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Khazar language
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Khazar
The 10th century Kievian Letter has the Orkhon inscription word-phrase OKHQURÜM, "I read (this or it)".
Native toKhazar Khanate
EthnicityKhazars
Extinctby the 13th century[citation needed]
Turkic
  • (classification disputed)
    • Khazar
Old Turkic
Language codes
ISO 639-3zkz
zkz
GlottologNone

Khazar, also known as Khazaric, was a Turkic dialect group spoken by the Khazars, a group of semi-nomadic Turkic peoples originating from Central Asia. There are few written records of the language and its features and characteristics are unknown. It is believed to have gradually become extinct by the 13th century AD as its speakers assimilated into neighboring Turkic-speaking populations.

There is a dispute among Turkic linguists and historians as to which branch of the Turkic language family it belongs to. One consideration believes it belongs to the Oghur ("lir") branch of the Turkic language family, while another consideration is that it belongs to the Common Turkic branch. As the extant corpus of Khazar is extremely limited, consisting of two nouns, a conjugated verb, and a few proper names, its exact genealogical position within the Turkic phylum remains unresolved.

Classification

[edit]

There are many problems with exact classification of the Khazar language. One of the basic issues is the vague nature of the name Khazar itself. It has not yet been determined whether it refers to a specific Turkic tribe, or if it had a political and geographical origin that was not ethnolinguistic.[1] The Khazar realm was a polyglot (multilingual) and polyethnic (multicultural) state, with Iranian, Finnic, Ugric, Slavic, and North Caucasian languages.[2] According to anthropological data, it was ruled by Inner Asian Mongoloid (with some Europoid somatic elements) core tribes that accompanied the dynasty.[1][3] The Turkic tribes probably spoke a number of Turkic languages.[4] Scholars considered it a possibility that the term Khazar denoted one or even several languages; however, the sources cannot determine the extent of its use.[5]

Chronicles of the time are unclear on Khazar's linguistic affiliation. The tenth century Al-Istakhri wrote two conflicting notices: "the language of the Khazars is different than the language of the Turks and the Persians, nor does a tongue of (any) group of humanity have anything in common with it, and the language of the Bulgars is like the language of the Khazars but the Burtas have another language."[5] Al-Istakhri mentioned that population of Darband spoke Khazar along with other languages of their mountains.[6] Al-Masudi  (896 – 956) listed Khazars among types of the Turks, and noted they are called Sabir in Turkic and Xazar in Persian.[5] Al-Biruni (973 – 1050), while discussing the Volga Bulgars and Sawars (Sabirs), noted their language was a "mixture of Turkic and Khazar."[6][3] Al-Muqaddasi (c. 945/946 – 991) described the Khazar language as "very incomprehensible."[6] Ibn Hawqal, who travelled during the years 943 to 969 AD,[7] wrote that "the Bulgar language resembles that of the Khazars".[8][9]

Compared to the uniformity of Common Turkic, which Al-Istakhri mentioned "as for the Turks, all of them, from the Toquz Oghuz, Qirgiz, Kimek, Oguz, Qarluq, their language is one. They understand one another". Even if Khazar belonged or was similar to Oghuro-Bulgaric languages, it was distinctly different.[10]

Vocabulary

[edit]

The linguistic data on Khazar consists mostly of proper names such as titles (Beg, Bolušči, Ishad, Il-teber/El-teber, Qağan, Kündü Qağan, Jâwšîġr, Tarxan, Tudun, Yabgu, Yilig/Yelig), anthroponyms (Itaq), and toponyms (Sarkel/Šarkil, Sarığšın/Sarığčın), mostly of Turkic origin.[11][12] The interpretations do not indicate whether these are Common Turkic or Oghuric.[13][14]

