VMs: Re: VMs: Old Türcic runes, could they be the source of VMS-gallows?

[Koontz John E <John.Koontz@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Wed, 3 Nov 2004 mesinik@xxxxxx wrote:
> Amazing, these are available online:
> http://sophistikatedkids.com/turkic/31Alphabet/KyzlasovIL%20En.htm
> http://sophistikatedkids.com/turkic/31Alphabet/BaichorovTable72En.htm
>
> First, we see, this writing system is a democratic one. The shape of
> glyphs is changing a lot.

This happens with the Latin alphabet and its source scripts and congenors,
when there are no standardizing institutions and/or the examples are drawn
from a large enough range of times and places.

> Let us take the first link of these 2, there we have a big table. On
> line 2 we find "ic,ci" of a kind. This is one candidate IMO. Scroll down
> to line 41, there are "k". Here another one. Btw, from somewhere I know,
> this shape of "k" could be used only in the words beginning. At line 58
> we see "oq,uq". Could this be one more? What about lines 60 "ö,ü" and 70
> "üq,qü"? This list is not closed, especially because this table is
> probably not complete.

I am not really a Turkologist, but my understanding is that the variant
velar notations arise from the influence of the vowels.  Recall that
Turkic languages have vowel harmony, and all the vowels in a word have to
have the same frontness or backness and if high in roundness.

At the same time, in all languages velars tend to be pronounced with the
tongue contacting the roof and back of the mouth at different places,
depending on the degree of frontness or backness of adjacent vowels.
Near an i or e (high and middle front vowels), the middle of the tongue
tends to contact the back of the hard palate (palatal region).  Near a (a
low back vowel) the back of the tongue tends to contact the soft palate or
the back of the throat (uvular region).  These different k sounds have
rather different qualities.  A non-phonemic spelling system might use
different letters for the two kinds of k, even if they don't contrast.

In this particular case it also looks like rounded vowels (u and o in the
back, or u-unlaut and o-umlaut in the front) lead to different k-sounds,
probably because the k near a rounded vowel is labialized, with the lips
rounded before or after the vowel begins, due to assimilation to the
vowel.  It looks like these special symbols for rounded k's serve as VC ~
CV symbols, with the vowel understood as included.  In effect, the
different k's mark indicate different vowels, to the extent that the
vowels can be omitted graphically.

Another factor here is that the Turkic scripts appear to develop from
K(h)arosthi, an early form of Indian writing.  Kharosthi is an abugida,
like the later Indic systems, in which consonants include a default vowel
a.

The development of alternate k-symbols in Turkic orthographies is enhanced
by contact with Arabic, in which q - emphatic k - does contrast with k,
and has the effect in most dialects of making the adjacent vowel sound
further back in the mouth.  Vowels in a qword don't have to agree, but
vowels agree with their neighboring consonants.

Notice that in Turkic the vowels modify the consonants, whereas in Arabic
the consonants modify the vowels.  Both patterns occur elsewhere, e.g., in
Eskimo vowels near q are lower and backer than vowels near k, while in
Pacific Northwest languages it appears that different vowel sets have led
to multiple velar (and other) sets.  Palatalization in Irish and Slavic is
more or less the same thing, too - vowel qualities migrating into
consonants.

Some might argue that to a large extent the question of whether the vowels
or consonants are primary bearers of the relevant features is moot.  It
does make a difference in auditory affect, though, asnd whether or not it
is associated with vowel or "feature" harmony of some sort is also
relevant.

By borrowing words from Arabic and Indo-Iranian in which backed k or q
occurs with adjacent backed vowels in ways that violate Turkish vowel
harmony, some Turkish languages develop actual contrasts of k vs. q.  I
don't think that the labialized k ever becomes fully contrastive by some
analogous process.

In any event, the plethora of k-sounds in early Turkic schemes is somewhat
secondary.  Later on it is sometimes real.

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