Janhunen J. The Mongolic Languages
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as Mongolic *t is generally characteristic of the Common Turkic, rather than Bulgharic,
layer of borrowings, as in Common Turkic *tämür ‘iron’ → Mongolic *temür.
Although Mongolic as a rule retains the original (Proto-Bulgharic) shapes of the
Turko-Mongolic words better than any historically attested Turkic language, there are
some minor details for which Mongolic shows secondary simplifying developments. For
instance, Turkic final *k and *g are both represented as *g (: *x) in Mongolic, as in Turkic
*adak (adaq) ‘foot’ vs. Mongolic *adag ‘lower end’, Turkic *arïg (arïgh) ‘clean’ vs.
Mongolic *arig ( : *arixu/n). Before the vowels *i *ï, Turkic intervocalic *g is represented
as *x > *y in Mongolic, e.g. Turkic *agïl (aghïl) ‘enclosure’ vs. Mongolic *axïl > *ayil
‘camp’. Mongolic words with initial *m only seem to have a Turkic cognate if a nasal fol-
lows at the first syllable boundary, e.g. Mongolic *mingga/n ‘thousand’ vs. Turkic *bïnga >
*bïng, suggesting a combinatory nasalization of initial *b in Mongolic (if not already the
Bulgharic donor language). Turkic intervocalic *ng is mainly represented as Mongolic
*ngg, but the irregular development *ng > *g > *x is also attested in Turkic *nunga >
*yung ‘wool’ vs. Mongolic *nunga.su/n > *ungga.su/n ~ *nuxa.su/n (> *noosu/n).
MONGOLIC AND COMMON TURKIC
The period of Bulghar Turkic influence on Mongolic seems to have lasted until the fourth
century, when the Bulghar Turks withdrew to the west. In Southern Siberia, a few cen-
turies without Turkic speakers followed, but most of Mongolia was rapidly covered by a
population speaking an early form of Common Turkic, the direct ancestor of Old Turkic
and all the modern Turkic languages with the exception of Chuvash. Since the Turkic
empires of the Türk and Uighur were for most of the time politically superior to the con-
temporary linguistic ancestors of the Mongols, Mongolic (Pre-Proto-Mongolic) bor-
rowed a layer of Common Turkic elements that can be distinguished by the absence of
the specifically Bulgharic features characteristic of the earlier loanwords.
In the Common Turkic loanwords Mongolic has *s for both *z and *sh of the donor
language. A typical borrowing of this layer is Mongolic *ulus
← Common Turkic *ulush
(later replaced in most Turkic languages by a reborrowing from Mongolic). Another
diagnostic feature is the representation of Common Turkic initial *y (< *d & *n/ny) as
Mongolic *j, as in Mongolic *jaka ‘collar’
← Common Turkic *yaka (yaqa), suggesting
that the donor language may also have had an affricate sound phonetically different from
the realization of Mongolic *y. Turkic initial *p, which in the Bulgharic borrowings is
represented as Mongolic *p > *x, leaves no segmental trace in the Common Turkic bor-
rowings, as in Mongolic *alag ‘colourful’
← Common Turkic *(x)alag ~ *(x)aalag (in
Khalaj represented as haalag, suggesting the original shape *paalag). The presence of
final vowels in the Turkic cognates (instead of vowel loss) is also generally characteris-
tic of the Common Turkic layer of borrowings, as in Mongolic tani- ‘to recognize’
←
Common Turkic *tanï-, Mongolic *basa ‘again; also’ ← Common Turkic *basa,
Mongolic *alima ‘apple’
← Common Turkic *alma (a Wanderwort, probably borrowed
into Turkic from Indo-European). In most cases, at least, the Common Turkic final
vowels appear to be diachronically secondary.
Starting with the twelfth century, another layer of Common Turkic borrowings arrived
from Uighur into what may already be characterized as an essentially Middle Mongol
stage of Mongolic. In this layer, Common Turkic initial *y is represented as *y in
Mongolic, while final *sh and *c are represented as *sh, as in Mongolic *yelbi ~ *yilbi
(also borrowed as *ilbi) ‘witchcraft’
← Common Turkic yelwi, Mongolic *kosh ‘pair’
410 THE MONGOLIC LANGUAGES
(also borrowed as *kos) ← Common Turkic *qosh, Mongolic *kerbish ‘brick’ ←
Common Turkic *kärpic. Many borrowings of this period are connected with the mis-
sionary activities conducted by the Uighur. Other items (many of them ultimately of
Chinese origin) reflect the introduction of writing to the Mongols. There are also Arabic
and Persian (as well as Sogdian and Tibetan) words that reached Mongolic via Uighur,
though in some cases the possibility of direct borrowing cannot be ruled out.