Just two common nouns have been attested. The Arab historian Ibn A'tham al-Kufi records the name of a type of tent as alǰdāḏ, whose first part is probably a cognate of eastern Old Turkic alaču 'tent'. A word for 'funeral feast' is recorded by the Byzantine historian Theophanes in several forms: δοχήν dokhḗn, δογήν dogḗn, δογῆν dogên, δουγήν dougén, comparable with eastern Old Turkic yog (as well as with a term recorded by Menandros as δογια dogia). Other nouns have been proposed to be reflected in Khazar proper names, such as *bulan 'elk', *ït 'dog' in the personal names Bulan and Itakh.[15]

Khazar was stated by the 1986 Guinness Book of Records (following a claim by the Great Soviet Encyclopedia) to have the "smallest literature" of any language, allegedly comprising only one attested word, oqurüm, "I have read" (from the Kievan Letter).[16]

See also

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Notes

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Khazar language

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The Khazar language was an extinct spoken by the , a semi-nomadic people who formed the Khazar Khaganate, a major Eurasian power from the 7th to 10th centuries CE. It belonged to the Oghuric branch of , closely related to the medieval Bulgar and modern Chuvash varieties, distinguishing it from Common Turkic through features like phonetic shifts and vocabulary. The language is sparsely attested, with direct evidence limited to short inscriptions and phrases, such as the Turkic runic endorsement "OKHQURÜM" ("I read [it]") on the 10th-century Kiev letter, a Hebrew from Khazar-influenced Kiev that provides the sole potential native attestation. Originally written in runiform Turkic script, Khazar adapted Hebrew script following the elite's around the 8th-9th centuries, though most external accounts of Khazar terms derive from , Persian, and Byzantine sources rather than systematic records. Scholarly consensus holds it as Turkic based on linguistic analysis of loanwords and toponyms, with reconstruction efforts leveraging comparative methods and computational tools to infer and from Oghuric cognates, amid challenges from the khaganate's multilingual environment incorporating Iranian and Slavic elements. Despite its obscurity, the language underscores the ' role in facilitating trade and cultural exchange across and Caspian regions, with remnants influencing successor Turkic dialects.

Historical Context

Origins and Speakers

The Khazar language was a Turkic idiom spoken by the , a semi-nomadic that dominated the Pontic-Caspian and adjacent regions from the mid-7th to the late CE. Scholars unanimously classify it within the Turkic , with consensus favoring the Oghuric branch, akin to the languages of the Volga and modern Chuvash. This affiliation is supported by medieval Arabic sources, such as al-Istakhri (ca. 950 CE), who equated the Khazar tongue with that of the , distinct from Oghuz varieties. Origins of the language trace to Turkic expansions from the Central Asian steppes, where proto-Oghuric dialects likely developed among nomadic groups by the 5th-6th centuries CE. The coalesced as a political entity around 630 CE, following the collapse of the , incorporating tribes possibly including Sabir and Onogur elements that carried these linguistic traits westward. While some hypothesize a pre-Turkic substrate among core tribes later overlaid by Turkic speech, direct evidence remains absent, and the Turkic character is inferred from , toponyms, and sparse lexical attestations. Speakers comprised the Khazar elite, including the khagan's court and the bek's military-administrative class, alongside pastoralist and urban populations in the khaganate's core territories along the lower , northern , and eastern , spanning roughly 650-969 CE. The multiethnic realm incorporated Slavic, Iranian, and Finnic groups, fostering multilingualism, with , Hebrew, Greek, and Persian serving and after the elite's Judaization circa 740-860 CE; however, Khazar Turkic persisted as the among the titular . No estimates of speaker numbers survive, but the khaganate's likely numbered in the hundreds of thousands, with Khazar speakers forming a ruling minority over diverse subjects.

