, the strange cases when CT a corresponds to Chuvash i or ï.
Last edited by dva_arla on 21 Dec 2019 00:37, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by dva_arla »

also:

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/cdea/8 ... 1576884847
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1114954.pdf

I'm surprised at how helpful and competent Google's search engine can be sometimes...
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by Zythros Jubi »

When the ï is part of a glide, is it possible for it to precede a *u or *o?

BTW are you Indonesian, judging from the link beginning with books.google.com.id? If so, what's your mother tongue (and I'll be grateful if you could give suggestions about Austronesian conlanging)?
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by Omzinesý »

dva_arla wrote: 19 Dec 2019 19:36
Omzinesý wrote: 19 Dec 2019 18:55 [Hungarian merges it with *i and later redevelops rounded front vowels.
Most P. Uralic roots with *ü, as can be seen in the link below, yields /ö/.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category ... lic_lemmas

By the way, /ü/ in Hungarian may be partly derived from the rounding of front-vowels.

ü
ü => i => e => ö
Of course there are very few PU roots with ü in the beginning, so one cannot be sure.
My meta-thread: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=5760
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by dva_arla »

Zythros Jubi wrote: 21 Dec 2019 06:50 When the ï is part of a glide, is it possible for it to precede a *u or *o?
Don't know dude; the only Proto-Turkic words I've been able to analyse are the ones on Wiktionary. Perhaps you have a lexicon of Proto-Turkic, or a comparative word list of Turkic languages. That would be a great help for both of us.

Answering your latter question, yes, I am. And although I am a Batak, my mother tongue is Indonesian since that is the language I was acquainted to as a baby. Only at the age of eight or nine did my mother teach me a dozen or so words in Bataknese, and since then I wouldn't bother to learn the language although my parents occasionally use it with each other.
(and I'll be grateful if you could give suggestions about Austronesian conlanging)
Depends where it would be spoken. Some facts though:

1. The language of Sumatra and Java are rife with Sanskrit loanwords; even very 'basic' words. Some examples in Indonesian : atau 'or' ( < Sans. atthawa), and even the words for 2 and 3, respectively dua and tiga ("native" Austronesian roots *duSa, *telu; even the former could be a very early Sanskrit borrowing!)
2. Prefixes and suffixes; Austronesian languages make great use of them!
3. The Cham language in Cambodia and Vietnam is an interesting case -- due to its position it carries features of the Southeast Asian sprachbund, two most visible in Cham being the development of the three-way velar distinction and monosyllablility; two-syllable words being contracted into one. This tendency seems to go back into the 4th century AD, as shown by the Dong Yen Chau inscription, which has thun ( < *tahun) for 'year'.
Omzinesý wrote: 19 Dec 2019 18:55
ü => i => e => ö
No, no, and definitely not. PU *ü became Magy. ö, and PU *i became Magy. e and less frequently ü. Which means the outcomes of both Proto-Uralic phonemes are still mostly separate in Hungarian; the rounding of e being secondary.
Of course there are very few PU roots with ü in the beginning
Do you mean word-initial ü, or those occurring in the first syllable of a word? As for the latter, there are plenty. Consult https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category ... lic_lemmas
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad, and more...

Post by Zythros Jubi »

Maybe I should abandon this conlang for a while, since resources about Oghuric languages are scarce (and sometimes self-contradicting), and chronology of sound changes are hard to track. Starostin's database contain too many morphemes without Chuvash equivalent plus a few with Bulgar equivalent (but Bulgar inscriptions are rarely attested), and I don't know when they were lost, or those root exist in Common Turkic only; probably Hungarian equivalent is the best evidence.

