On a Multidisciplinary Study of South Siberian Turkic Varieties (in Comparison with Yakut). Part I

Abstract

This study encourages a multidisciplinary research to identify parallels in the group belonging and chronology of South Siberian Turkic (Chulym Turkic and Bachat Teleut) and Yakut. There is solid evidence that the ancestors of modern Yakuts and their language originate from the Central Asian steppe Proto-Turkic community of the 1st century BC. South Siberian Turkic varieties have not been studied as thoroughly, but they are expected to have traces of some non-Turkic language substratum. The analysis of the Teleut gene pool has revealed two different components of the Turkic and non-Turkic nature, which gives reason to consider non-Turkic elements in Teleut as aboriginal. The gene pool study of the Chulym Turks is expected to contribute to the issue of language history and Chulym Turkic lexicon which is etymologically vague from the Turkic viewpoint.