Chagatai (چغتای, Çağatây), also known as Turki,
Ali-Shir Nava'i was the greatest representative of Chagatai literature.
Chagatai literature is still studied in modern Uzbekistan, where the language is seen as the predecessor and the direct ancestor of modern Uzbek language, and the literature is regarded as part of the national heritage of Uzbekistan.
Etymology
The word
Chagatai relates to the
Chagatai Khanate (1225–1680s), a descendant empire of the
Mongol Empire left to
Genghis Khan's second son,
Chagatai Khan.
Many of the
Turkic peoples,
who spoke this language claimed political descent from the Chagatai Khanate.
As part of the preparation for the 1924 establishment of the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan, Chagatai was officially renamed "Old Uzbek",
History
In the twentieth century, the study of Chaghatay suffered from nationalist bias. In the former Chaghatay area, separate republics have been claiming Chaghatay as the ancestor of their own brand of Turkic. Thus, Old Uzbek, Old Uyghur,
Old Tatar, Old Turkmen, and a Chaghatay-influenced layer in sixteenth-century Azerbaijanian have been studied separately from each other. There has been a tendency to disregard certain characteristics of Chaghatay itself, e.g. its complex syntax copied from
Persian language.
Chagatai developed in the late 15th century.
It belongs to the
Karluk languages of the Turkic language family. It is descended from Middle Turkic, which served as a
lingua franca in Central Asia, with a strong infusion of
Arabic and Persian words and turns of phrase.
Mehmet Fuat Köprülü divides Chagatay into the following periods:
-
Early Chagatay (13th–14th centuries)
-
Pre-classical Chagatay (the first half of the 15th century)
-
Classical Chagatay (the second half of the 15th century)
-
Continuation of Classical Chagatay (16th century)
-
Decline (17th–19th centuries)
The first period is a transitional phase characterized by the retention of archaic forms; the second phase began with the publication of Ali-Shir Nava'i's first divan and is the highpoint of Chagatai literature, followed by the third phase, which is characterized by two bifurcating developments. One is preservation of the classical Chagatai language of Nava'i, the other the increasing influence of dialects of the local spoken languages.
Influence on later Turkic languages
Uzbek language and
Uyghur language, two modern languages descended from Chagatai, are the closest to it. Uzbeks regard Chagatai as the origin of their language and Chagatai literature as part of their heritage. In 1921 in
Uzbekistan, then a part of the
Soviet Union, Chagatai was initially intended to be the national and governmental language of the
Uzbek SSR. However, when it became evident that the language was too archaic for that purpose, it was replaced by a new literary language based on a series of Uzbek dialects.
Ethnologue records the use of the word "Chagatai" in Afghanistan to describe the "Tekke" dialect of Turkmen language.[Clark, Larry, Michael Thurman, and David Tyson. "Turkmenistan." Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan: Country Studies. p. 318. Comp. Glenn E. Curtis. Washington, D.C.: Division, 1997] While it had some influence on Turkmen, the two languages belong to different branches of the Turkic language family.
Literature
15th and 16th centuries
The most famous of Chagatai poets, Ali-Shir Nava'i, among other works wrote
Muhakamat al-Lughatayn, a detailed comparison of the Chagatai and Persian languages. Here, Nava’i argued for the superiority of the former for literary purposes. His fame is attested by the fact that Chagatai is sometimes called "Nava'i's language". Among prose works,
Timur's biography is written in Chagatai, as is the famous
Baburnama (or
Tuska Babure) of
Babur, the Timurid founder of the
Mughal Empire. A
Divan attributed to
Kamran Mirza is written in Persian and Chagatai, and one of
Bairam Khan's
Divans was written in Chagatai.
The following is a prime example of the 16th-century literary Chagatai Turkic, employed by Babur in one of his ruba'is.
Islam ichin avara-i yazi buldim,
Kuffar u hind harbsazi buldim
Jazm aylab idim uzni shahid olmaqqa,
Amminna' lillahi ki gazi buldim
I am become a desert wanderer for Islam,
Having joined battle with infidels and Hindus
I readied myself to become a martyr,
God be thanked I am become a ghazi.
Uzbek ruler Muhammad Shaybani Khan wrote a prose essay called Risale-yi maarif-i Shaybāni in Chagatai in 1507, shortly after his capture of Greater Khorasan, and dedicated it to his son, Muhammad Timur.
