Turkish Language and the Native Americans
Alistair_Sim
Turkish Language and the Native Americans
Abstract
In early 1980s, out of curiosity, I was wondering about a possible
existence of an affinity between Altaic Languages and the native
languages spoken in the Americas. So I made a research, (although not
as a linguist), with the hope of finding some living words presently
used in Turkish and also in the languages of the Native Peoples of
Americas. After all thousands of years ago, the ancestors of both the
Turks and those of some of the Native Peoples of the American
continents shared the same geographic area in Central Asia and
Siberia. I wrote a paper about my findings through my research
entitled "Probable Existence of a Linguistic and Cultural Kinship
Between the Altaic Peoples and the Native Peoples of Americas." The
following is a rearrangement of the original paper.
1. Introduction
In my search I used the following facts and/or assumptions:
1a) Turks and their ancestors are Central Asiatic (particularly
Altaic) people. The ancestors of Turks have lived in this part of the
world (i.e., Central Asia and most parts of Siberia) not only
throughout the known history, but most likely for thousands of years
before that in the distant past. From Central Asia they have migrated
to other parts of the world. At present, many ethnic Turkish people
live in Siberia all the way up to the Kara Sea north of Ural
Mountains, to East Siberian Sea and to the Bering Straight in the east
as well as in Central Asia.
1b) The ancestors of most of the Native Peoples of North, Central and
South Americas are known to have migrated from Asia through the Bering
Sea many thousands (10000 or more) of years ago.
1c) In view of these facts, it is very likely that in the distant
past, the ancestors of some of the Native Peoples of Americas and the
ancestors of Turks and other Altaic peoples lived in the same or
adjacent geographic regions of Central Asia and/or Siberia. If so, it
is again very likely that all these peoples could have been members of
the same people or closely related people who spoke the same language
or closely related languages. Due to their possible relationship with
each other in the distant past, one is inclined to think of probable
existence of some cultural and linguistic relationship between these
peoples, in spite of the fact that while some members stayed in their
homelands in Asia, the others left Asia and went to North America.
1d) All languages are dynamic and subject to change in time.
Similarly, a proto-Altaic language spoken by the members of an Altaic
community who became separated from each other, in time by thousands
of years and in space by thousands of kilometres, would definitely
develop independently of each other in a way that when examined at
present, they would appear alien to each other. In present times, it
would be difficult for people who speak such languages to communicate
with each other with the present form of their languages.
1e) However, in spite of this independent development of the languages
of the Native Peoples of Americas and the Altaic Peoples, there may
still exist in both groups of languages some living words that may be
used to express the same meaning in the same way as before. There
should still be some living words as "linguistic artefacts" which are
reminiscence of the language that these ancient people spoke while
they were all living in Asia.
1f) In any language, the first two words that a child learns in
his/her mother tongue are probably the ones that correspond to the
words "father" and "mother". These two words are repeated in each
person's life time, particularly early in age, so frequently that they
become permanently embedded in everyone's memory. These two words are
the most likely ones to be passed on from generation to generation
during the life times of languages that may live thousands of years.
Although, peoples of the same ethnic origin may become separated from
each other and live in different parts of the world for long duration
of time, yet their present languages may still retain these two words
either in their original form or in a form which is similar to or a
derivative of the original form. In spite of the evolutionary forces
that act upon a language and cause changes in its structure and in the
pronunciation of its words, one can still recognise these two words in
languages which are related to each other.
1g) Turks being Altaic people of Central Asia are the lucky and proud
inheritors of the Altaic words "ata", "apa" and "ana" through their
Turkic languages.[1] [2] [3] In this set of Altaic words, the first
two have been used for "father", "ancestor" and "old man" and the last
one for "mother" throughout the history by different Altaic groups of
peoples. Where ever the ancestors of Turks have migrated from their
original homelands in Central Asia, they have carried with them these
words as "linguistic artefacts" of their Altaic language to their new
destinations. In their new homelands, they have passed these words to
generation to generation up to the present time. The preservation of
these words would particularly be highly likely if the speakers of the
language were a dominant group with respect to their new neighbours.
In this case, they would not only retain particular features of their
language but it is quite likely that they would influence the
languages of their new neighbours. On the other hand, if they were not
as strong as their new neighbours in the new homelands, it is also
likely that their language would be influenced by the languages of
their neighbours. In any case, there would be some degree of cross
pollination between the languages of people interacting closely with
each other. With these suppositions, I feel that it would be very
appropriate to use the Altaic words "ata", "apa" and "ana" and their
derivatives as reference linguistic artefacts to trace the footsteps
of the ancestors of Turks and other Altaic peoples.