As a result of the incorporation of Turkic Central Asia into the Mongol empire, there
was a strong Middle Mongol lexical impact on Middle Turkic in the thirteenth and four-
teenth centuries. Besides a new military and social organization, the Mongols introduced
special kinds of horse breeding, hunting with birds of prey, and housing. Typical bor-
rowings of this period are *aka ‘elder brother’ (also used as a title)
← Mongolic *aka,
*bürküt ‘(royal) eagle’ (first documented in Turkic in the fourteenth century)
←
Mongolic *bürgüd, and qarawul ‘watch’ ← Mongolic *kara.xul. More specific exam-
ples can be found in the written documents of the Middle Turkic period. In the Oghuz
epic Dede Korkut we find Middle Mongol loanwords like jïlawï ‘rein’, nökär ‘follower’,
and shölän ‘banquet’. The impact on the Kipchak Turkic languages was even stronger. The
early Kipchak source Codex Cumanicus exhibits borrowings like abagha ‘uncle’, cïray
‘face’, ebäk ~ elpäk ‘very much’, yada- ‘to get tired’, qurulta ‘assembly, council’,
manglay ‘forehead’, nögär ‘follower’, and qaburqa ‘rib’.
The strongest Middle Mongol impact can be found in Central Asian Chagatai Turkic.
Examples of loanwords attested in Chagatai include egäci ‘elder sister; concubine of the
ruler’, toqta- ‘to stop’, jilau ‘rein/s’, soyurghal ‘grace, favour’, shilän ‘banquet’, qurul-
tay ‘assembly, council’, manglay (‘forehead’ >) ‘advance guard’, nökär ‘follower’, and
yosun ‘kind, type’. The word yasa ~ yasaq ‘law, legal order (of Chinggis Khan)’ (
←
Mongolic *jasag) is one of several examples in which Mongolic initial *j is represented
as y in Turkic. Middle Mongol influence on Chagatai phonetics is demonstrated by the
tendency to change *ä of the first syllable to e. But the Chagatai development of a neu-
tral i (as in Mongolic), today one of the characteristics of Uzbek and Modern Uighur
(spoken in the former Chagatai area), is probably due to Iranian influence.
Middle Mongol borrowings still survive in many modern Turkic languages. Copies
from Middle Mongol horse terminology, for instance, are well preserved, cf. e.g.
Mongolic *ganjuga ‘[kind of] strap on the saddle’ → Turkic: Kazakh and Karakalpak
qanzhïgha, Kirghiz qanjïgha, Modern Uighur ganzhugha, Turkmen ganjïgha, Azeri
ganjïgha, Turkish kanc¦=a, Shor qanjïgha, Altai Turkic qanjagha, Western Siberian
Tatar qandzïgha, Yakut xantargha. In such cases, it is often impossible to determine
whether the item was borrowed only once (into Middle Turkic) or several times (into the
separate branches of Modern Turkic). The distribution of the Middle Mongol loanwords
in the various Turkic languages is a complex issue that has not yet been studied in detail.
Mongolic *serixün ~*serexün ‘cool, fresh’, for instance, is attested as a borrowing in
Northeastern Turkic, Sarygh Yughur, Manchurian Kirghiz, and Western Oghuz, whereas
Chuvash, Kipchak and Southeastern Turkic together with Turkmen show reflexes of
Mongolic *salkin id. (also ‘fresh wind’ > ‘wind’).
Some Mongolic borrowings in Turkic retain apparent Middle Mongol features, cf.
e.g. Mongolic *süxem > Middle Mongol *sü’em > sö’em (> Modern Mongolic *sööm)
‘span, quarter’ [measure] → Turkic: Kazakh süyem, Bashkir höyem, Modern Uighur
süyäm, Kirghiz and Western Siberian Tatar süäm ~ süyäm. Other items are actually rebor-
rowings of earlier Turkic loanwords in Mongolic, cf. e.g. Sagai kejim ‘saddle-cloth’
←
Mongolic *kejim < *kedim ← Turkic *kedim ‘cloth’. Occasionally, such reborrowings
form doublets with their original Turkic cognates, as in Tuva küsh ‘power’ (original
TURKO-MONGOLIC RELATIONS 411
Turkic) vs. kücü id. (← Mongolic *kücü/n ← Turkic). A number of words were (re)bor-
rowed with a narrowed meaning. Mongolic *arga ‘trick, means’, for instance, received
in Turkic the strictly military meaning ‘stratagem’.
