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314
KÖK TURKI RUNES
The southern part of central Siberia, north-western Mongolia and north-eastern Turkestan have yielded many inscriptions belonging to the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., and some later fragments of manuscripts written in a script variously known as Orkhon-script (the first inscriptions having been found near the river Orkhon, to the south of Lake Baikal), or Siberian, or early Turki, Kök Turki or pre-Islamic Turki.
There are two forms of this script, the monumental, of which a few varieties are known (Fig. 145), and the cursive form (Fig. 143, 2). The monumental inscriptions are written in a runic character, termed Kök Turki runes, which Professor Sir Ellis H. Minns compares with the
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The Kök Turki script was deciphered by the Danish scholar Wilhelm Thomsen. The language of the inscriptions is early Turki, the oldest form known of the Turkish tongue, which differs very widely from the Ottoman Turkish. Although the earliest inscriptions extant belong to the seventh-eighth centuries, the script must already have been in use in the sixth century.
The script was written either horizontally, from right to left, or in
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Fig. 146
1, Comparison of (Teutonic) runes with Kök Turki runes; 2, Early Hungarian 'Script