1h) In addition to these basic words which do not easily change in
time, one could also use as reference the names for some things that
influence the lives of people to the degree that people tend to regard
them highly and/or worship them in their every day life. People could
take with them the names of such things as the Sun, the Moon, stars,
gods, mountains, rivers, living things, etc. , wherever they go.
Therefore, the names for such objects could also be used as reference
linguistic artefacts to trace people.
1i) In Turkish, the two words that have been used interchangeably for
"father", i.e., the words "ata" and "apa" could go through some
transformation in time. Particularly, the phonemes "t" in "ata" and
"p" in "apa" would tend to change into consonants "d" as in "ada" and
"b" in "aba" respectively. This is noted to be so in various dialects
of Turkish.
1j) The Altaic word corresponding to the word "mother" is "ana". A
probable derivative of this word may be the word "ama" for "mother"
which seems to be related to the Turkic word "meme" meaning mother's
breast. For any child, "meme" is nothing but the "mama" or "ama" and
hence "ana". In dialects of a proto-Altaic language, the word for
"mother" could have been "ana" or "ama". By having "n" in "ana" change
into "m", the word "ama" would result; similarly, by having the "m" in
"ama" change into "n" would make the transformed word "ana". We will
probably never know the exact nature of the relationship that may have
taken place in history between the words "ana" and "ama". However, it
seems that, throughout the historic development of the Altaic
languages and thus of Turkish, "ana" is the word which is used most
dominantly to mean "mother".
1k) Derivative words based on "ata", "apa" and "ana" are used to
express various kinship's, particularly, for "father's father",
"father's mother", mother's father" and "mother's mother". Table 1
below lists some of the possible derivative words based on these
words. Turkish as an Altaic language, has used some of these
derivative words not only in its archaic form but also in its present
spoken dialects.
1l) In phonetic languages such as Turkish in Altaic languages, the
consonants in a given word make up the skeleton of each word while
vowels in the word provide its proper sounding. However as the
language develops in time, the vowels in a word may change into other
vowels such as "a" into "e", "o", "u" while consonants of the words,
in general, would tend to maintain their identity in the word through
time.
1m) One should also note that each one of the derivative words from
these Altaic words would readily go through transformations as people
use and repeat them from generation to generation. For example, in the
word "ataata" for "father's father", one of the vowels "a" in the
middle of the the word would tend to be dropped off and the new form
of the word would be "atata". In time, the word could go through
further transformations and may take the possible derivative forms of
"taata", "tata", "tate", "tatI", 'tete", "tat" and in the case of
"adaada", it could transform into "adada", "dada", "dede", "dadI"
"dad", etc.. In time, some of these derived words will be used to mean
not only the "father's father" but also to mean "ancestors", "father",
"old man" and "man". There are living examples of such usage in
Turkish and in other Altaic languages. In my research, I have found
evidence that the Altaic words "ata", "apa" and "ana" and their
derivatives are used in considerable number of languages spoken by the
Native Peoples of North, Central and South Americas. My findings are
listed in Table 2 where I have listed the languages which use these
words and the names of the Native Peoples of Americas who speak these
languages with appropriate references.
2. Additional Examples of Words Indicating to a Common Past
In addition to the Altaic words "ata", "apa" and "ana" listed in Table
2, some other living words also point to the existence of a common
linguistic kinship between the Altaic languages and the languages of
some of the Native peoples of Americas.
2a) In Aztec language (the Nahuatl), in addition to the Nahuatl words
"tahtlI" and "nantlI" corresponding to the Altaic words "ata" and
"ana" respectively, we observe the word "tepetl" or "tepec" meaning
"hill" which is the same both in the meaning and word structure as the
Turkish word "tepe". There seems to be many mountains and/or hills in
Central and South America which are named with a name suffixed or
prefixed with the word "tepec". For example, in Mexico we have:
"Chapultepec", Agaltepec, Citlaltepec, Coatepec, Ecatepec, Jamiltepec,
Oaxtepec, Ometepec, Quiotepec, Tehuantepec, Tututepec, Tepecoacuilco,
Tepetitan and Tepexpan. In El Salvadore: Cojutepeque, Lago de
Coatepeque, Igualtepeque. In Guatamala: Jilotepeque, Ixtepeque and in
Brasil Sierra Tepequem. Similarly, in Turkic geography where Turkic
and other Altaic people live, we have many hills and/or mountains
named in the same manner such as Aktepe, Kultepe, Kartaltepe, Goktepe,
etc..