The earlier borrowings from Mongolic into Volga Kipchak appear to have been received
before the original open vowels (*e *o *ö) underwent a raising in this branch of Turkic
(into i u ü), cf. e.g. Mongolic *delbege ‘rein/s’ → Turkic *dälbägä > Tatar and Bashkir dil-
bägä, Mongolic *bosoga ‘threshold’ → Turkic *bosaga > Tatar and Bashkir busagha. The
same holds true for Siberian Tatar, cf. e.g. Mongolic *nöker ‘companion’ → Siberian Tatar
nügär. Later borrowings do not show this change. The Mongolic items in Chuvash have
also been affected by several specific phonological developments, cf. e.g. Chuvash xural
‘watch, guard’
← Middle Mongol qara’ul ‘watch’ → Volga Kipchak qarawïl.
THE AREAL NETWORK
After the period of Middle Turkic and Middle Mongol, the Turko-Mongolic contacts
have taken place between the individual Turkic and Mongolic languages. Of the modern
Turkic languages, those of the Northeastern Turkic group show the strongest traces of
Mongolic influence. The proportion of Mongolic loanwords in these languages has been
estimated at 20 to 30 per cent of the total lexicon. The strongest impact is observed in
Yakut and Tuva, followed by Altai Turkic, Tofa, and Khakas (Shor, Chulym Turkic and
Siberian Tatar have not been sufficiently investigated). Kazakh and Karakalpak are less
influenced than Kirghiz, but still considerably more than the Western Kipchak languages
or the Turkestanian languages Uzbek and Modern Uighur. Oghuz Turkic Turkmen has
fewer Mongolic elements than neighbouring Uzbek, but (as a member of the Central
Asian Turkic area) more than Azeri. Azeri and Eastern Anatolian dialects, spoken in the
heartland of the Ilkhanid state of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, have more
Mongolic elements than Standard Turkish.
In many cases, it is impossible to make an unambiguous distinction between direct
and indirect impact. Two languages that have a relatively low proportion of Mongolic
elements, and that therefore are likely to have received them mainly indirectly, are
Chuvash (via Western Kipchak) and Khalaj (via Azeri). On the other hand, in all the
Turkic languages no longer adjacent to Mongolic the proportion of Mongolic elements
has tended to decrease gradually in the spoken language. Considerably more Mongolic
elements are present in epic folklore. Special cases are formed by the Turkic languages
of the Sarygh Yughur (‘Yellow Uighur’) in Gansu and the Manchurian (Fuyu) Kirghiz in
Heilongjiang, two small populations that have a long tradition of symbiosis with
Mongolic speakers. Both of these cases exhibit a specific corpus of Turko-Mongolic
parallels. The Salar language in Qinghai has yet to be investigated.
Besides earlier layers common to many Turkic languages, Northeastern Turkic has
many relatively recent Mongolic borrowings, e.g. jon ~ con ‘people’
← Mongolic *jon
(synchronically present only in Buryat and Khamnigan Mongol), törää- ‘to give birth; to
be born’. Occasionally, Northeastern Turkic can be used for the reconstruction of Proto-
Mongolic shapes, cf. e.g. Altai Turkic qorghol ‘droppings of a camel’
← Mongolic *kor-
gol (Written Mongol qurqhul and Mongol proper xorghl are ambiguous for the second
syllable vowel, though Written Mongol also has qurqhal, suggesting original *korgal).
The representation of initial affricates in the Mongolic material reveals that the spirantiza-
tion of Turkic affricates in Northeastern Turkic occurred after the thirteenth–fourteenth
centuries. Mongolic initial *c, for instance, appears today as s in Yakut (> h in Dolgan)
412 THE MONGOLIC LANGUAGES
and the Sagai group of Khakas dialects; as sh in Tuva, Tofa, Shor, and the Kacha group of
Khakas dialects; and as c in Siberian Tatar, Altai Turkic, and (part of) Chulym Turkic. The
opposition sh- : s- in Buryat loanwords is preserved in Tofa, but not in Yakut.
Within Northeastern Turkic, South Siberian Turkic is separated from Lena Turkic
Yakut and Dolgan by the presence of specific borrowings. Most of the South Siberian
Turkic languages use, for instance, the Mongolic loanword bici- ‘to write’ (borrowed
from a cognate of Old Turkic biti-), whereas Yakut has suruy-
← Mongolic *juru- ‘to
draw’. The reflexive pronouns in South Siberian Turkic go back to Turkic *bod ‘body,
shape’ + possessive suffix, a structural copy from Post-Proto-Mongolic. Lena Turkic uses
*beye + possessive suffix, a construction that involves both a material and a structural
copy from Post-Proto-Mongolic.