A bit off the topic, I set the Austronesian conlang in Mascarene islands (Reunion, Mauritius) and Seychelles, but the original homeland (Urheimat) of the indigenous population remains unsettled. Malagasy and Bushi peoples came from Kalimantan (East Barito branch). I wonder why these languages are so homogeneous to be considered a dialect of the same language (and they didn't have a centralized state until 19th century), did their ancestors all came from the same region (Barito Basin), or due to long-term language mixing? There are a few Austronesian conlangs, the best known is perhaps Kaupelanese (www.kaupelan.net, including regional languages in con-country Kaupelan, even some Papuan langs); others include Vanorayan (earlier Bunorayan, used to be on ZBB; all I can find on Google is https://docs.google.com/document/d/1odo ... edit?hl=en) and Tuvelauan (Polynesian; see http://www.geocities.ws/heaveneleven04/ but the language page is broken).
Vanorayan is unique among the Malayic branch in that it preserves Austronesian alignment, probably due to its isolation from the Western Indonesian sprachbund as well as mutual influence with Malagasy. Unlike Malagasy or the Philippine languages (where the alignment can get rather baroque), Vanorayan has only two distinct transitive voices: the agent trigger and the patient trigger. The default word-order is verb-first; the verb is inflected according to voice, and the trigger or topic is usually found at the end of the sentence.
1) Manemu vie aku
ag.trg-meet woman 1sg
| ARGUMENT | TOPIC |
“I meet (the) woman”
2) Nitemuku vie
pat.trg-meet=1sg woman
| ARGUMENT | TOPIC |
“The woman was met by me”
Usually, the topic is old news. (1) may refer to any woman or a specific woman, but (2) can only mean that the woman is known.
Per example (2), the pronoun which follows a verb is reduced to a clitic.
1a) Manemuya aku
ag.trg-meet-3sg 1sg
| ARGUMENT | TOPIC |
“I meet him/her”
But not if the sentence is intransitive, since the pronoun is now regarded as a distinct segment from the verb.
3) Marrangata aku
ag.trg-leave 1sg
|ARGUMENT|TOPIC|
“I go / leave”
Although the closest equivalent to (2) in English would be the passive voice, it should be noted that this is not a true passive voice; it’s just a voice that brings the patient into focus. The true passive voice in Vanorayan is used to mark the event as unintentional.
4) Manemu aku ka vie
ag.trg-meet 1sg to woman
|ARGUMENT|TOPIC|ADJUNCT |
“I accidentally meet (the) woman”
5) Nitemu vie danã aku
pat.trg-meet woman by 1sg
| ARGUMENT | TOPIC | ADJUNCT |
“The woman was accidentally met by me”
The use of passive to mark unintentionality is also a hallmark of Malay (marked with ter- or ke- on the verb). In Vanorayan, however, there is no valency-decreasing operator, and therefore the verb looks similar whether in transitive (active) or intransitive (passive) voice.

I wonder how heavily Malagasy has been influenced by languages to the west of Kalimantan (mainly Javanese and Malayo-Chamic languages). In fact, this conlang idea is inspired by Vanorayan, which is supposed to be spoken in a larger archipelago that is roughly located in what is Seychelles, Reunion and Mauritius *here*. I'd like to have a try on Chamic, but I need to find a lexical database and diachronics. Even earlier, I've considered making a Sinosphere Formosan-like conlang (perhaps in Ryukyu Islands of an alternative timeline).