2b) In archaic Turkish, the word "kün" and in modern Turkish the words
"gün" or "güne$" are the words for both the "sun" and "day". The Mayan
people also call both the "sun" and "day" with the word "kin".[34] In
Mayan calender, a year was divided into 18 months and each month into
20 kins. It seems that these two words of totally different languages
have also some historical common background. Additionally, it is noted
that Turkish speaking Altaic peoples associated the word for "sun" and
the word for "day" very closely with each other by expressing both
concepts with the same word. Similar expressions seem to exist In
Mayan languages.[34] In archaic Turkish, the name for the
constellation "Ursa Major" is "Yitiken". In this word, the first part
"yiti" means "seven" and the last part "ken" is a changed form of the
word "kun", i.e., the "sun". Thus, in the language of Altaic people,
the word "yitiken" would mean "seven suns" where the concept of "sun"
and a "star" was probably considered to be the same.
2c) In Inca language Quechua, the "sun god" and hence the "sun" was
called "Inti". In the word "Inti", the prefix "in" stands for "my" and
"ti" stands for "father"; hence, the word has the meaning of "my
father". Since the Incas were "sun" and "ancestor" worshippers like
most of the Altaic peoples including Turks, finding an image of the
Altaic word "ata" in the Inca word "inti" is pleasantly surprising. It
should be noted that the Inca word "tayta" and the Turkish word "ata"
have the same meaning, i.e., "father" and similar linguistic form (see
item 44 in Table 2).
2d) Inti the Sun God was the ranking deity in the Inca pantheon like
the Tengri among the Altaic people. It was represented by Incas with a
human face on a ray-splayed disk. He was considered to be the Incas'
divine ancestor.[34]
2e) In Inca language Quechua, Incas used to call one of their low
order Creator-God as "Ataguju".[34] It should be noted that the
initial part of this word is suprisingly the Altaic word "ata". In
this case it probably stands for "sacred ancestors".
2f) In Inca society, unmarried princes of royal blood were called
"Augui". On marrying, they became "Inca" or "Atauchi".[35] It is only
reasonable to call an adult man "atauchi" after being married,
because, it is most likely that he will become an "ata", i.e.,
"father". So, again we see the images of the Altaic word "ata" in
another Quechua word meaning "father".
2g) It seems that during the long development process of the languages
of Native Peoples of Americas, some of these words may have changed
positions. In other words in some cases, the words used to express
male kinship in one language may be used for female kinship or visa
versa. For example, the native Candoshi people of Peru use the word
"ataatam" for "my mother".[27] In this case it definitely there has
been a reversal in the usage of the word from the original meaning of
"father's father" as it is in the present day Turkish, to the meaning
of "my mother" in Candoshi.
2h) In Aleut Language, in order to make the nominative dual of the
noun, the suffix "kik" is added to the apocopated nominative of
singular of nouns.[5] For example, In the Aleut language, "adaq" is
father and "ada" is its apocopated form. Thus for "two fathers", the
composite word "adakik" is used. In Turkish, "two fathers" would be
expressed by the expression "iki ata" or "ikki ata" where the word
"iki" or "ikki" represents the number two, i.e., the "dual" state. In
these examples, not only the word for "father is the same but also the
word representing the "duality" is the same in both languages. Hence,
it appears that the Altaic word "iki" or "ikki" and the Aleutian
suffix word "kik" have a common background.
3. Structural Similarities of Altaic Languages and Some of the Native
Languages of Americas
3a) Structurally, the Altaic languages such as Turkish and some of the
native languages of Americas resemble to each other very closely as
agglutinating languages. For example, J. R. Andrews describes the
Aztec language Nahuatl by saying that "sentence word" is the basic
structure of the Nahuatl language.[29] By "sentence word" is meant a
word that contains within itself all the nuclear constituents
necessary for a complete sentence. Turkish, similar to Nahuatl, is one
such language. Additionally, they follow the vowel harmony rule,
although it seems to be more so in Turkish than the native languages
in Americas. Both the Nahuatle and Turkish are such languages. Such
similar infrastructure of languages that develop by peoples who are
separated from each other in time and space can not be attributed to
total random processes that shape independent languages. I feel that
such languages having similar sentence formation must have had a
common history some time in the distant past.