Within South Siberian Turkic, Tuva displays, apart from the earlier layers, two later
layers of Mongolic loanwords connected with Oirat and Khalkha influence, respectively.
The Oirat layer is partly shared by other South Siberian, Central Asian, and Eastern
Turkic languages. Oirat and Khalkha loanwords are particularly abundant in the south-
ern dialects of Tuva, spoken along the Mongolian border, in Mongolia (Altai), and in
China (Jungaria), by populations that still seem to be bilingual. The eastern dialects of
Tuva incorporate a number of Buryat borrowings. There are also elements adopted from
Written Mongol. In many cases, it is not possible to identify the exact source of a loan-
word, and in some cases a borrowing can only be recognized on the basis of its meaning,
as in Tuva ertem ‘science, knowledge’
← Mongolic *erdem id. ← Turkic *ärdäm
‘valour’. There are also loan translations: the points of the compass, for instance, are
expressed in the Mongolic way, with murnu ‘front’ for ‘south’ vs. songgu ‘back’ for
‘north’ (for ‘east’ and ‘west’ the actual loanwords cöön
← Mongolic *jexün vs. barïïn ←
Mongolic *baraxun are used).
The Oirat and Khalkha loanwords in Tuva can only occasionally be distinguished on
the basis of diagnostic features. An example of an item unambiguously borrowed from
Oirat is Tuva andazïn ‘plough’
← Oirat *andasu/n (> ands/n vs. Khalkha anjs/ng <
*anjisu/n). The later borrowings from Khalkha are characterized by the representation of
Mongolic *c *j (> Khalkha ts dz) as (initial) s : (intervocalic) z in Tuva (before vowels
other than *i), as in Tuva sorulgha ‘task’
← Khalkha *dzorilgho (> dzorylgh), Tuva sek
‘point’
← Khalkha tseg, Tuva üzel ‘aspect’ ← Khalkha *üdzel (> üdzl). The earlier
(Middle Mongol) borrowings have Tuva sh : zh for *c and c : zh for *j, as in shïda- ‘to
help’
← Mongolic *cida- ‘to be able’, Tuva cük ‘direction’ ← Mongolic *jüg, Tuva
üzhe- ‘to search (all over)’
← Mongolic *üje- ‘to look’. Under certain conditions, the
Mongolic loanwords can also exhibit secondary glottalized vowels (Vh) in Tuva, e.g.
Tuva ehge ‘beginning’
← Mongolic *eke (> Khalkha ex).
In Tofa we find, instead of a Khalkha layer, Western Buryat influence at least from
the seventeenth century on, mostly from the dialects of the Lower Uda and Oka. Some
of the Buryat elements in Tofa may be inherited from the Samoyedic language (Mator)
spoken until the eighteenth century by part of the ancestors of the modern Tofa. Among
the Mongolic elements in Tofa, c.10 per cent show clear indications of a Buryat origin,
e.g. Tofa yoho ‘authority’
← Buryat yoho/n ‘tradition, rule’ < *yosu/n. As in Tuva, the
earlier layer of borrowings from Middle Mongol shows the developments *c > sh and *j > c,
cf. e.g. Tofa sheber ‘accurate, clean’
← Mongolic *ceber (> Buryat seber), Tofa cida
‘lance’
← Mongolic *jida (> Buryat zhada). Some elements of the earlier layer can be
identified by the presence of long contracted vowels, different in quality from those in
Modern Mongolic languages, cf. e.g. Tofa erää ‘pain, torment’
← Mongolic *ere(x)ü
(> Buryat erüü, Oirat and Khalkha erü).
TURKO-MONGOLIC RELATIONS 413
In Altai Turkic, the southern dialects show a stronger impact of Mongolic than the
northern ones. Thus, Southern Altai often has Mongolic borrowings where Northern
Altai has Turkic lexemes, as in Northern Altai kec ‘late’ vs. Southern Altai oroy id.