Ötemish Hajji wrote a history of the Golden Horde entitled the Tarikh-i Dost Sultan in Khwarazm.
17th and 18th centuries
In terms of literary production, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are often seen as a period of decay. It is a period in which Chagatai lost ground to Persian. Important writings in Chagatai from the period between the 17th and 18th centuries include those of Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur:
Shajara-i Tarākima (Genealogy of the Turkmens) and
Shajara-i Turk (Genealogy of the Turks). Abu al-Ghāzī is motivated by functional considerations and describes his choice of language and style in the sentence ‘I did not use one word of Chaghatay (!), Persian or Arabic’. As is clear from his actual language use, he aims at making himself understood to a broader readership by avoiding too ornate a style, notably saj’, rhymed prose. In the second half of the 18th century,
Turkmen people poet Magtymguly Pyragy also introduced the use of classical Chagatai into Turkmen literature as a literary language, incorporating many
Turkmen language.
Bukharan ruler Subhan Quli Khan (1680–1702) was the author of a work on medicine, "Subkhankuli's revival of medicine" ("Ihya at-tibb Subhani") which was written in the Central Asian Turkic language (Chaghatay) and is devoted to the description of diseases, their recognition and treatment. One of the manuscript lists is kept in the library in Budapest.[A Turkic Medical Treatise from Islamic Central Asia: A Critical Edition of a Seventeenth-Century Chagatay Work by Subḥān Qulï Khan. Edited, Translated and Annotated by László KÁROLY. Brill’s Inner Asian Library. Volume 32. Editors: Michael DROMPP; Devin DEWEESE; Mark C. ELLIOTT. Leiden. 2015]
19th and 20th centuries
Prominent 19th-century Khivan writers include Shermuhammad Munis and his nephew Muhammad Riza Agahi.
[[3]; Qahhar, Tahir, and William Dirks. “Uzbek Literature.” World Literature Today, vol. 70, no. 3, 1996, pp. 611–618. .] Muhammad Rahim Khan II of Khiva also wrote
.
Musa Sayrami's
Tārīkh-i amniyya, completed in 1903, and its revised version
Tārīkh-i ḥamīdi, completed in 1908, represent the best sources on the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) in
Xinjiang.
[ МОЛЛА МУСА САЙРАМИ: ТА'РИХ-И АМНИЙА (Mulla Musa Sayrami's Tarikh-i amniyya: Preface), in: "Материалы по истории казахских ханств XV–XVIII веков (Извлечения из персидских и тюркских сочинений)" ( Materials for the history of the Kazakh Khanates of the 15–18th cc. (Extracts from Persian and Turkic literary works)), Almaty, Nauka Publishers, 1969. ]
Dictionaries and grammars
The following are books written on the Chagatai language by natives and westerners:
-
Vocabularium Linguae Giagataicae Sive Igureae ( Lexico Ćiagataico)
-
Muḥammad Mahdī Khān, Sanglakh.
-
Abel Pavet de Courteille, Dictionnaire turk-oriental (1870).
-
Ármin Vámbéry 1832–1913, Ćagataische Sprachstudien, enthaltend grammatikalischen Umriss, Chrestomathie, und Wörterbuch der ćagataischen Sprache; (1867).
-
Sheykh Süleymān Efendi, Čagataj-Osmanisches Wörterbuch: Verkürzte und mit deutscher Übersetzung versehene Ausgabe (1902).
-
Sheykh Süleymān Efendi, Lughat-ï chaghatay ve turkī-yi 'othmānī (Dictionary of Chagatai and Ottoman Turkish).
-
Mirza Muhammad Mehdi Khan Astarabadi, Mabaniul Lughat: Yani Sarf o Nahv e Lughat e Chughatai.
-
Abel Pavet de Courteille, Mirâdj-nâmeh : récit de l'ascension de Mahomet au ciel, composé a.h. 840 (1436/1437), texte turk-oriental, publié pour la première fois d'après le manuscript ouïgour de la Bibliothèque nationale et traduit en français, avec une préf. analytique et historique, des notes, et des extraits du Makhzeni Mir Haïder.
Phonology
Consonants
Sounds /f, ʃ, χ, v, z, ɡ, ʁ, d͡ʒ, ʔ, l/ do not occur in initial position of words of Turkic origin.