Duration and Decline

The Khazar language was primarily attested and utilized during the existence of the Khazar Khaganate, spanning from its consolidation around 650 CE to the state's disintegration in the late . As the vernacular of a semi-nomadic Turkic confederation controlling territories from the Volga-Don steppes to the , it coexisted with administrative use of among the elite and Alanian dialects among subject populations. The khaganate's collapse, triggered by internal fragmentation and external invasions—culminating in the Rus' prince Sviatoslav I's campaigns that razed the capital (Itil) between 965 and 969 CE—marked the onset of linguistic decline. This event dispersed surviving Khazar groups, who faced pressure from encroaching , (Kipchaks), and expanding Kievan Rus' principalities, fostering rapid assimilation. Post-collapse, remnants persisted among Judeo-Khazar communities into the 11th–12th centuries, but the absence of a robust literary —limited to sporadic and toponyms—exacerbated toward dominant Kipchak Turkic varieties or East Slavic. By the 13th century, the language had become extinct, its speakers fully integrated into neighboring ethnolinguistic groups, with no surviving texts or direct descendants beyond inferred Oghuric affinities.

Linguistic Classification

Affiliation with Turkic Languages

The is widely classified by linguists as a member of the , specifically within the Oghuric (or Lir-Turkic) , which diverges from the in phonological and morphological features such as the retention of Proto-Turkic *d as /r/ and *b as /w/. This affiliation aligns it closely with extinct languages like Old Bulgar and the modern spoken in the . Historical testimonies from Arab geographers, such as al-Istakhri (), explicitly compare the Khazar language to that of the , noting their similarity, which supports the Oghuric connection given the Bulgars' own Oghuric speech. Evidence for this Turkic affiliation derives primarily from onomastic data, including personal names, tribal designations, and toponyms preserved in Byzantine, , and Hebrew sources, which exhibit Turkic etymologies; for instance, the term qazar itself may stem from Turkic roots denoting "" or "free." Scholars like Peter Golden have identified multiple Turkic dialects in the Khazar Khaganate, with at least one predominant Oghuric variety used by the ruling elite, influenced by interactions with neighboring Oghur tribes such as the Sabirs and . Marcel Erdal emphasizes that while direct textual attestations are scarce, the phonological patterns in reconstructed Khazar lexicon—such as and suffixation—conform to Turkic structures, ruling out non-Turkic origins for the core language despite possible substrate influences from Iranian or Caucasian tongues. Debates persist regarding the exact position within Oghuric, with some proposing a distinct Khazar subdialect separate from Bulgar, based on variations in attested forms like the runic-like signatures potentially linked to Khazar artifacts. A minority view, advanced by Erdal, allows for the possibility of an initial non-Turkic ethnolinguistic base among proto-Khazar groups that underwent Turkicization through alliance with Oghur speakers around the 5th-6th centuries CE, though this does not challenge the established Turkic character by the Khaganate's peak in the 8th-10th centuries. Overall, the Turkic consensus holds due to consistent alignments with Oghuric diagnostics across interdisciplinary evidence, including and historical migration patterns of Turkic nomads from .

Position within the Oghuric Branch

The Khazar language occupies a position within the Oghuric (also termed Lir or Bulgaric) branch of the Turkic family, characterized by distinctive phonological innovations such as the substitution of /r/ for Proto-Turkic /z/ (e.g., in forms akin to Chuvash yăr corresponding to Common Turkic yaz) and /l/ or /lč/ for /š/. This branch diverges from the dominant Common Turkic (Kipchak-Oghuz-Qarluq) continuum, which exhibits rhotacism and sibilant retention in comparable positions. Classification relies on fragmentary lexical and onomastic evidence, including royal titles like šad (ruler) and ethnonyms, which align with Oghuric patterns observed in Bulgar inscriptions and Chuvash reflexes. Historical Arabic sources provide key attestations supporting this affiliation, with 9th-century geographer Ibn Khurradadhbih equating the Khazar language directly to Bulgar but distinguishing it from adjacent tongues like Burtas (Finnic-influenced) and Persian. (11th century) similarly noted its resemblance to Bulghar speech, reinforcing proximity to and Bulgar varieties. Within Oghuric, Khazar forms a to Bulgar rather than a progenitor of Chuvash, which descends specifically from Volga Bulgarian dialects post-. Marcel Erdal's lexicographic analysis of preserved terms—such as potential Oghuric täl for "state" or bäl for tribal units—confirms these ties while highlighting Khazar's independent evolution amid the khaganate's 7th–10th century interactions. Debates persist due to evidential sparsity, with some onomastic data (e.g., Persian-transcribed Tarqan titles) showing Common Turkic overlays from elite or substrate influences, yet core features remain Oghuric-dominant per Peter Golden's synthesis of Western Turkic tribal linguistics. No full corpus exists, limiting subgroup resolution, but computational reconstructions using Chuvash-Bulgar cognates bolster Khazar's basal Oghuric status over alternative Kipchak hypotheses, which lack phonological congruence. This positioning underscores the branch's relic survival in isolated pockets post-Khazar decline around 965 CE.

