Re: Khazars and Karaites (was: Re: Brithenig)

At 10:05 06.4.2000 -0400, Steg Belsky wrote:
>.
>
>Where did you get your information about Karaim?  The only place i've
>ever seen it mentioned is on that website which tries to list every
>language in the world with ethnographic stats about its speakers.
>Consonant palatization harmony sounds like a cool feature, although i
>don't know if i would be able to pronounce it properly :-) .
In a book by Bernard Comrie "Minority Languages of the USSR" (or maybe
"...of the Soviet Union".)  I can look up the proper data if you want, but
there was not a lot of info -- on that particular language, that is! :-)
         There is now also a book on the Turkic languages in the Cambridge
Major Languages series edited by Comrie.

As for Karaite/Karaim distinction: clearly not all who are Karaites in the
religious sense belong to the ethnic group in Russia speaking the Turkic
language so called.  IIRC Comrie calls the language Karait and the
community Karaim.

>I always thought that it was the growing Russian empire that conquered
>Khazaria...
Are you sure?  Russia itself was overrun by Islamized Mongols and Turks
(the Golden Horde) before its own age of expansion begun.  Most likely that
invasion hit the Khazars to, with those who survived physically eventually
becoming Muslim Tatars.  One possible reason for the survival of the
Karaite language and ethnic group may be that they were driven away
westward by the Rabbinic Khazars before the destruction of their state.


>During different periods of Jewish history the relationship between
>Rabbinites and Karaites was more friendly than others.  I think it was
>generally considered to be an antagonistic relationship until the
>discovery of the Cairo Genizah which contains evidence that the different
>communities there were very friendly and cooperated with eachother.
That might have been a necessity of life for Jews living under Muslim
rule.  Similar conditions applied with Christians in Syria.




/BP

 B.Philip Jonsson  <mailto:bpj@...>bpj@netg.se
<mailto:melroch@...>melroch@my-deja.com
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