Ogurs: etymological relations of an ancient ethnonym

Abstract

The authors of the article raise the issue regarding the importance of modern philology in creating an interdisciplinary branch of social and humanitarian research “diachronic ethno-linguistic-cultural comparativistics” as a methodological basis for special complex scientific-theoretical discipline.

The isolation of the Ogur phyla with Lir-language from proto-Turkic Saz-language of the standard type, according to the newest concepts, occurred approximately in the middle of the 1^st century B.C. In other words, the disintegration of the proto-Turkic ethnolinguistic-cultural continuum, as a result of Ogur branch isolation from it, is somewhat conventionally dated to the middle of the 1^st century B.C., but the very process of specific features formation of the Ogur-type language, apparently, began much earlier and lasted for more than one century.

When dealing with etymology issues of the ethnonym oğuz ~ oğur, the researcher is to rely on regularities of historical transformation of the phonetic system of the Proto-Turkic language on the eve of its primary disintegration and be guided by formation laws of phonetic system specific features of the independent Praoguz and Praogur languages in first centuries of their autonomous development. Unfortunately, at present level of development of diachronic phonology of the languages of the Turkic family, phonetic systems of both Praoguz and Praogur languages have not been reconstructed with sufficient objectivity yet.

Key words: diachrony, comparative studies, Turks, Oghurs, Turkic paleohistory, ethnolinguoculturology.