Attestations and Evidence

Primary Sources and Inscriptions

Direct attestations of the Khazar language are exceedingly rare, consisting primarily of short rather than extended texts. The Khazars employed a variant of the runic script, akin to that used by other steppe Turkic peoples, for writing their Oghuric dialect. One of the earliest identified examples is a single-word inscription on a seal excavated from the Khazar fortress of (Belaya Vezha), dated to the 8th-9th century, reading oqrum or (h)oqurûm, translated as "I (have) read" in Common Turkic oqrum/oqrïm, confirming Oghuric phonological features like the reflex of Proto-Turkic ï as u. The Kievan Letter, a 10th-century Hebrew document from a Jewish community in Kiev purportedly linked to Khazar descendants or refugees, features a marginal signature or doodle in runiform script. Interpretations vary: some scholars propose it renders Turkic elements such as royal titles or names like Konük İŋvar ("King Ingvar"), potentially reflecting Khazar linguistic influence in the region, though its direct Khazar attribution remains contested due to the letter's post-Khazar-collapse context and unclear script provenance. Additional fragmentary runic inscriptions have been reported on Khazar artifacts, including seals and pottery from sites in the Volga-Don region, bearing proper names or titles interpretable as Turkic, such as abbreviations for (meaning "three" or a symbol for Itil, the Khazar capital) alongside references to kings like Obadiah. These are typically brief, 1-5 characters long, and deciphered using comparative Old Turkic runology, but their scarcity and occasional reliance on speculative readings limit definitive linguistic reconstruction. No corpora of Khazar literature, administrative records, or religious texts in the native language have survived, likely due to the nomadic-sedentary hybrid society, perishable materials, and cultural shifts following the of and interactions with literate neighbors using Hebrew, or Greek scripts. Arabic geographers like al-Istakhrī (10th century) note the Khazars' distinct tongue but provide no transcripts, underscoring the reliance on archaeological ephemera for primary evidence.

