The
Old Turkic script (also
Göktürk script,
Orkhon script,
Orkhon-Yenisey script;
Turkish Orhun Yazitlari,
traditional Chinese ?????;&_160;
pinyin È'erhún Wénzì) is the
alphabet used by the
Göktürk and other early Turkic
Khanates from at least the 8th century to record the
Old Turkic language[1]. It was later used by the
Uyghur Empire. Additionally, a
Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century
Kyrgyz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the
Talas Valley of
Turkestan and the
Old Hungarian script of the 10th century. The alphabet was usually written from right to left.
The script is named after the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia, where early 8th century inscriptions were discovered in an 1889 expedition by Nikolay Yadrintsev.[2] These Orkhon inscriptions were published by Vasily Radlov and deciphered by the Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893. These inscriptions are the earliest known texts in any Altaic language.[2]
Because of similarities to the angular shapes of the runic alphabet, the letters of the Orkhon script have been referred to as "Turkic runes" or described as "runiform".
Examples of the Orhon-Yenisei alphabet are depicted on the reverse of the Azerbaijani 5 manat banknote issued since 2006.[3]