Edit:
Another piece of Vanorayan material found
Phonology
Vanorayan has fairly small number of consonants and large number of vowels and diphthongs, which
are summarized in the following tables.
Consonants
Bilabial Labiodental Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal
Nasal m n
Plosive b t d k g
Fricative f
v ~ ʋ
s z
ʝ ~ j
h
Approximant
Tap / Trill ɾ r
Lateral l
Notes:
1. The velar plosives [\k] and [\g] are palatalized into /c/ and /ɟ/ before [\i]
kita /ˈcitɐ/ “we (exclusive)”
2. [\s] and [\z] are pronounced as affricates /ʦ/ and /ʣ/ after nasal vowels
zanza /ˈzɑ̃ʣɐ/ “slave”
3. [\r] and [\l] are sustained for a longer time in “compressed syllables” (see also Stress)
muluta /ˈmulːʊ̆tɐ/ “mouth”
surrata /ˈsurːɐ̆tɐ/ “to write”
4. The approximants [ʋ] and [j] is in free variation with voiced fricatives [ʋ] and [ʝ] . As a rule, the
fricatives tend to crop up more in formal speech, especially men’s, and tend to occur in
stressed syllables
vava /ˈvavɐ/ or /ˈvaʋɐ/ or /ˈʋaʋɐ/ “to bring”
yaya /ˈʝaʝɐ/ or /ˈʝajɐ/ or /ˈjaje/ “they (familiar)”
5. [h] is found only in words of dialectal or foreign origins. However, many of these (mainly
Arabic) loanwords are very old and well-integrated to the native lexicon, and therefore it is
quite appropriate to put it in the chart –unlike, say, [p] which is only present in recent
loanwords
Vowels
Front Central Back
Close i u
Mid e ẽ õ
Open a ɑ̃
Notes:
1. Oral vowels are pronounced extra-short or elided altogether in compressed syllables (see
also Stress)
muluta /ˈmulːʊ̆tɐ/ or /ˈmulʷːtɐ/ “mouth”
surrata /ˈsurːɐ̆tɐ/ or /ˈsurːtɐ/ “to write”
2. The vowel [a] is pronounced laxly as /ɐ/ (or /ə/) in unstressed, uncompressed syllables
mata /ˈmatɐ/ “eye(s)”
3. The nasal vowel [ ] is pronounced / / in unstressed syllables
kambã /ˈkɑ̃bə̃/ “to grow”
Diphthongs
Falling Rising
a- i- u- ɑ̃- ẽ- õ- -a -ɑ̃ -e
ɪ glide aɪ uɪ ɑ̃ɪ ẽɪ õɪ ɪa ɪɑ̃ ɪe
ʊ glide aʊ iʊ ɑ̃ʊ ẽʊ ʊa ʊɑ̃
Notes:
1. The vowel [a] in diphthongs is pronounced /ə/ in unstressed syllables
fisau /ˈfisəʊ/ “dagger”
2. Likewise, the nasal vowel [ ] in diphthongs is / / in unstressed syllables
fasiã /ˈfasiə̃ / “sand”
Phonotactics
Native Vanorayan words (as well as old loanwords) allow only open syllables, i.e. V and CV (where V
stands for a single vowel or a diphthong). Recent loanwords (largely from English) can have more
complicated initials, but consonantal coda is still not allowed. Most English words are written
according to its English spelling (although there are many exceptions, e.g. president > presidenta,
ball > bola), but is pronounced according to the following rules:
1. For CVC syllables, a short vowel similar to the V (“echo vowel”) is added after the
consonantal coda. However, at the end of words, the vowel added is always /ɐ/
nuclear /ˈnukʊ̆liɾɐ̆ / or /ˈnukʊ̆leɾɐ̆ /
2. A similar rule applies for consonant cluster coda
communist /komʊ̆ ˈnisɪ̆tɐ/
3. However, when the consonant cluster begins in a nasal consonant, the resulting vowel +
nasal sequence can be read as a nasal vowel
England /ẽˈlɑ̃dɐ̆/
4. As seen in the above example, a /ŋ/ coda causes the previous vowel to be nasalized,
abolishing the need to add an extra vowel afterwards. However, an /m/ or /n/ coda is treated
like other non-nasal consonants
proton /pɾoˈtonɐ̆ /