Loanwords, Toponyms, and Historical Accounts

The Khazar language is attested indirectly through mentions in medieval Arabic geographical accounts, which provide the earliest comparative evidence of its characteristics. The 10th-century Persian geographer al-Istakhri observed that the language of the Volga Bulgars resembled that of the Khazars, a similarity corroborated by other Arabic sources and consistent with both belonging to the Oghuric branch of Turkic languages. Al-Masudi (d. 956 CE), in his Muruj al-Dhahab, classified the Khazars among Turkic-speaking peoples while noting their distinct customs, though without detailing linguistic specifics beyond ethnic affiliation. These accounts, drawn from travelers and informants in the Caspian-Volga region, reflect direct observation around the 9th-10th centuries but lack phonetic or grammatical samples, limiting their utility to broad typological insights. Ibn Fadlan's 921-922 CE risala, while focused on the Volga Bulgars and Rus, traverses Khazar-controlled territories and implies linguistic continuity in the steppe, as the delegation interacted with multilingual polities under Khazar suzerainty. A rare direct attestation appears in the Kiev Letter, a Hebrew commercial endorsement from the Jewish community of Kiev dated circa 930 CE, featuring a marginal runic inscription in Turkic script interpreted as "I have read [it]," likely in the Khazar dialect given the region's political subordination to the Khazar Khaganate at the time. This runiform endorsement, using an adapted , represents the sole surviving example of putative Khazar writing and aligns with Oghuric phonological traits observed in related inscriptions. The Khazar Correspondence (ca. 950s-960s CE), comprising Hebrew letters between Cordoban Jewish vizier Hasdai ibn Shaprut and Khazar ruler Joseph, preserves Turkic royal titles such as qağan (sovereign) and personal names like Bulan (possibly "elk" in Turkic), evidencing the language's use among the Khazar elite despite the documents' Hebrew medium. Loanwords attributable to Khazar are sparse and often indistinguishable from broader Oghuric or steppe Turkic borrowings, with proposed examples in neighboring languages requiring cautious attribution due to multilingual contacts. In Hungarian, Old Turkic loans from the 9th-10th centuries—such as terms for administrative or nomadic concepts—may stem partly from Khazar interactions during westward migrations, though systematic separation from Bulgar or Pecheneg influences remains unresolved. Claims of Khazar loans in East Slavic tongues, like potential vocabulary for trade or governance, appear in toponymic substrates but lack consensus, as phonetic evidence favors general Turkic diffusion over Khazar specificity. Toponyms in former Khazar territories yield etymological clues, often reflecting Turkic roots adapted into Slavic or Persian substrates. The capital Atil (Itil), on the Volga delta from the 8th century CE, derives from Turkic ätel or adil denoting "estuary" or "lowland," emblematic of the khaganate's riverine economy. Earlier seats like Balanjar (7th century) and Samandar exhibit Turkic morphemes for fortified settlements, while peripheral names in the North Caucasus and Crimea—such as those preserving khazar as an ethnonym in Iranian toponymy—indicate enduring linguistic traces post-khaganate collapse around 965 CE. In Central Europe, isolated Slovak toponyms retain Khazar-Turkic elements, like variants of kozar for tribal designations, suggesting residual naming practices from 9th-century incursions. These examples, verified through comparative onomastics, underscore the language's role in regional hydrography and administration but are complicated by later Slavic overnames.

Linguistic Features

Phonology and Vocabulary

The phonology of the Khazar language is poorly understood due to the extreme scarcity of direct attestations, with inferences primarily drawn from its classification as an Oghuric Turkic language and comparisons to the surviving Chuvash language and extinct Bulgar. A defining Oghuric feature is the reflex of Proto-Turkic *z as r in word-final position, as seen in cognates such as *kör for "eye" (contrast Common Turkic köz). Consonant inventory likely included unvoiced stops /p, t, k/, affricates /č/, fricatives /s/, and voiced counterparts /b, d, g, ǰ/, alongside nasals /m, n, ŋ/ and liquids /r, l/, consistent with early Oghuric systems. a hallmark of Turkic languages, is presumed present, though specific vowel qualities remain speculative without extensive corpus. The attested vocabulary of Khazar is minimal, consisting largely of proper names, titles, and a single verbal phrase preserved in runic script on the 10th-century Kiev letter from the Cairo Genizah. This inscription, read as oγurum or similar, translates to "I read (it)," demonstrating first-person singular verbal morphology typical of Oghuric Turkic (*oq- "read" + -ur- causative/inchoative + -um 1SG). Other potential lexical items derive from toponyms and anthroponyms in historical sources, such as Atil (the Khazar capital) and ruler titles like khagan, but these are shared Turkic terms with limited diagnostic value for Khazar specifics. Recent computational reconstruction efforts have proposed additional lexicon by aligning with Chuvash and Volga Bulgar, identifying candidate words through phylogenetic screening, though these remain tentative pending verification. No extensive dictionaries or grammatical treatises survive, underscoring the language's reliance on indirect evidence for study.