←
Mongolic *oroi. The two groups of dialects are also distinguished by different types of
contraction, cf. e.g. Mongolic *galjaxu (> Oirat ghalzu) ‘angry’ → Southern Altai qalju
vs. Northern Altai qaljaa. The fact that the southern dialects have generally shapes closer
to Modern Mongolic suggests a separate and more recent contact relationship. Many
borrowings exist only in the southern dialects. A characteristic feature of Altai Turkic is
that it often preserves Mongolic medial *x as ggh, e.g. Altai Turkic sarbagha ‘two-year-
old foal’
← Mongolic *sarbaxa (> *sarbaa > Oirat and Khalkha sarwa). Another pecu-
liarity, observed in the Kumanda dialect of the northern group is the occasional presence
of a prothetic q in words beginning with a vowel in Mongolic, e.g. Kumanda qaptïra
‘trunk’
← Mongolic *abdara. Some borrowings appear only as taboo words, e.g. tulay
‘hare’ (in hunters’ slang)
← Mongolic *tuulai (< *taulai) instead of qoyon id.
As in the case of Tuva, the Mongolic loanwords in Altai Turkic derive both from Oirat
and from Khalkha. The two sources can be unambiguously distinguished only for items
with sufficiently clear diagnostic differences. One such difference concerns the represen-
tation of the stem-final unstable */n, which is preserved in the basic form of nouns in Oirat
but lost in Khalkha, cf. e.g. Altai Turkic tarïyan ‘millet’
← Oirat *tariyan (> taran) ‘seed,
sowing’ vs. Khalkha *taryaa (> tarya); Altai Turkic cinee ‘power, strength’
← Khalkha
*cinee (> cine) vs. Oirat *cineen (> cinen). Palatal breaking and prebreaking are also
potentially important for the identification and dating of the different layers of loanwords.
Among the Khakas dialects, the largest number of Mongolic elements seem to be pre-
sent in Kacha, followed by Sagai. Many borrowings present in Khakas are also attested
in Shor, e.g. Sagai xapcaghay = Shor qapcïghay ‘quick, brisk’ < Mongolic *gabshagai
< *gabsigai. Some items, e.g. *ganjuga ‘[kind of] strap on the saddle’, present in Shor
and several other Turkic languages, are, however, not attested in Khakas. Altogether,
there are many minor differences among the South Siberian Turkic languages and
dialects with regard to the representation of individual Mongolic loanwords. The Küärik
dialect of Chulym Turkic, for instance, seems to be the only idiom in the region showing
an uncontracted shape in the reflex of Mongolic *serixün ~*serexün ‘cool, fresh’ →
Küärik serägün vs. Khakas sirään, Shor sirän, Altai Turkic särään, Tuva säriin, Yakut
sörüün. The lack of contraction is, however, also exhibited by Sarygh Yughur särgin,
while Western Oghuz särin has contraction.
Lena Turkic Yakut received Middle Mongol borrowings up to the fifteenth century,
when palatal breaking was already in process. Interestingly, there seem to be two Middle
Mongol layers in Yakut. In the older layer, Mongolic initial *s *c *j have converged into
Yakut s, e.g. Mongolic *sinaga (> Buryat shanaga) ‘scoop’ → Yakut sïnagha, Mongolic
*cerge ‘hitching post (for horses)’ → Yakut serge, Mongolic *jüxekei > *jöökei ‘(sour)
cream’ → Yakut süögöy ~ siegey. In the more recent layer, *c and *j are preserved,
e.g. Mongolic *cime- (> Buryat sheme-) ‘to ornate’ → Yakut cimee-, Mongolic *jiruxa
> *joroo ‘ambler’ → Yakut joruo. Additionally, Yakut has borrowings from Buryat, e.g.
Mongolic *cinexe/n > *cinee/n > Buryat shenee/n ‘power, strength’ → Yakut senie (with
the diagnostically Buryat development *i > e). In many cases, the exact source and
dating of a borrowing is, again, impossible to specify.
Apart from loanwords, Yakut displays many structural parallels with Mongolic. For
instance, the copulative use of the Yakut numeral ikki ‘two’ in constructions like agham
inyem ikki ‘my father and mother’ (literally: ‘my father my mother two’) is reminiscent
of the use of *koyar ‘two’ in Mongolic. A phonological parallelism with a clear areal
414 THE MONGOLIC LANGUAGES
background is present in the development of prevocalic *s, which has been weakened
into (*) h in both Buryat and Yakut. The development *s > (*)h, in turn, has triggered the
deaffrication *c > s in both Buryat and Yakut. In initial position, Yakut has additionally
undergone the development (*s >) *h > Ø. The Buryat syllable-final development *s > d
is also matched by Yakut, though only sporadically (especially in suffixes).