3b) In Altaic languages the gender for the third person singular and
plural is not indicated. For example, in Turkish, only one word, i.e.,
"O" as the personal pronoun for third person singular corresponds
"he/she/it" in English. The referred gender of the subject is
understood from the context of the sentence. It is known that
considerable number of the languages in the Americas, the genderless
word "O", or "U" or "NO" is used to indicate "he/she/it". For example,
the Cree language in Canada use "O", the Quiche and Achi languages in
Guatemala use "U". The Micmacs of Eastern Canada use "O-" as prefix
for "his/her/its" such as "Oochul" for "his father", and "Ookwijul"
for "his mother".[34] The Turkish word "O" and the "O" used in this
examples of the some native languages of Americas seems to be related
to each other, again indicating the presence of a common background in
the distant past.
3c) The general title given to Mayan priests was "ahkin" or "akin"
meaning "he of the sun".[34] In this word, the first part "ah" or "a"
is reminiscent of the Altaic personal pronoun "O" for the third person
singular and the second part "kin" is the same as the Altaic word
"kün" for sun. Again one is surprised to find so complete a
resemblance between these words that such a resemblance cannot be
attributed to random linguistic development. Such close resemblance
must be indications of a linguistic and cultural kinship between these
languages coming from a common historical background in the distant
past.
3d) J. R. Andrews describes the formation of one kind of adverbial
adjunct of manner in Nahuatl as follows: "One type of derived
adverbial of manner is formed from a preterit theme of a verb combined
with the suffix '-ca'. Such words are translationally equivalent to
English adverbs ending in '-ly'".[29, p. 3 This formation of adverbs
by use of the suffix "-ca" in Nahuatl has exact correspondence in
Turkish. In Turkish, the suffix "-ca" or "-ce" is used, following the
vowel harmony rule of Turkish, in the same way to form adverbs of the
same kind.
Few examples are as follows: In Nahuatl (N): chicahua -> chicahuaca,
Turkish (T): saglam -> saglamca, English (E): strong -> strongly; N:
chipahua -> chipahuaca, T: temiz -> temizce, E: clean -> cleanly; N:
ihciuh -> ihciuhca, T: çabuk -> çabukca, E: quick -> quickly; N:
ichta -> ichtaca, T: gizli -> gizlice, E: secret -> secretly; N:
cualan -> cualanca, T: kIzgIn -> kIzgInca, E: angry -> angrily.
In Turkish, the personal pronoun for third person singular is not
represented with a suffix or prefix in verb conjugations, as is the
case in "gelir, geliyor, or geldi, gelmi$", etc. A similar grammatical
rule as this one is also used in a similar way in the languages of
some of the Native Peoples of Americas. The Nahuatl, i.e., the Aztec
language, the Aleutian, the Eskimo and Cree languages may be sited as
examples.
4. Some Examples for Probable Cultural Kinship
4a) Altaic military and Inca administrative systems were based on
decimal system. In Inca administrative system, the administration was
based on household units of 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000 10000 and
40000.[35] Each unit had an official assigned to be in charge of the
unit. The official in charge of one of four-quarters of the Inca
empire was called "Apu-Cuna" or "Hatun Apu-Cuna". At the top of the
administrative pyramid was the emperor called "Sapa Inca". In this
organisation, the following aspects may be noted:
The first is that the system was decimal system like the Turkish
military system which has always been based on units of 10, 50, 100,
1000 and 10000 soldiers and/or horse-mounted cavalry. The names of the
officials were "onbashi, ellibashi, yuzbashi, binbashi and tumenbegi"
respectively. It seems that decimal system of numbering was known to
both of these communities which had no contact with each other in the
known history.
Secondly, the decimal system was applied to organise the community
and/or the military in manageable groups. Could this be the result of
a random process of social development or was there an historically
known knowledge common to both people? It is quite likely that the
decimal system of numbering and its application to social
organisations of peoples may have been known to the ancestors of the
Altaic peoples as early as 10000 or more years ago. It is up to the
scholars of different fields of science to work and discover the truth
related to this striking correspondence in the culture of two well
separated groups of peoples.
Thirdly, we also observe the presence of the Altaic word "apa" in the
names of the Inca supreme administrators. Is this also the result of a
random process? Additionally, the Inca (Quechua) word "Hatun" means
"great, big" and is added as adjective to the names of Inca leaders to
describe their greatness. Similarly in Turkish, the words "Hatun" and
"Katun" are used as the title given to the wife of "Great Hakan",
i.e., the empress (or the first lady, i.e., whatever may be one's
preference) of the Turkish people. In present day Turkish, the word
"kadin" is a changed form of "katun" or "hatun". In fact in present
day Turkish culture, it is not unusual to hear among elderly married
couples, man calling his wife as "hatun". It is also interesting to
note that one of the highest ridges of the contemporary Altai
mountains in Central Asia is known by the Turkic name "Katun",[36]
towering more than 4000 meters. Probably we will never know whether
the name of this lofty mountain had any thing to do with word "Hatun"
or "Katun" of Turkish language or the word "Katun" of Inca language.