Grammar and Syntax

The grammar and syntax of the Khazar language are poorly understood owing to the scarcity of direct attestations, which include only isolated nouns (such as šad for 'prince'), proper names, and a single conjugated verb form in surviving sources like the . As an Oghuric Turkic language akin to the Bulgharic branch, its structure is reconstructed by comparison with , the branch's sole extant representative, which exhibits features likely shared by Khazar. Khazar morphology was agglutinative, relying on suffixation to roots for deriving grammatical relations, a hallmark of without fusional elements or prefixing. Nouns featured inflection for case (potentially eight, as in : nominative unmarked, genitive in -n), number (singular default, plural via -sem or -sen), and possession (e.g., first-person singular -əm, third-person -ə). Verbs conjugated for person, number, tense-aspect (e.g., past tense marker -t-), and mood through suffix chains, supporting two conjugation paradigms observed in analogs. No evidence suggests grammatical gender, consistent with the Turkic family's lack thereof. Syntactic patterns followed Turkic norms, with subject-object-verb (SOV) as the basic word order and head-final constituents in noun phrases, where attributive modifiers (adjectives, possessors) preceded the head noun without case or number agreement between them. Postpositional phrases marked oblique relations, and focus constructions permitted deviations from rigid SOV for pragmatic emphasis, as seen in related Oghuric varieties. These inferences align with Bulgharic toponyms like Šar-kel ('White House'), reflecting compound noun formation paralleling Chuvash šurə̂ kil. Direct Khazar syntactic data remains absent, limiting confirmation beyond comparative reconstruction.

Controversies and Debates

Classification Disputes

The scarcity of direct attestations has fueled ongoing disputes over the Khazar language's classification, with scholars relying on fragmentary evidence such as personal names, royal titles, toponyms, and brief references in Arabic and Byzantine sources. The prevailing scholarly consensus, established by mid-20th-century philological analysis, positions it within the Turkic language family, specifically the Oghuric (or Lir-Turkic) branch, characterized by phonological shifts like č to š and d to t or r, as seen in comparisons with Volga Bulgar and the modern Chuvash language. This affiliation is bolstered by 9th-century geographer Ibn Khordadbeh's observation that the Khazar language matched that of the —another Oghuric-speaking group—while differing from Persian, the Finno-Ugric Burtas tongue, and the Slavic or Norse-influenced Rus speech. Turkic etymologies for core terms, including dynastic titles like qaǧan (khagan) and tarǩan (military rank), further anchor this view, as reconstructed from Old Turkic runic parallels with Oghuric innovations. Challenges to the Oghuric classification arise primarily from interpretive ambiguities in the sparse corpus and the Khaganate's ethnic heterogeneity, which included Iranian-speaking Alans and other substrates potentially introducing loanwords or hybrid forms. Some earlier analyses proposed dominant Iranian (Scythian or Alanian) elements in Khazar nomenclature, attributing Turkic features to later admixtures rather than native structure, though these have been largely refuted by systematic comparative linguistics favoring a Turkic base with Iranian borrowings. More recent critiques, such as those by Marcel Erdal, question strict Oghuric ties, arguing for closer alignment with Common (Karluq or Kipchak) Turkic dialects based on rune usage and lexical patterns that deviate from Chuvash-like r/z correspondences. Peter B. Golden counters this by emphasizing Oghuric-specific traits in attested titles and the historical continuity with Bulgar speech, as corroborated by multi-dialectal Turkic usage in the confederation. These debates underscore the limitations of evidence, where proper names like Bulān or Manas yield ambiguous etymologies interpretable as Turkic, Iranian, or even Semitic post-conversion. The Khaganate's polyethnic composition exacerbates classification issues, as Arabic chroniclers like al-Mas'udi imply linguistic diversity among constituent tribes, potentially blending Oghuric with eastern Turkic variants from migratory groups like Sabirs or Onogurs. Computational reconstruction efforts, comparing Chuvash-Tatar cognates filtered for Oghuric markers, have proposed around 64 lexical items but reveal persistent contention over distinguishing innovations from shared Turkic heritage or Finnic influences in the Volga region. Absent fuller inscriptions or texts, these disputes persist, with Oghuric advocacy prevailing due to geographic and historical congruence, yet open to revision via new archaeological finds like the debated Khazar runes on the Kiev letter.

