Re: Who was talking about Khazaria?
| From: | Peter Clark <peter-clark@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, October 25, 2002, 14:06 |
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Quoting Wesley Parish <wes.parish@...>:
> Some time ago there was a thread of sorts about Khazaria and the Khazar
> language.
Mea culpa. I'm interested in all things Khazarian because they were the
folks who conquered the Crimea and the Enamyn clans living there. This resulted
in a couple of centuries of relative peace and quiet, during which time the
Enamyn clans prospered. Of course, the Byzantines and Slavs put an end to all
that in the 11th century, but sic transit gloria mundi.
I'd say that the theory presented here is about half-right. Traditionally,
it was assumed that after the Byzantines and Slavs finished mopping up the
Khazarian Empire, all the Khazars just crawled into a corner and died. However,
there is a significant amount of evidence that even before the end of their
empire, some Khazarians were migrating--there is some suggestions that a family
or clan of Khazars joined with the Magyar tribes on their way west to what is
today modern Hungary. Koestler's theory is that they basically went west after
the fall of the empire, becoming the ancestors of most European Jews. A more
recent book, "The Jews of Khazaria," posits a theory between the two extremes;
namely, that the Khazarian Jews went west and bumped into the French and German
Jews heading east, intermingled, and out of the mix came Ashkenazi
> And the Lord's Prayer:
>
> Atamis kim köktä sen
> Algiszle bulsun sening ating
> kelsin sening hanlechin
> bulsun sening tilemegin neçikkim köktä allay ierdä
> kundegi ötmackimismi bisge bugun bergil
> dage iazuclarimisni bizgä bozzatkil
> neçik bis bozzattirbis bizgä iaman etchenlergä
> dage iecnik sinamakina bisni kuurmagil
> bassa barça iamandan bisni kuthargil.
> Amen.
I would be very suspicious of this; for one thing, very little of the
Khazarian language is known. As Christophe pointed out, it doesn't seem to have
vowel harmony, but I guess it's not a requirement for all Turkic languages to
have it. Plus, it's from the 13th century, when Khazaria was no longer a
political entity. Let's see what Google has to say...
- http://www.ku.edu/~ibetext/texts/paksoy-2/cam2.html
-
http://www.unesco.kz/qypchaq/The%20Codex%20Cumanicus%20-%20By%20Peter%20B_%20Golden.htm
These two sites make it pretty clear that the Cumins were distinct from the
Khazars. Interesting quote about the language from the first site: "These tribes
included Turkic, Mongol and Iranian elements or antecedents. The inter-tribal
lingua franca of the confederation, however, became a distinct dialect of Turkic
that we term Qipcaq, a language reflected in several dialects in the Codex
Cumanicus." Hmm--the Lord's Prayer given on the first site (search for "Pater
Noster") is different; for instance, the first line is "Atamiz kim kte sen."
Let me add another website, which is maintained by Kevin Brooks (author of
"The Jews of Khazaria"): http://www.khazaria.com. It has an interesting page on
the latest genetic studies, too: http://www.khazaria.com/genetics/abstracts.html.
:Peter