TURKISH-SANSKRIT
LINGUISTIC CONTACTS AT A GLANCE
By Abidin Itil, Ankara
The Department of Indology was estabhshed in Turkey for the first time
in the autumn of 1935 in the Faculty of Letters of Ankara University. In
the beginning doubts arose in some minds as to what kind of important
and immediate requirements would be fulfilled by such philological branches
in the researches of om national cultural history and Turkish language.
However, with time it came out that just like Sumerology, Hittitology
and Sinology, Indology can also bc of great help in such historical or lin¬
guistic undertakings*.
It is true that the cradle of the Turks as a nation and of Tmkish as a
language has been the wide region of Central Asia. But it is also a fact
that the said region and the Near-East, - into which the Tmks spread
afterwards - have been a scene of uninterrupted fiows of innumerable
nations and cultmes. Consequently, taking up any problem concerning om
national cultural history, it is next to impossible to accomplish successful
results without keeping in mind the neighbour cultures of this wide region
and their mutual affects on each other.
The above mentioned mixtme of such cultural elements becomes more
important for us especially in the field of philological undertakings. One cannot
doubt that most of the loaned words in to-day's Turkish are of Arabic
or Persian origin. At the same time, it would be logical to accept the fact
that the foreign words originating from the IE. group entered our language
mostly through Persian. However, it does not mean that every foreign word
of IE. origin in Turkish should be connected with Persian for its ety¬
mological explanation.
As the time at my disposal is short we will have to be content with only
a few examples.
a. Prof. Dr. S. K. Chatterji of Calcutta University has written a worthy
and scholarly article under the heading "Some Iranian And Turki Loans
In Sanskrit"^. In this article the learned Prof, finds a similarity between
1 To clarify such doubts Prof. Dr. W. Ruben wrote an article: The Fttnctiona
Of Indology In Turkey (Cigir, Vol. 97, p. 168-177; Ankara 1940).
2 Shahidullah Presentation Volume (Pakistani Linguistics-VII), p. 123-140.
Abbottabad-West Pakistan 1966.
the word buta^ "baby, a small child" used in the famous old Turkish epic
poem Oghuz-Nama and the word but-ru "a baby" used in Bihari speeches;
and he thinks that the latter is possibly a derivation from a Prakrit *boUa-
rüpa. According to him the Sanskrit particle rüpa (> Prakrit rüva, rü >
New Ind. rü, ru) functions here as an affix signifying an intensity of the
sense. On the other hand, he takes up the Buddhist Sanskrit garbharüpa
"a foetus, a babe, a small child" (> Prakrit gabharüa "youth, a young man" > New Ind. garbharü, gabhrü "a young man") and points to a repla¬
cement of old Turkish BUTA by Sanskrit OA RBH A, the sense remaining
the same. One feels some hesitation in accepting this conclusion because
even the late Ord. Prof. Dr. G. R. Rahmeti Arat, one of the editors and com¬
mentators of Oghuz-Nama, confesses his doubts about the meaning of the
word boda "to have delivery pains"*.
At the same time one can easily agree with Dr. Chatterji in relating the
Sanskrit kataka "a fort, encampment, camp" to the old Turkish katag^,
having the same meaning. The occlusive cerebral here, itself, shows that
this word has entered Sanskrit as a foreign element*.
I think that Dr. Chatterji's statement - namely that the Sanskrit thakkura
(> New. Ind. thäkura, thakkar, thäkar) "some one exalted, held in great
respect or honour" has been derived from the ancient Turkish word tegin,
tigin, tagin "a prince or a king" - is in need of fmther investigation, by means
of finding some more and satisfying arguments for the replacement of a dental
t (in tegin) by an aspirate th (in thakkar).
b. In the Turkish Language there are some words which are not considered
as foreign but on seeing their phonetic shape one is bound to take them as
loanwords. Such is the word bes (Anc. Tmkish bis, bäs, bs) signifying
number 5. In Ancient Turkish the word älig has two meanings: "hand"
and "50" (Mod. Turkish elli). The units 6 "alti", 7 "yedi", 8 "sekiz" and 9 "dokuz" have in Tmkish their decimals as altmts "60", yetmis "70", seksen "80" and doksan "90". But strangely the unit 5 "bes" has its decimal form as elli "50". The Turkish word bes and its IE. equivalent *per)q"e
(Grk. pente. Got. fimf, Germ, fünf, Sanskrit pancan, Av. panca, Phlv. panj,
Mod. Pers. penj) have a great phonetical similarity. It is quite possible
that the very ancient Turkish word for "five" lost its existence with the
' According to Ord. Prof. Dr. G. R. Rahmeti Abat (W. Bang and G. R. Rah¬
meti, Oguz Kaöan Destani, Istanbul University Publications - 18, Istanbul
1936, p. 34) this word should bo considered as boda < bod „body" < BOY,
*POZ, POS. He thinks that this word might be considered as a derivation from
verbal root büdi- ,,to dance" and boda- thereafter could mean ,,to enjoy".