Connection to Ashkenazi Jewish Origins

The Khazar hypothesis proposes that Ashkenazi Jews primarily descend from the Khazars, a Turkic-speaking people whose elite converted to Judaism around 740–860 CE, implying potential linguistic traces of Oghuric Turkic in Ashkenazi Jewish languages like Yiddish. However, genome-wide analyses, including principal component analysis and admixture modeling of over 1,000 samples, reveal no substantive Khazar genetic signature in Ashkenazi populations, which instead cluster with Levantine and Southern European ancestries dating to migrations from the Rhineland around the 9th–11th centuries CE. This absence of Caucasus-specific admixture—proxied by modern proxies for ancient Khazar regions like Armenians or Georgians—undermines claims of significant Khazar demographic input, as any substantial migration would leave detectable autosomal DNA signals comparable to observed Slavic or Italian contributions. Linguistically, Yiddish—a fusion of Middle High German (80–90% of lexicon), Hebrew-Aramaic (10–15%), and Slavic elements—exhibits no Oghuric Turkic substrate, phonology, or vocabulary that would indicate Khazar influence. Etymological studies trace Yiddish's core to 9th–10th century Judeo-German dialects in the Holy Roman Empire, predating the Khazar Khaganate's collapse in 965–969 CE, with subsequent eastward shifts incorporating Slavic but not Turkic features. Khazar language attestations, limited to runic inscriptions, toponyms like "Samandar," and sparse Arabic/Persian glosses (e.g., words for "king" as bäg or "sword" as kılıç), show no overlap with Yiddish's Germanic syntax or Semitic religious terminology. Claims of hidden Turkic loans, as speculated in some historical linguistics, fail under scrutiny, as Yiddish's non-Indo-European elements are confined to Hebrew (e.g., ritual terms) and later Slavic borrowings post-12th century, without the vowel harmony or agglutinative morphology characteristic of Turkic languages. Ancient DNA from 14th-century Erfurt, Germany, confirms Ashkenazi founder events around 600–800 CE in Western Europe, with subgroups showing 50–70% Levantine ancestry and minimal Eastern steppe input, further decoupling Ashkenazi ethnogenesis from Khazar territories. While fringe models, such as Elhaik's 2013 admixture analysis favoring a "Caucasus mosaic," have been critiqued for proxy misuse and lack of replication—contrasting with replicated Middle Eastern-European models—these do not extend to linguistic evidence, where no Khazar-derived onomastics or dialects persist in Ashkenazi records. The hypothesis's linguistic arm thus rests on conjecture rather than attestation, with Khazar Judaism likely limited to an elite phenomenon that dissolved amid Mongol invasions by 1237 CE, leaving no traceable speech community in Ashkenazi diaspora paths. Overall, empirical data from genetics and comparative linguistics indicate negligible connection between the Khazar language and Ashkenazi Jewish origins.

Legacy and Modern Studies

Descendant Languages

The Khazar language, an extinct member of the Oghuric branch of Turkic languages, has no direct descendant languages. Its attestation ends with the 10th-century collapse of the Khazar Khaganate, overrun by Sviatoslav I of in 965 CE, after which speakers dispersed and shifted to languages of conquering groups like Rus', Pechenegs, and Cumans. Chuvash, spoken by approximately 1.1 million people in Russia's Chuvash Republic as of the 2010 census, represents the sole surviving Oghuric language but derives primarily from the dialect of the Volga Bulgars, a related Oghuric-speaking that migrated westward from the Pontic steppes around 670 CE. Shared Oghuric traits, such as the Proto-Turkic *ä > o shift and *b > v/w innovations (e.g., Khazar *toŋ for "night" paralleling Chuvash tӑvan), indicate a common ancestral stage rather than linear descent from Khazar specifically. Claims of linguistic continuity to groups like the Karachays or Balkars, who speak Kipchak Turkic languages, stem from postulated ethnic migrations but lack evidence of inherited Oghuric grammar or core vocabulary, as Karachay-Balkar exhibits Common Turkic rhotacism (*z > r) absent in Oghuric. Reconstruction efforts, including computational modeling of sparse Khazar toponyms and loanwords, reinforce extinction without modern offshoots.