Compared with the abundance of Mongolic loanwords especially in Northeastern
Turkic, the number of recent Turkic borrowings in the Modern Mongolic languages is gen-
erally rather small. Such borrowings do exist, however, at least marginally in Oirat,
Kalmuck, and Buryat. An example of a Western Kipchak loanword in Kalmuck is ayu
‘bear’
← Tatar ayuw id. The Oka dialect of Western Buryat has several loanwords from
Tofa in the specialized realm of reindeer herding, e.g. daspan ‘reindeer cow of up to two
years’
← Tofa daspan ‘two-year-old reindeer cow’. Some other items in Western Buryat
display Yakut features, e.g. Western Buryat ühää ‘ceiling’
← Yakut ühüö ‘roof-beam of the
yurt’. Turkic *balïk (balïq) ‘fish’has been borrowed into Buryat dialects to designate a spe-
cial kind of fish. The word appears also in Kalmuck as balgh [special kind of fish], while
Kalmuck balg ‘dried fish’ seems to be an indirect loanword via Russian. Examples of
Turkic loanwords in Moghol are yabash ‘obedient’
← Turkic yawash ‘calm, slow’and yasa
‘law, legal order’
← Turkic yasa (originally borrowed from Middle Mongol into Turkic).
MORPHOLOGICAL INTERACTION
Lexical borrowing between Turkic and Mongolic has always been favoured by the
overall typological (syntactic, morphosyntactic, and phonological) similarity of the two
groups of languages. This similarity has made it possible to borrow, among other things,
plain verbal stems simply by replacing the relevant suffixes. Among the verbal stems
shared by Turkic and Mongolic there are even basic words like *bol- ‘to be(come); to be
possible’, an item that probably belongs to the Bulgharic layer of loanwords in Mongolic.
Moreover, Turkic and Mongolic share many morphological elements, which earlier were
often regarded as evidence of a genetic relationship. With the progress of research it has
become increasingly obvious that these elements are also borrowings, representing the
various layers of Turko-Mongolic interaction.
The fact that the material similarities in the morphological systems of Turkic and
Mongolic are, indeed, borrowings is also suggested by their rather random character.
Apart from the system of personal pronouns, there is no single section of morphology
that would show consistent material parallels between the two groups of languages.
Generally, there are more parallels in the systems of derivational suffixes than in inflex-
ion, and those parallels that do exist in the inflexional systems are typically connected
with rather marginal morphological categories. Possible material connections exist also
in the systems of syntactic particles, some of which may ultimately be of deictic
(pronominal) origin. However, the suffixes of several major morphological spheres, such
as the finite conjugation of verbs, show fundamental differences. Here the common traits
are limited to the general organization of the temporal-aspectual system, a typological
property that is also present in several other neighbouring languages and may well have
a wider areal background.
Compared with lexical borrowings, morphological interaction is often more difficult
to date. A typical example is offered by the Mongolic formula for emphatic adjectival
nouns, which has an exact parallel in Turkic, cf. e.g. Mongolic *ka.b&kara = Common
Turkic *ka.p&kara (qap qara) ‘completely black’. Although this feature may have very
TURKO-MONGOLIC RELATIONS 415
ancient areal roots, its presence in both Turkic and Mongolic has probably been
supported by the prolonged language contacts. However this may be, morphological
interaction must have started already during the earliest Turko-Mongolic contacts.
Occasionally, the Bulgharic loanwords in Mongolic contain elements that represent suf-
fixes of the donor language, as in Mongolic *kömüldürge/n ‘breast strap (of horse)’
←
Bulgharic *kömül.dürke = Common Turkic *kömül.dürük, derived by the suffix *.dürke
> *.dürük [association with] from the Turkic noun *köngül ~ *kömül ‘breast’. More com-
monly, the loanwords have received Mongolic suffixes, as in *da(y)i.n ‘war’ :
*da( y)i.su/n ‘enemy’, derived from the root *daxï
← Bulgharic *dagï = Common Turkic
*yagï ( yaghï) ‘enemy’.
Unmistakable traces of morphological interaction with Turkic are present in Middle
Mongol, though many of the features concerned may be much older. In the Mongolic case
paradigm, the comitative ending *-lUx-A is actually based on the Turkic suffix *.lVg for
possessive adjectival nouns, as in Turkic *at ‘horse’ : *at.lïg ‘with a horse’. The same
Turkic suffix appears in its derivative function as a later borrowing in Middle Mongol, e.g.
Middle Mongol miqa/n ‘flesh’: miqa.liq ‘corpulent’. The rarely used Mongolic termina-
tive case in *-cAA (‘till’) may be a borrowing from the Turkic equative in *-cA (‘as’); a
connection of the latter with the Mongolic primary ablative in *-cA is also possible but
less likely. The Mongolic nominativizing suffix *-ki (secondary nominative) has a cognate
in Turkic and is probably of Turkic origin. Other Mongolic case suffixes that have been
compared with Turkic include the locative in *-A (cf. the Turkic dative in *-GA), the
dative (dative-locative) in *-D-A (cf. the Turkic locative in *-DA), and the accusative in
*-g (only in Mongol proper, Ordos, Oirat, and Kalmuck, cf. the Turkic accusative in *-G).