Vowels
Vowel length is distributed among five vowels /iː, eː, ɑː, oː, uː/.
Orthography
Chagatai has been a literary language and is written with a variation of the Perso-Arabic alphabet. This variation is known as Kona Yëziq, (). It saw usage for
Kazakh alphabets,
Kyrgyz alphabets,
Uyghur alphabets, and
Uzbek alphabet.
|
| Hamza | ' | ∅ | ∅ | ئ | ∅ | ∅ | ∅ |
| alif | О о
А а | А а
Ә ә | А а | ئا | А а | А а | Aa |
| be | B b | Б б | Б б | ﺏ | Б б | Б б | Bb |
| pe | P p | П п | П п | ﭖ | П п | П п | Pp |
| te | T t | Т т | Т т | ﺕ | Т т | Т т | Tt |
| se | S s | С с | С с | س | Ҫ ҫ | С с | Ss (Śś) |
| jim | J j | Ж ж | Ж ж | ﺝ | Й й | Җ җ | Cc |
| chim | Ch ch | Ш ш | Ч ч | ﭺ | С с | Ч ч | Çç |
| hoy-i hutti | H h | X x | X x | ھ | Х х | Х х | Hh |
| xe | X x | Қ қ (Х х) | К к (Х х) | ﺥ | Х х | Х х | Xx |
| dol | D d | Д д | Д д | ﺩ | Д д | Д д | Dd |
| zol | Z z | З з | З з | ذ | Ҙ ҙ | З з | Zz (Źź) |
| re | R r | Р р | Р р | ﺭ | Р р | Р р | Rr |
| ze | Z z | З з | З з | ﺯ | З з | З з | Zz |
| je (zhe) | J j | Ж ж | Ж ж | ﮊ | Ж ж | Ж ж | Jj |
| sin | S s | С с | С с | ﺱ | С с | С с | Ss |
| shin | Sh sh | С с | Ш ш | ﺵ | Ш ш | Ш ш | Şş |
| sod | S s | С с | С с | س | С с | С с | Ss |
| dod | Z z | З з | З з | ز | Ҙ ҙ | З з | Zz |
| to (itqi) | T t | Т т | Т т | ت | Т т | Т т | Tt |
| zo (izgʻi) | Z z | З з | З з | ز | Ҙ ҙ | З з | Zz (Źź) |
| ayn | ' | Ғ ғ | ∅ | ئ | Ғ ғ | Г г | Ğğ |
| ğayn | Gʻ gʻ | Ғ ғ | Г г | ﻍ | Ғ ғ | Г г | Ğğ |
| fe | F f | П п | П п/Б б | ﻑ | Ф ф | Ф ф | Ff |
| qof | Q q | Қ қ | К к | ﻕ | Ҡ ҡ | К к | Qq |
| kof | K k | К к | К к | ك | К к | К к | Kk |
| gof | G g | Г г | Г г | ﮒ | Г г | Г г | Gg |
| nungof | Ng ng | Ң ң | Ң ң | ڭ | Ң ң | Ң ң | Ññ |
| lam | L l | Л л | Л л | ﻝ | Л л | Л л | Ll |
| mim | M m | М м | М м | ﻡ | М м | М м | Mm |
| nun | N n | Н н | Н н | ﻥ | Н н | Н н | Nn |
| vav | V v
U u,
Oʻ oʻ | У у
Ұ ұ, Ү ү
О о, Ө ө | У у, Ү ү
О о, Ө ө | ۋ
ئۆ/ئو,
ئۈ/ئۇ | О о,
Ө ө,
У у,
Ү ү | О о,
Ө ө,
У у,
Ү ү | Oo, Öö, Uu, Üü, Vv, Ww |
| hoy-i havvaz | H h
A a | Һ һ
Э э, е | ∅
Э э, е | ھ
ئە/ئا | Һ һ,
Ә ә | Һ һ,
Ә ә | Hh, Ää |
| ﻯ | ﻰ | ﻴ | ﻳ | ye | Y y
Е e, I i | Й й, И и
Ы ы, І і | Й й
Ы ы, И и | ي
ئى، ئې | Й й, И и, Ы ы, Э э | Й й, И и, Ы ы, Э э | Yy, İi, Iı, Ee |
Notes
The letters ف، ع، ظ، ط، ض، ص، ژ، ذ، خ، ح، ث، ء are only used in loanwords and do not represent any additional phonemes.