Stress
Stress in native root words is always in the first syllable. Reduplication or addition of prefix(es) does
not shift the stress, but addition of suffix (–i or –ana) shifts the stress to the root’s last syllable (for
disyllabic roots) or penultimate syllable (for roots with three or more syllables). Loanwords have
relatively unpredictable stress, although the oldest loanwords tend to conform to the native pattern.
In words with three or more syllables, there is a phenomenon whereby the vowel in unstressed
syllables located 1, 3, or 5 syllables away from the primary stress is “compressed”, i.e. pronounced
very briefly. This phenomenon, however, affect mainly oral vowels, whereas diphthongs and nasal
vowels are relatively unaffected. In rapid, informal speech, it is not uncommon for the compressed
vowels to be elided altogether.
We can see how these stress rules are applied by looking at the following examples:
rangata /ˈrɑ̃gɐ̆tɐ/ or /ˈrɑ̃gtɐ/ “to leave”
marrangata /mɐ̆ˈrɑ̃gɐ̆tɐ/ or /mɐ̆ˈrɑ̃gtɐ/ “leave (actor-trigger)”
marrangati /mɐrɑ̃ˈgatɪ/ or /mɐrɑ̃ˈgatʲ/ “leave (actor-trigger, applicative)”
Intonation
Vanorayan has Austronesian-type alignment, and a sentence comprises at least two of these three
segments: argument, topic, and adjunct. To understand the general intonation pattern, we will
consider a simple argument-topic sentence and its inverted form:
Kaminuã vie vaina mirra
RETR -drink woman wine red
| ARGUMENT | TOPIC |
“(The) woman has drunk (the) red wine”
Vaina mirra anu kaminuã vie
wine red TOP RETR -drink woman
| TOPIC | ARGUMENT |
“It is (the) red wine that (the) woman have drunk”
In both instances, the speech intonation generally rises up to the argument-topic border, and then it
falls until the end of the sentence. Questions and polite requests are distinguished by rising
intonation towards the end of the sentence. Intonation patterns for more complicated sentences
will be explained in later sections.
Elision
Elision occurs when a word ending in [a] , [ ɪa] , or [ʊa] is followed by a word beginning in a vowel, or
when a word ending in [ɑ̃] , [ɪɑ̃] , or [ʊɑ̃] is followed by a word beginning in [a] . In both cases, the
words are pronounced as if joined together and the [a] is elided. Elision also happens when the same
vowel is on both sides of the word boundary. This rule, however, applies only to single vowel and
not to diphthongs.
makana akevu /ˌmakɐ̆ˈnakĕʋʊ/ “eat chicken”
mata izau /ˌmaˈtizəʊ/ “green eyes”
siã alimu /ˈsɪɑ̃lɪ̆mʊ/ “the teacher”
yã ambua ambata /ˌjɑ̃ˈbʊɑ̃bɐ̆tɐ/ “the four dogs”
satau uma /sɐˈtaʊmɐ/ “all three houses”
Elision can only happen within a segment and cannot happen across segmental boundaries (e.g.
between argument and topic).
Metathesis
Metathesis of nasality occurs when the suffix –ana and clitics –mu, –ami, –ya, or –ye is added to
words ending in a nasal vowel or nasal diphthong. The nasality is transferred to the last vowel of the
affix / clitic.
fansuã “to spout”+ -ana = fansuanã /fɑ̃ˈʦʊanɐ̆/ “fountain”
ãi “water”+ -mu = aimõ /ˈɑɪmõ/ “your water”
manirõi “sleep (agent-trigger, applicative)” + -ya = maniruiyã /mɐnɪˈɾuɪjə̃ / “sleep (i.e.
have sex) with him/her”
Lostlang plans: Oghur Turkic, Gallaecian Celtic, Palaeo-Balkanic
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Re: Eskêl (Carpathian Bulgar) Scratchpad

Post by dva_arla »

I know that this Turklang is on hiatus for a while, but just want to drop some stuff here:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/43391366
https://www.christopherculver.com/langu ... uvash.html
Conlangs in progress:
Modern Khotanese
Modern Gandhari
?? - Japonic language in the Mekong Delta
Locna - Indo-European language in N. Syria
Wexford Norse
A British romlang, &c.
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