* Ibidem.
^ W. Radloff, Versuch Eines Wörterbuches der Türk-Dialecte, (photom. N.)
Mouton 1960.
' T. Bubbow, The Sanskrit Language, London, p. 373.
Turkish-Sanskrit Linguistic Contacts at a Glance 801
passage of time and that a new word was invented for it, imitating the
phonetic shape used for number 5 in other, IE., languages.
In connection with the relation between EL "hand" and ELLI "50"
I would like to draw your attention to the fact that the Tmkish speaking
population near the city Khoy (Iran) even to-day sometimes use el "hand"
for the number 5. The possible and most logical reason for this could be
that a hand has five fingers. InMunda-Speeches, the languages of pre-Aryan
India, the word signifying "five" is 3I5re which has a great similarity with
the form Mora meaning a kind of furcation of branches coming out
from the same root'. This does not mean that el "hand" should be prefer¬
red for bes "five" in Turkish. I just wanted to point out the semantic re¬
lation between d "hand" and elli "fifty"; and el "hand" and bes "five".
There are many Turkish and Sanskrit words bearing close similarity
with each other and they require deep research in order to fix their mutual
relation. For example we can mention the following groups of words :
Turkish Sanskrit Turkish Sanskrit
aga? agaccha "a tree" balta paraäu* "an axe"
an ali "a bee" 9ikrik cakra "spinning
wheel"
a^a- a^- "to eat" kd- kr- "to do"
atki atka (Rgv.; 1 "a cover" sano-* sanj- "to stick to'
bala bäla "a child" sari hari "yehow"".
0. The close semantic similarities between some Tmkish and Sanskrit
words or idioms are another important question which also deserves keen
attention. For instance the vocative form vatsa "a little calf" used in
Sanskrit as a term of endearment of children is available in Turkish too :
tosunum, tosuncugum "my lovely little calf, my dear child, my darling";
while on the other hand the same manner of address in some other languages,
such as in Urdu, is taken as an insult.
The term dvihrdayä "double-hearted" means in Sanskrit, - quite similar
to its Turkish equivalent form iki canli "double-souled' ' - a pregnant woman** .
' W. VON Hevesy, Finnisch Ugrisches aus Indien, p. 324 (: ? Die Handwurzel
und die daraus entspringenden Finger).
^ According to Cabl Dabling Buck (A Dictionary of Selected Synonyms in the
Principal Indo-European Languages, Chicago-Illinois 1949) the Grk. and Skr.
words for ,,axo" seem to be two prehistoric borrowings from a non-IE., Asiatic, source.
" In Turkish sancak means ,,a flag".
*" The Skr. forms dams- ,,to bite", darnia or damshträ ,,a tooth", and that of Turkish di§-le- ,,to bite", di§ ,,a tooth" could be remembered in this connection.
** We find thc samo terms in Bukhara-dialect (Prof. Dr. A. A. Radjai,
Remarquics sur le Dialecte de Bukhärä, Meched 1964, p. 383) as dü-jän „double-
Therefore I would like to suggest the interpretation of Prakrit dohada "the
longing of a pregnant woman for particular objects" not as a derivation
from Sanskrit daur-hrda "sickness of heart, nausea" - as it is a common
acceptance - but as a worn form of Sanskrit dvihrdaya, discussed above.
The ancient Tmkish term törüci (< törü "law, ceremony, government,
idea") and the Sanskrit counterpart äcärya (< äcära "good behaviom,
good conduct, traditional or immemorial usage as the foundation of law")
are from the semantic point of view very close to each other, by giving the
meaning of teaching and moreover, the continuation of a traditional
usage as the foundation of law. In this connection it should also be mentioned
that the word namas "reverence, salutation" is used in Turkish {namaz
"prayer") - just similar to its usage in Sanskrit [namaskaromi) - with the
auxiliary verb kil-mak "to perform"; while we find that in Persian, the
mediator of many foreign words originating from the IE. language-family
into Tmkish, the auxiliary verb used for the same pmpose is "to recite"
nama,z-kh'"anden.
d. The remarkable accordance between some Turkish and Sanskrit
sentences attracts our attention especially from the syntactical point of view.
But our knowledge of history is not yet in a position to explain its reasons.