All of these comparisons involve, however, considerable linguistic problems.
In nominal derivation, Turkic and Mongolic exhibit a number of identical plural suf-
fixes, most notably *.s (> Common Turkic *.z), which may, indeed, involve an ancient
borrowing. The Turkic counterparts of the Mongolic plural suffixes *.d and *.n are mainly
used in titles, in which they may be of Mongolic origin (though Indo-European parallels
have also been cited). Other derivative suffixes shared by Turkic and Mongolic include
*.cI [actor noun] and *.lA- [denominal verbs], cf. e.g. Turkic *äb ‘house’ : *äb.lä- ‘to
marry’ vs. Mongolic *ger ‘house’ : *ger.le- ‘to marry’. The Mongolic cooperative suffix
*.lcA- has been compared with Turkic *.sh- (with a reciprocative function), but the
phonological correspondence remains problematic. More importantly, the Mongolic
imperfective participle in *.xA (nominalized as *.xA/n) resembles the Turkic deverbal
noun in *-GAn, which functions from the Middle Turkic period on as a perfective par-
ticiple in many Turkic languages. Other similarities in the participle systems seem to be
more accidental.
On a more local level, there is much morphological influence of Mongolic on
Northeastern Turkic. All Northeastern Turkic languages and, as it seems, Sarygh Yughur
have replaced the Turkic privative suffix *.sIz ‘without’ by the analytic construction con-
taining the negative noun *+yok (yoq) ‘absent’ (the equivalent of Mongolic *ügei). This
construction is historically also known from other Turkic languages that were under Middle
Mongol influence. A material borrowing is present in the Northeastern Turkic agentive
participle suffix *-A(A)ccI
← Mongolic *-AA.ci. In biverbal constructions, some Turkic
function verbs have been replaced by Mongolic ones. Thus, the Mongolic verb *yada-
‘to be unable’ is used as an auxiliary in Tuva, Tofa, and Sarygh Yughur; the Turkic verb
*bashla- ‘to begin’ has been replaced by Mongolic *(x)ekile- → *ekele- in Sayan Turkic;
and the Turkic verb *bitir- ‘to finish’ has been replaced by Mongolic *da(x)us- → *doos-
in Sayan Turkic and Khakas. Another parallel is formed by the pronominal (interrogative
416 THE MONGOLIC LANGUAGES
and demonstrative) verbs. Northeastern Turkic has also a distinction between inclusive and
exclusive forms in the first person plural, though only in the imperative paradigm.
An example of a Mongolic suffix productive in Yakut is the formative of deverbal
nouns -AAhIn-
← Mongolic *-xA.sU/n (a derivative in *.sU/n from the imperfective
participle in *-xA). A Mongolic origin has also been assumed for Yakut -GAt (converb of
relative anteriority, cf. the Mongolic perfective converb in *-xAd), .DAAGAr (compara-
tive case, also attested in Khakas as -DAngAr, possibly composed of an equative element
*.DA/n plus the Mongolic instrumental case ending *-xAr), and *.tA (multiplicative
numerals, cf. Mongolic *.tA with an identical function). Yakut has also Mongolic plurals
in .t (Mongolic *.d), e.g. kïtay ‘Chinese’ : pl. kïta.t (Mongolic *kita.d ), toyon ‘landlord’ :
pl. toyo.t (Mongolic *noya.d ), doghor ‘friend’ : pl. doghor&dogho.t ‘all kinds of friends
and comrades’ (generic plural formed by reduplication).
Mongolic morphological borrowings in South Siberian Turkic include Tuva .mcA
(deverbal nouns, e.g. ber- ‘to give’ > ber/i.mcä ‘gift’) = Altai Turkic .mjI (e.g. kör- ‘to
see’ : kör/ü.mji ‘indicator’), Tuva .ldA (deverbal nouns, e.g. kör- ‘to see’: kör/ü.ldä
‘inspection’) = Altai Turkic .ltA (kir- ‘to enter’ : kir/e.lte ‘income’), Altai Turkic .ngKay
(adjectival nouns, e.g. oor ‘pain’ : oor/u.ngqay ‘sick, painful’), Tuva .SHI- (denominal
verbs, e.g. qadr ‘cadre’ : qadr.zhi- ‘to become a cadre’), Shor .sIrA- (denominal verbs,
e.g. coq ‘absent’ : coq.sïra- ‘to be/come ruined’), and Tuva .DUgAAr (ordinal numerals).