Recent Reconstruction Efforts

In 2024, linguists Elina Makipova, Iskander Akhmetov, and Alexander Gelbukh published a pilot study employing computational methods to reconstruct potential Khazar vocabulary by comparing modern Chuvash and Tatar languages, posited as linguistic descendants within the Oghur branch of Turkic. Their approach involved normalizing words by removing vowels and mapping consonants to account for historical sound shifts, then matching semantically equivalent terms across the two languages while filtering out shared Turkic roots (using Kazakh as a control) and Russian loanwords. This yielded 64 candidate Khazar-Bulgar roots from an initial 185 matches, including bs (Chuvash pas, Tatar əbæs 'hoarfrost'), bsbk (Chuvash puȿmak, Tatar baȿmak 'shoe'), and rd (Chuvash jurat, Tatar jaratu 'love'). The method builds on the scholarly consensus that Khazar was a Turkic language, likely Oghur, inferred from sparse onomastic and toponymic evidence rather than extensive texts, as direct attestations remain limited to fragments like the 10th-century Kiev letter and runic inscriptions. Makipova et al. emphasize the technique's scalability, proposing future expansions to include corpora from Karaim, Kumyk, and etymological dictionaries for validation, funded by a Kazakhstani grant (AP14871214). Such efforts highlight computational linguistics' role in addressing data scarcity in extinct languages, though results remain provisional pending verification against additional historical sources. No other major reconstruction initiatives have emerged since 2020, reflecting the field's reliance on interdisciplinary tools amid evidentiary constraints.

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  19. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41036207
  20. http://history.org.ua/JournALL/ruthenica/ruthenica_2011_10/2.pdf
  21. https://www.academia.edu/85918602/The_Khazar_Runic_Inscriptions_with_the_Names_of_King_Obadiah_and_the_Capital_City_of_Itil_have_been_Distinguished_on_a_Khazar_Artifact
  22. http://archaeologie.pro/en/archive/9/160/
  23. http://truthcloud.net/uofclub/history/ibn-fadlan.pdf
  24. https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/198138/7/09_Evans_MotV_final.pdf
  25. https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-TS-00012-00122/1
  26. https://nasplib.isofts.kiev.ua/server/api/core/bitstreams/70ae43dc-c054-46d4-b815-0e6217971bd4/content
  27. https://www.jstor.org/stable/23657213
  28. https://www.academia.edu/37293057/Ancient_Turkic_Toponyms_of_the_Middle_Asia_Turkic_Place_Names_in_Ancient_and_Medieval_Textual_Sources_Saarbr%25C3%25BCcken_LAP_2010
  29. https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/entries/ETLO/SIM-032214.xml
  30. https://iling-ran.ru/savelyev/2020_chuvash_and_the_bulgharic_languages.pdf
  31. https://brill.com/downloadpdf/book/edcoll/9789047421450/Bej.9789004160422.i-460_005.pdf
  32. https://rosenberglab.stanford.edu/papers/BeharEtAl2013-HumBiol.pdf
  33. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25079123/
  34. https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/humbiol/vol85/iss6/9/
  35. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4943202/
  36. https://theconversation.com/uncovering-ancient-ashkenaz-the-birthplace-of-yiddish-speakers-58355
  37. https://brill.com/downloadpdf/book/edcoll/9789047421450/Bej.9789004160422.i-460_021.pdf
  38. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/genetics/articles/10.3389/fgene.2017.00087/full
  39. https://hms.harvard.edu/news/ancient-dna-provides-new-insights-ashkenazi-jewish-history
  40. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/371356551_No_Evidence_from_Genome-wide_Data_of_a_Khazar_Origin_for_the_Ashkenazi_Jews
  41. https://www.academia.edu/43117302/Chuvash_and_the_Bulgharic_languages
  42. https://www.scielo.org.mx/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1405-55462024000100125
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