We find that the predicate is mostly placed at the end of a sentence in both
languages. While translating a Sanskrit sentence into Turkish, we can
do it as it is, without making any change in the order of the words. For
instance we oan take a Sanskrit sentence to prove om argument:
devadatto bhrätrbhih saha pätaliputram prasthitah. Dr. S. Speijer translates it
1 2 3 4 5
into English as "Devadatta has parted for Pätaliputra with his brothers"**.
15 4 3
On the other hand when translating it in Tmkish we will write „Devadatta
1
kardesleriyle birlikte PataliptUraya dogru yola giktt". We see here that in the
2 3 4 5
English translation the order of the words is totally changed while in the
Turkish translation it remains the same. This accordance is more visible
while translating the Sanskrit compounds into Tmkish. When translating
the Tatpurusha-compounds into Tmkish even the cases usually are not
changed. Kundala-hiranyam can be translated into Tmkish as "küpeye
(D.!) aynlmis alttn". Its English would be "a piece of gold for an earring".
souled" and in Shagni-dialeet (Sh. A. Badakhsi, A Dictionary of Some Langua¬
ges and Dialects of Afghanistan, Kabul 1960, p. 16) as du-jün ,, double-souled".
*2 Sanskrit Syntax, Leiden 1886, p. 177.
Turkish-Sanskrit Linguistic Contacts at a Glance 803
This syntactical accordance between Sanskrit and Turkish becomes
more conspicuous when we translate a Bahuvrihi-compound into Tmkish.
As we know, the classical Sanskrit writers were very fond of prolonging
the Bahuvrihi-compounds as much as they could. It is well known that
Bahuvrihis are invariably adjectives. The ancient Sanskrit writers tried
to qualify and magnify such a compound by enlarging it with the help of
the addition of all sorts of nouns or adverbs. A Bahuvrihi may have any
number of its constituent elements, but nevertheless we can easily translate
it into Turkish without making any change in the order of the words. I
should like to mention the following Bahuvrihi as an example : daJaratha-suta-
1 2
niiita-iara-nikara-nifäta-nih(da-rajanimra-bala-bahula-^
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
(vanam n.) We translate this into Turkish as „Dasaratha-oglu tarafmdan
1 2
atilan delici oklar yagmurunun isabetiyle ölen Rakshasa'lar ordusundan sei
345 6 78 9 10
gibi akan kanlarla sulanmts agaq kökleri olan {orman: vanam n.).
11 12 13
But its English translation would be "where the roots of the trees had
been moistened by the abundant blood of the army of the Rakshasas killed
by the shots of the crowd of sharp arrows discharged by the son of Dasa¬
ratha"*^. While comparing both the translations one can easily find that
the order of the words remains the same in Turkish, while in Enghsh it
is 13, 12, 10, 11, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 3, 4, 2 and 1.
1' Ibid.
Von Norihiko Uöida, Heidelberg
0. Der vorliegende Artikel ist eine ausführlichere Darlegung der Para¬
graphen über die Akzente meiner Arbeit „Der Bengali-Dialekt von Chitta¬
gong" , Wiesbaden 1969, die auf einer Feldforschung beruht, die ich von
Juni bis Dezember 1964 in Kalkutta durchgeführt habe.
Die Informantin meiner Arbeit, Manorama Datta, war damals ungefähr
60 Jahre alt. Sie wurde in dem Dorf Khitapchar in Chittagong geboren und
zog nach ihrer Heirat in das Dorf Gomdandi, das etwa drei oder vier Meilen
von ihrem Heimatort entfernt ist. 1958 kam sie als Flüchtling nach Kal¬
kutta und wohnt seitdem bei ihrer Familie in Jadavpm, Südkalkutta. Ihre
Familie spricht den Chittagong-Dialekt.
1.0. Wie in den anderen gegenwärtig gesprochenen indoarischen Sprachen
- mit Ausnahme der im Nordwesten gelegenen Sprachen - hat der Akzent
im Hochbengali keine phonemische Funktion. Im Chittagong-Dialekt findet
man aber folgende minimale Oppositionen durch Akzent :
jputij 1 Perle
1.1.0. Phoneme als Akzent.
1.1.1. /V hat folgende AUophone:
ein musikalischer Akzent, der am Anfang der Silbe hoch ist, aber die
Tonhöhe schnell verliert. Dieser Akzent erscheint in der letzten Silbe der
Wörter, die einen Druckakzent auf der ersten Silbe haben :
lü:nij [ü-.nP] getrockneter Fisch
Ißilljäj [ßhillja^] Zweig
ßiirohij [fiiroßi''] Art irdenes Wassergefäß
(ich) schlafe heilige Schrift Schober Faulpelz saure Milch Lampendocht zusammengemacht Unglück (ich) schlage Zahnfleisch jo:ttorl \o:ttoT\
jottorl [6 :ttor]
