THE DECIPHERMENT OF THE TURKISH RUNIC INSCRIPTIONS AND ITS EFFECTS ON TURKOLOGY IN EAST AND WEST

Özet

The term “Runes” for the letters of the Old Turkish alphabet, used mainly for
inscriptions but also a few manuscripts, has lately been criticized by some Turkish
scientists for its misleading meaning. As “Runes” is originally the term of the old
Germanic alphabet, this term could suggest a Germanic origin of the Turkish
alphabet. Indeed the term indicates nothing more than a similarity of shape that
these alphabets have in common, which has also created the term “runiform”
letters. As such nationalist hair-splitting does not contribute to scientific discussion,
we will in the following use the term “Turkish runes” with a good conscience.
This contribution aims at showing similarities and differences between the
ways that research into this alphabet and the texts written in it, went among
Turkish scientists on the one side and Non-Turkish scientists on the other side. We
will also see how these differences came into existence. In order to have a sound
basis for our investigation we will first deal with the question how the Turkish
runes were deciphered. We will then see how the research into the inscriptions
continued among Western scholars, before we finally come to the effects that this
research had on scientists in Turkey, or to be more precise, in the Ottoman Empire
and then in the Republic of Turkey.