Old Turkic script
The Old Turkic script (also known as variously Göktürk script, Orkhon script, Orkhon-Yenisey script, Turkic runes) was the alphabet used by the Göktürks and other early Turkic khanates from the 8th to 10th centuries to record the Old Turkic language.
| Old Turkic script Orkhon script | |
|---|---|
A line dedicated to Bumin Qaghan in the Ongin inscription. | |
| Script type | Alphabet
|
Time period | 8th to 10th centuries |
| Direction | Right-to-left script |
| Languages | Old Turkic |
| Related scripts | |
Parent systems | |
Child systems | Old Hungarian |
| ISO 15924 | |
| ISO 15924 | Orkh (175), Old Turkic, Orkhon Runic |
| Unicode | |
Unicode alias | Old Turkic |
| U+10C00–U+10C4F | |
The script is named after the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia where early 8th-century inscriptions were discovered in an 1889 expedition by Nikolai Yadrintsev. These Orkhon inscriptions were published by Vasily Radlov and deciphered by the Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893.
This writing system was later used within the Uyghur Khaganate. Additionally, a Yenisei variant is known from 9th-century Yenisei Kirghiz inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the Talas Valley of Turkestan and the Old Hungarian alphabet of the 10th century. Words were usually written from right to left.