Oguz and Ogur Dialects En

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From the linguistic point of view there were two major Turkic nomadic groups arriving in Eastern Europe beginning with the last quarter of the 4th century A.D.: the Hunno-Bulgarian (Peter Golden: Oghuric) (hereinafter: Ogur) group and the Turks proper (hereinafter: Oguz).

To the Hunno-Bulgarian (Ogur) group belonged the Huns (and their Asian predecessors the Hsiung-nu) (Eastern Huns), the Proto-Bulgars (Bulgars), together with the Onoghurs, Kutrighurs [Toqirghur], Volga Bulgars, the European (Pseudo-) Avars, and most probably the Pechenegs (Badjanaks).

Onogurs (Ten Tribes tribal union, Όνογουροι) happened to be a local confederation, present on the western bank of the Cimmerian Bosporus at the time when the Greeks established their forepost Phanagoria in the 6th c. BC (543 BC ). That they spoke an Ogur language is deduced from the circumstantial evidence: “gur“ for “tribe“, vs. “guz“ in Oguz; and their seamless association with the Ogur-speaking Bulgars that made these two ethnonyms almost synonymous, though the first mentioning of the name “Bulgar“ happened in 334 AD, 877 years later. Another etymology for the word “Onogurs“ links it with the Huns, amended to “Hunogurs“.

“Kutrigurs“ (and not Toqirgurs) is a Greek rendition of the “Köturgurs“, from köturi (behind), which means “to the west“ (when facing east), this is a state subdivision and not a tribe, it is a supra-ethnic term, not unlike the “West Coast“ in reference to the continental USA, it describes a “Western Ulus“ or a Western Wing“, and in that it is synonymous with the Oguz term “Tardush“, “western (right) half“. Confusion between the wings and tribes was endemic to the early researchers.

Ogur		Ethnicons	Oguz		Ethnicons
Utra	front, opposite half, wing, ulus	Utragur > Uturgur	Tolis	eastern (left) half, wing, ulus	Tolis
Köturi	behind, westward, western half, wing, ulus	Köturgur > Kutrigur	Tardush	western (right) half, wing, ulus	Tardush, Tardu-Khan
Otra	middle half, wing, ulus	Otragur > Uturgur	Otra	middle, center	Urta, orda > horde

The Pechenegs (Badjanaks), in the opinion of the experts, spoke the Kipchak language of the Oguz branch; however, the Kangars in the composition of their union likely spoke a version of Ogur branch.

The Turks proper (Oguzes) were the Khazar dynasty, the Torki, the Chernye Klobuki, and the Polovchians (Kipchak). it seems that until the 10th century the lingua franca in the Western Eurasian steppe was the Hunno-Bulgarian idiom (Ogur), which was replaced thereafter by the Turkic proper (Oguz).

I shall name seven typically distinctive features, which unite the Hunno-Bulgarian group and distinguish it from the Turkic proper:

No	Hunno-Bulgarian (Ogur)	Turkic (Oguz)
1.	Rhotacism /r/	Zetacism /z/
2.	Lambdacism /l/	/sh/
3.	tia- > cha- > chu-	ta-
4.	d-	y-
5.	shi-	si-
6.	-m	-n
7.	vä- > va-	ö-

Examples:

Ad 1 and 7: Hunnic (Jordanes, ca A.D. 500) Ver “River Dnieper“ = Chuvash var = Turkic öz - “id“ (i.e. “river“).
Volga Bulgarian (inscriptions 13th-14th centuries) zür “hundred“ = Chuv. sur “hundred“ = Turkic yüz “hundred“.

Ad 2 and 3: Hsiung-nu (Wei-shu.s.a.437) che-she (*cha[l]ch) “stone“. Kufic coin (A.H. 180-A.D. 796/797) shash (< *chalch) “stone“. = Chuv chul “stone“ = Turkic tash “stone“

Ad 4 and 6: Danube Bulgarian (list of princes, ca. 679-691): dilom “serpent“= Turkic yilan “serpent“.

Word 5: Danube Bulgarian (List.) shegor “cow“ = Turkic siğir “cow“

Bulgars called “River Dnieper“ Buri-chai, “Wolf River“, in Greek rendition “Borisphen“. The Huns, being newcomers to the area, naturally adopted the name that we know as Bulgarian, in Jordanes rendition it is “Ver“ for “Buri“ = “Wolf“; which conflicts with the cited examples of Chuvash var = Turkic öz - “id“, if “id“ = “river“. Bulgars had enough predecessors in the area to pass to them the native name: Scythians, Alans, Sarmats, Akathyrs, Onogurs, and probably many more.

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OGUZ AND OGUR