4b) Altaic words "Otuken", Mongolian word "Utigin" and Chorti word
"Uteq'uin". The archaic Turkish word "OtUken" is frequently mentioned
as the name of a "divine or sacred place" in Turkish epic writings of
"Kul Tigin", "Bilge Kagan" and "Tonyukuk" and also in Kutatgu
Bilig.[37] In the Altaic language of Mongolian, the word "Utigin" is
also the name given to a "god of certain place". On the other hand, in
the Mayan language of Chorti in Guatemala, the word "Uteq'uin" means
"heaven". The last part of this word, i.e., "q'uin" means "sun" in
Chorti. Similarly, the "-ken" in the Turkish word "Otuken" and "-gin"
in the Mongolian word "Utigin" may be taken as versions of "kun" or
"gun" meaning "sun". It should be remembered that Altaic regions in
Asia were the places where Shamanism were practised very widely. In
Altaic shamanism "Sun" and "sky" worshipping is quite dominant.
Turkish "Gok Tengri" is the "god sky". In view of these observations,
Turkish "Otuken", Mongolian word "Utigin" and Chorti word "Uteq'uin"
seem to have something in common. That is they are all related to
"sun" and a sacred place such as "heaven" and a "place where god
"dwells. Turkish and Mongolian are related to each other because they
are both Altaic languages and their speakers have interacted with each
other throughout the history. The respective words could have been
borrowed from one another. But there was no way that these Altaic
words could have influenced the formation of the word "Uteq'uin" in
Chorti or vice versa unless all these words have historically
something in common with each other.
5. Conclusion
Ancient Central Asiatic peoples, among them the ancestors of Turks,
are known to have migrated from their homelands in steps of Central
Asia and Siberia to east, west, north and south. It is also known that
the Native peoples of Americas have migrated from Asia to their new
homelands in the Americas thousands of years ago. However, in the
known history, the ancestors of Turks and the ancestors of Native
Peoples of Americas are not known to have made contact with each
other. Yet in spite of this fact, it is surprising to see that
Turkish, as a member of the Altaic languages, should have common
living words with some of the native languages of Americas. The
presence of these words in these languages can not be attributed to
random and independent development of these languages in two widely
separated continents. I believe their presence is a definite
indication of the existence of linguistic and cultural kinship between
the ancestors of Turks and the other Altaic peoples and the ancestors
of some of the Native Peoples of Americas that they had while they
were living in the steps of Central Asia and Siberia before they were
separated some 10 000 or more years ago. It may be that some readers
may find this conclusion as hasty. But I am confident that further
studies by scholars will establish the validity of my view.
This study is a small first attempt, in its own way, that uses the
Altaic words "ata", "apa" and "ana" to trace the ancestors of Altaic
peoples among the Native peoples of the Americas. After this study, I
have become a believer that these Altaic words are not only very
effective tracers of the movements of ancient Altaic peoples, but also
are among the oldest living words in human languages. Their wide
spread use in native languages of Americas as well as in Altaic
languages in Asia is a testimony to this observation.
** Check link for language charts.
ireland.iol.ie/~afifi/Art...turkic.htm
--
Nicolai
"I am the Whistler, and I know many things, for I walk by night. I
know many strange tales, many secrets hidden in the hearts of men and
women who have stepped into the shadows. Yes, I know the nameless
terrors of which they dare not speak."
They seek him here
They seek him there.
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?
Or is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel!
"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"
The little things are infinitely more important."
"I am an omnivorous reader with a strangely retentive memory for
trifles."
Hans Kilian
Alistair_Sim schreef:
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> M"DQ!0D5,.TA/344[14Y#3T1)3D<]455/5$5$+5!224Y404),13I&;&]R:61A
> M(#,R,C$W/3!$/3!!55-!#0I54DP[2$]-13IH='1P.B\O=W=W+FUS;G5S97)S
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> )1#I60T%21 T*
> `
> end
You mean the Aino's?
http://www.chroom.net/kilian
Hans Kilian
Hans Kilian schreef:
N.B. Like Chukotko-Kamtsjarki (Chukchi) with ergative, as many old
languages in the world.