For Kazakh and Kyrgyz, letters in parentheses () indicate a modern borrowed pronunciation from Tatar that is not consistent with historic Kazakh and Kyrgyz treatments of these letters
Influence
Many orthographies, particularly that of Turkic languages, are based on Kona Yëziq. Examples include the alphabets of South Azerbaijani,
Qashqai language, Chaharmahali,
Khorasani Turkic, Uyghur, Äynu, and
Khalaj language.
Virtually all other Turkic languages have a history of being written with an alphabet descended from Kona Yëziq, however, due to various writing reforms conducted by Turkey and the
Soviet Union, many of these languages now are written in either the
Latin script or the
Cyrillic script.
The Qing dynasty commissioned dictionaries on the major languages of China which included Chagatai Turki, such as the Pentaglot Dictionary.
Grammar
Word order
The basic word order of Chagatai is SOV. Chagatai is a head-final language where the adjectives come before nouns. Other words such as those denoting location, time, etc. usually appear in the order of emphasis put on them.
Vowel and consonant harmony
Like other
Turkic languages, Chagatai has
vowel harmony (though
Uzbek language, despite being a direct descendant of Chaghatai, notably doesn't ever since the spelling changes under USSR; vowel harmony being present in the orthography of the Uzbek perso-arabic script). There are mainly eight vowels, and vowel harmony system works upon
vowel backness.
The vowels i and e are central or front-central/back-central and therefore are considered both. Usually these will follow two rules in inflection: i and e almost always follow the front vowel inflections; and, if the stem contains q or ǧ, which are formed in the back of the mouth, back vowels are more likely in the inflection.
These affect the suffixes that are applied to words.
Consonant harmony is relatively less common and only appears in a few suffixes such as the genitive.
Number
Plural is formed by adding the suffix -لار (-lar/lär). There are two pronunciations which exist due vowel harmony rules. If the vowel of the last syllable is a front syllable (a, o, u) -lar is used. If the vowel is a back vowel (ä, ö, ü) or i and e, -lär is used. In rare circumstances -lar is sometimes written as -لر, though generally the suffix -لار is used for both the pronunciations /-lär/ and /-lar/. Or in the case of Kazakh and Kyrgyz /-ler/ and /-lar/.
Cases
Chagatai has six different cases. The nominative and sometimes the accusative does not have any special making.
Pronouns
Personal Pronouns
There are seven Chagatai personal pronouns, as there are formal and informal forms of the second person singular form. Unlike other languages these pronouns do not differ between genders. Each of these pronouns have
added to end of
verbs as conjugation.
| + |
|
|
-män||بيز biz|| -ميز -miz>
|
|
-sizlär>
| سن -sän |
|
|
-lar>
Punctuation
Below are some punctuation marks associated with Chagatai.
|
| ⁘ | | Four-dot mark | The four-dot mark indicates a verse break. It is used at the beginning and end of a verse, especially to separate verse from prose. It may occur at the beginning or end of lines, or in the middle of a page. |
| ❊ | | Eight teardrop-spoked propeller asterisk | The eight teardrop-spoked propeller asterisk indicates a decoration for title. This mark occurs end of the title. This mark also occurs end of a poem. This mark occurs end of a prayer in Jarring texts. However this mark did not occur consistently. |
| . | | Period (full stop) | The period is a punctuation mark placed at the end of a sentence. However, this mark did not occur consistently in Chaghatay manuscripts until the later period (e.g. manuscripts on Russian paper). |
| " " | | Quotation mark | Dialogue was wrapped in quotation marks, rarely used for certain words with emphasis |
| ___ | | Underscore | Dash: mostly with red ink, occurs on the top of names, prayers, and highlighted questions, answers, and important outline numbers. |
| | | Whitespace | Can indicate a stanza break in verse, and a new paragraph in brows. |
| - | | Dash | Rare punctuation: used for number ranges (e.g. 2–5) |
| -- | | Double dash | Rare punctuation: sets off following information like a colon, it is used to list a table of contents |
| ( ) | | Parentheses | Marks a tangential or contextual remark, word or phrase. |
| : | | colon | Colons appear extremely rarely preceding a direct quote. Colons can also mark beginning of dialogue |
| ... | | Ellipsis: | Ellipsis: a series of dots (typically 3) that indicate missing text. |
Notes
Bibliography
External links
