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On the Second Sentence of the 11th Line on the South Side of the Bilgä Kagan Inscription

  • Journal of Humanities, Seoul National University
  • 2017, 74(4), pp.475-492
  • DOI : 10.17326/jhsnu.74.4.201711.475
  • Publisher : Institute of Humanities, Seoul National University
  • Research Area : Humanities > Other Humanities
  • Received : September 13, 2017
  • Accepted : November 1, 2017
  • Published : November 30, 2017

Yong-Sŏng Li 1

1서울대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

Orkhon Turkic is the oldest Turkic dialect whose written records have come down to us. It is known to us through the inscriptions found in present- day Outer Mongolia, mainly in the basin of the Orkhon River, thus being conveniently called ‘the Orkhon inscriptions’. These are the Kül Tegin, Bilgä Kagan, Tunyukuk, Išbara Tarkan (Ongi), and Küli Čor (Ikhe-Khüshötü) inscriptions. Many parts of the Kül Tegin and Bilgä Kagan inscriptions are identical. The Bilgä Kagan inscription is in a worse state of preservation than the Kül Tegin inscription. There were already many severely damaged parts in the Bilgä Kagan inscription in the end of the nineteenth century. These parts have not been read properly. One of them is the second sentence of the 11th line on the south side. Modifying the reading of Radloff (1895), we can now read the sentence in question as follows: : iTRULK : zSKGRK : SmUK : nutl [: igNmUT : TROTC]U : klkuq kookïlïk : ü[č tört : tümän agï:] altun : kümüš : kärgäksiz : kälürti: “They brought scent, [30,000~40,000 rolls of silk brocade], and gold and silver in abundance.”

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