В. Г. Гузев. Избранное

483 The Turkic Runic script: Is the hypothesis of its indigenous origin no more viable? lations of the runic signs ) 1 , V. A. Livshits ( elaborating the Sogdian ver- sion of the OTRS origin, going back to R. Gautiot, by means of graphic confrontations), 2 O. Suleymenov (thoughts about probable genetic relations of the OTRS with other alphabets) 3 , O. Pritsak (theses on the derivation of the OTRS “from a hitherto unknown West Semitic Syllabary through one or more Iranian and/or possibly, Altaic intermediaries”; on a syllabic character of the OTRS etc.) 4 , A. Róna-Tas (hypothesis according to which the OTRS goes back to an Aramaic alphabet which was near to the Old Sogdian and the Armazic; elaboration of the thesis on four stages of the evolution of the OTRS etc.) 5 . As some of the authors overtly admit 6 , their papers were inspired by the monography of D. D. Vasilyev which had summarized all the existing paleo- graphic data concerning the OTRS 7 . Beyond any doubt the phenomenon called by E. D. Polivanov “conso- nantal dualism” is the most striking peculiarity of the OTRS. According to Polivanov the alphabet was created by Turks for one of the Turkic languages. Apart from the “etymology of some letters”, it is the synharmonic principle laid as the basis of this alphabet-which decisively indicates this 8 . From a quantitative point of view not one of the scripts, ever used by Turks. displayed such a richness of consonantal representation of the vowel harmony as the OTRS did. This function was fulfilled by eleven pairs of con- sonantic signs for the consonantal phonemes. 1 Aманжолов A. C. К генезису тюркских рун // Вопросы языкознания. №. 2. 1978. P. 76–87. 2 Лившиц B. A. O происхождении древнетюркской рунической письменности // Советская тюркология. № 4. 1978. P. 84–98. 3 Cулейменов O. Грамматика буквы (к истории древнетюркского алфавита) // Из- вестия АН Каз. CCP, Cepия филологических наук. № 2. P. 43–53. 4 Plitsak O. Turkology and the Comparative Study of Altaic Languages // Journal of Turkish Studies. Türklük Bilgisi Araştırmaları. Vol. 4. Harvard University Printing Office. 1980. P. 83–100. 5 Róna-Tas A. On the Development and Origin of the East Turkic “Runic” Script // Acta Orientalia Hung. XLI (I). 1987. P. 7–14. 6 Róna-Tas A. Op. cit., p. 8; Tuna O. N. Eski Doğu Türk Yazısında Kullanılan ligatürler ve bunlarla ilgili Bazı Meseleler hakkında III. Sovyet-Türk Kollokyumu GöktürkYazıtları. Tebliğler. Malatya.: İnönü Üniversitesi, 1990. P. 1. 7 Bacильев Д. Д. Графический фонд памятников тюркской рунической письмен- ности азиатского ареала (Опыт систематизации). M., 1983. 8 Поливанов Е. Д., Идеографический мотив в формации орхонского алфавиты // Бюлетень Среднеазиатского государственного университета. Ташкент, 1929. № 9. Р. 179.