I. Nevskaya & A. Korn, (eds.), Prospective and Proximative in Turkic, Iranian and beyond, Wiesbaden, Reichert (Iran ‒ Turan Bd. 18, 2017
Derivational, inflectional and analytic ways of expressing future aspect and actionality in early... more Derivational, inflectional and analytic ways of expressing future aspect and actionality in early Turkic
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Papers by Marcel Erdal
The inscription consists of two lines and is a part of a large petroglyphic composition with extraordinary images. Its lines contain 21 and 13 characters respectively. The proposed translation with two different variants of the second line sounds as follows: “I have written on the rock, ah! Oh, please speak! Giving good fortune (Or ‘Having gone to battle’) ‒ oh ‒ I have written (it)." M. Erdal considers several variants of translation of the same words and proposes the most preferable ones. In addition, he concludes that the word su / sü – “glory, imperial fortune, majesty, happiness”, which is represented in the Sarykoby inscription, belongs to one of the few early Mongolian loans in the Old Uygur language and, possibly, in Old Turkic.
The inscription of Sarykoby is carved superficially, with small signs and in a hidden place; it was clearly not intended for everybody’s attention and reading. This confirms the opinion of many scholars about the personal nature of the most Altai runiform inscriptions. At the same time, it invites readers to a dialogue and, maybe, contains a call for a prayer or a blessing.
The inscription is clearly readable but still quite enigmatic, apparently featuring an early Mongolic loan. Its content, unlike that of the epitaphs, visitors’ inscriptions and others discovered in the Russian Altai, can be defined as religious-philosophical. The person who wrote the Sarykoby inscription might have believed in its ability to pass on his blessing to those who would read it. This determines its originality and significance in the Altai corpus of runic inscriptions.