Turkic Database at Elegant Lexicon
Update Log
I added some data from Telengit, bringing the count up to an even 14,650. I have a few more forms, but, hey, I like even counts.
Telengit is weird because it’s unclear how distinct it is. It has separate /e/ and /ä/ phonemes, which is a bit unusual for the region. Also, Teleuts refer to themselves as Telengits (or something like that), which makes everything very confusing.
I’ve finally finished with Urum. What a pain in the neck. This brings the count of total entries up to 14608. I know it’s not a nice round number, but I couldn’t bear to leave off the last 8 Urum entries.
I have some Afghan Uzbek materials on the way. There’s not much written about Afghan Uzbek, but from what I can tell from past research, there is a ton of variation. At least one variety (hopefully the one in the next book I’m getting) is pretty clearly Kipchak.
I re-did the main site using some PHP tricks to get everything into a single document. I would love to do this with the Turkic site, but I’m worried that it might get messy… Maybe if I just shove the entire contents of a single page into a database or set them up as variables in separate PHP files… We will see.
I’m still here!
I’ve got about 50 entries to add for Urum (what a slog!), and then I can move on. I have been considering condensing everything on this site into a single page that is navigable by PHP. Not sure if that’s wise, but I would like to make some further changes to the basic architecture, and it would be nice not to have to edit 10-15 pages every time I do that.
One big change I’m considering is introducing a Library page. There’s a lot of good material out there in the public domain, and I think visitors would find it useful to be able to access some of it. A little related side project I have going is creating a guide to Radlov’s Опыт словаря тюркских нарѣчій / Versuch eines Wörterbuches der Türk-Dialecte. It isn’t completely done yet, but I’m happy with my progress.
I previously mentioned that I wanted to add some new glosses to the site. I haven’t done so yet, but one reason I would like to is because I have been inspired by a series of posts by Victor Mair over at Language Log. The one on honey is particularly interesting, as Turkic *bal? could easily be related. There are a number of very old Wanderwörter that suggest connections between Sinitic and Indo-European, with various Central Asian languages playing intermediary roles. Words for things like apple, honey, deer, tea, silk, etc. have all traveled throughout Eurasia. Finding Turkic connections would be especially interesting.
I’ve also begun adding etymologies where possible. It’s been interesting reading more about these, especially as I have comparatively little experience with older Turkic languages and even less with the languages early Turkic was in contact with.
Unrelated to all of this, I’ve begun a second blog where I discuss multilingual issues in the library catalog. I have a lot to say, but so little time to say it. So far I’ve just posted a quick hello. I hope to have some posts about the history of character encoding soon.
Expect further changes, likely sometime in February!