Editing Old Turkic script (section)

== Origins ==
Many scientists, starting with [[Vilhelm Thomsen]] (1893), suggest that the Old Turkic script is derived from descendants of the [[Aramaic alphabet]] in particular via the [[Pahlavi scripts|Pahlavi]] and [[Sogdian alphabet]]s of [[Persia]],<ref>{{cite book |last1=Brill |first1=E. J. |title=E.J. Brill's First Encyclopaedia of Islam: 1913-1936. Morocco - Ruzzīk |date=1993 |publisher=Brill |location=Volume 6 |isbn=978-90-04-09792-6 |page=911 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fWNpIGNFz0IC |access-date=7 August 2024 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Campbell|first1=George|author-link1=George L. Campbell|last2=Moseley|first2=Christopher|author-link2=Christopher Moseley|title=The Routledge Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6lQwRD2Cb8EC&pg=PT180|year=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-135-22296-3|page=40}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Róna-Tas |first=András |title=On the Development and Origin of the East Turkic "Runic" Script |date=1987 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23657716 |journal=Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae |volume=41 |issue=1 |pages=7–14 |jstor=23657716 |issn=0001-6446}}</ref> or possibly via [[Kharosthi]] used to write [[Sanskrit]].<ref>{{cite book|title=The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process|last=Cooper|first=J.S.|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2004|editor-last=Houston|editor-first=Stephen|pages=58–59|chapter=Babylonian beginnings: The origin of the cuneiform writing system in comparative perspective}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Mabry|first=Tristan James|title=Nationalism, Language, and Muslim Exceptionalism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8xtrBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA1|year=2015|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-4691-9|page=109}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title=The World's Writing Systems|last=Kara|first=György|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=1996|isbn=978-0-19-507993-7|editor-last=Daniels|editor-first=Peter|location=New York|chapter=Aramaic scripts for Altaic languages|editor-last2=Bright|editor-first2=William|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195079937}}</ref> It has also been speculated that [[tamgas]] (livestock brands used by Eurasian nomads) were one of the sources of the Old Turkic script,<ref>Aristov, N. (1896) Notes on Ethnic Composition of Turkic Tribes and People and Population Record. ZhS 3-4, 277-456 </ref> but despite similarities in shape and forms, this hypothesis has been widely rejected as unverifiable, largely because early tamgas are too poorly attested and understood to be subject to a thorough comparison.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tekin |first1=Talat |title=A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic - ProQuest |date=1965 |publisher=UNiversity of California, Los Angeles |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/0ef1aeb9458a313c40ff7232f515673f |access-date=7 August 2024 |language=en}}</ref> The text is most likely derived from Aramaic via the [[Sogdian alphabet]] and [[Syriac alphabet]].<ref>[https://www.georing.biz/ots.pdf Old Turkic script]</ref>

Contemporary Chinese sources conflict as to whether the Turks had a written language by the 6th century. The 7th century ''[[Book of Zhou]]'' mentions that the Turks had a written language similar to that of the Sogdians. Two other sources, the ''[[Book of Sui]]'' and the ''[[History of the Northern Dynasties]]'', claim that the Turks did not have a written language.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lung 龍|first=Rachel 惠珠|title=Interpreters in Early Imperial China|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qsNoHtgkGPkC|year=2011|publisher=John Benjamins Publishing|isbn=978-90-272-2444-6|pages=54–55}}</ref> According to István Vásáry, the Old Turkic script was invented under the rule of the first khagans and was modelled after the Sogdian fashion.<ref>{{cite journal |publisher=Mouton |year=2002 |journal=Archivum Ottomanicum |page=49 |last=Tryjarski |first=Edward |title=Runes and runelike scripts of Eurasian area. Part 1 |volume=20}}</ref> Several variants of the script came into being as early as the first half of the 6th century.<ref>Sigfried J. de Laet, Joachim Herrmann, (1996), ''History of Humanity: From the seventh century B.C. to the seventh century A.D.'', p. 478</ref>