Tuva has also borrowed many Mongolic passives in *.gdA- but employs them mainly as
active verbs. In a similar way, Altai Turkic has occasionally changed the voice of a bor-
rowed verb, as in toqu.na- ‘to make quiet’ (causative)
← Mongolic *toku.ni- ‘to become
quiet’ (medial). On the other hand, Shor shows a tendency to accommodate Mongolic
verbs by adding the Turkic passive suffix *.l when semantically applicable. A case
of morphological contamination is present in Shor alba.tïg (con) ‘subject (people)’,
where the suffix .tïg combines elements from the Mongolic suffix *.tU for possessive
adjectival nouns (Mongolic *alba/n ‘public service’ : *alba.tu) and its Turkic semantic
counterpart *.lIg.
Many of the Mongolic morphological borrowings in Northeastern Turkic are also attest-
ed in Central Asian Turkic and Western Kipchak. For instance, deverbal nouns with the
Mongolic suffix *.lgA are present in Yakut, Altai Turkic, and Tuva (e.g. bashta- ‘to lead’ :
bashta.lgha ‘guidance’), as well as in Kirghiz (e.g. tap- ‘to find’ : tab/ï.lgha ‘acquisition’)
and Turkmen (e.g. cïq- ‘to go out’ : cïq/a.lgha ‘exit’). The suffix *.mAl (also for deverbal
nouns) is attested in Tuva (e.g. qïl- ‘to do’ : qïl/ï.mal ‘handicraft’), Kazakh, and Kirghiz
(e.g. tashï- ‘to move something’ : tashï.mal ‘transport’), while *.GUr (with a similar func-
tion) is present in the Kacha group of Khakas (e.g. pulxa- ‘to stir’: pulgh.oor ‘ladle’),
Nogai (e.g. qaz- ‘to dig’ : qaz.ghïr ‘shovel’), Uzbek, Modern Uighur, and Kirghiz (e.g.
al- ‘to take’ : al.ghïr qush ‘bird of prey’). The suffix *.mtA seems to be attested only in
Tatar (e.g. el- ‘to hang’ > el/e.mtä ‘connection’). The suffix *.GUl became productive in
Chaghatai in the shape /A.wUl (used mainly in military terms, e.g. cap- ‘to attack’ :
cap/a.wul ‘[member of a] forced march against the enemy’). It may also be noted that dur-
ing the language reform in Turkey, the Mongolic possessive adjectival suffix *.tAi was
made productive in Standard Turkish hybrid words like say¦s¸tay ‘Exchequer and Audit
Department’ (based on say- ‘to count’ : recipr. say.ïsh-).
In a wider perspective, Turkic and Mongolic show many intertwining patterns of
morphological typology. For instance, suffixal person marking on nouns (possessive suffixes)
and verbs (predicative personal endings) is most consistently present in the Western and
Northern Mongolic languages (notably Kalmuck and Buryat), which are spoken in the
main zones of recent contact with Turkic. By contrast, suffixal person marking has been
TURKO-MONGOLIC RELATIONS 417
lost in two Turkic languages (Salar and Sarygh Yughur) spoken in an area historically
dominated by Mongolic (and other non-Turkic) languages. The distinction between the
inclusive and exclusive forms in the first person plural in Mongolic tends to become
weaker towards the west, quite possibly reflecting the influence of Turkic (which lacks
this distinction). The use of nominal plural markers, especially in personal pronouns, also
shows clear areal patterns. For instance, the tendency to limit the plural markers to a
single alternative in the Mongolic languages of the Gansu-Qinghai region may well be
due to Turkic structural influence.
Altogether, the structural interaction between Turkic and Mongolic presents an impor-
tant challenge of general relevance to comparative and typological linguistics. It is essen-
tial to realize that the mechanisms of linguistic exchange between the two groups of
languages are still active in many parts of the Turko-Mongolic habitat (Eastern
Turkestan, Inner and Outer Mongolia, and parts of Southern Siberia and Manchuria).
These mechanisms can and should be investigated in situ. Only if we learn more about
the possible kinds of interaction between the individual languages of both groups, can we
make full use of the data from the older layers of contacts and shall be able to fill the
gaps that still exist in our present knowledge. Although apparently genetically separate
from each other, Turkic and Mongolic are entities so intimately interconnected that it will
never be possible to understand the one without the other.
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TURKO-MONGOLIC RELATIONS 419