Wheels and Carts of the Ancient Turks in a Linguistic View
Wheels and Carts of the Ancient Turks in a Linguistic View

Summary/Abstract: Some vocabulary pointing to geography, technology, culture etc. are usable in defining homelands of peoples, thus of language families and their sub-groups. Recent scholarship has tended to refer words concerning wheel and cart, among others, since they are related to some Neolithic technological innovations visible through archaeological surveys, especially in searching for Indo-European homeland and in defining chronologies of early steps. Those studies are within Eurasian context at all. Turks and Turkic belong to the true Eurasian continent, and should not be exempted from such studies. This paper deals with the concerning Turkic vocabulary and its historical comparison with other Eurasian languages and families, and suggests that Turkic words for wheel and cart are as old as the words of other families (mainly Indo-European). Regarding possible loanings of those Turkic words to some other languages, Turkic homeland is set to the west of Central Asia. On the other hand, the author rejects the idea of relating the concerning vocabulary to innovations. Rather, it seems, suitable verbs or adjectives present in languages were applied to new tools and acts. Thus, the concerning vocabulary may exhibit some Nostratic or Eurasiatic characters, which may be misleading in detecting relationships.

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