The divine will, manifested in the khagan’s authority; the loyalty of the beys and the people to the khagan; and the people’s submission to the beys—these are the central themes running through the Turkic inscriptions. As if summarizing the history lesson he has taught his listeners and readers, Bilge Khan concludes: “If you, the Turkic people, do not separate yourselves from your khagan, from your beks, from your homeland… You yourselves will live happily, remain in your homes, and live carefree! » These lines clearly express the essence of the ideology of the aristocracy of the Turkic Khaganate.
The inscription insistently demands the people’s absolute obedience to the khagan and the beks—and at the same time, the entire text of the monuments is intended, in the author’s view, to serve as a justification and confirmation of this idea. The prosperity of the Turkic people is the result of their submission to the khagan, who, together with the beks from his headquarters, sends the army on victorious campaigns, rewarding the people with the spoils and tribute of the conquered tribes: “Their gold and shining silver, their finely woven silks, their grain-based beverages, their riding horses and stallions, their black sables and blue martens—I have obtained these for my Turkic people!”
The monuments emphasize that everything written is Bilge Khan’s “heartfelt speech,” his authentic words, carved by his command. So that the Turkic people might remember how he “made the poor people rich, the few people many,” so that the Turkic people might know what to fear and what to follow, the khagan’s speech is inscribed on the “eternal stone”: “O Turkic nobles and people, listen to this! I have carved here how you, the nobles and the people… built your state, how you, through your sins, divided yourselves—I have carved it all here on the eternal stone. Looking at it, know this, you present-day nobles and people!”
A political declaration with a considerable dose of social demagoguery, praise and reproach for past and present generations, constant appeals and exhortations to the “listeners,” a diverse palette of artistic techniques, sayings, and aphorisms emotionally color and transform the style of the official narrative, testifying to the extraordinary literary talent of the text’s author, a historian and panegyrist of the reigning dynasty. The author who “inscribed on eternal stone” the “words and speech” of his suzerain was Yollig-tegin, a relative of Bilge-khan, the first author named by name in the history of Turkic-language literature.
In the 7th–10th centuries, the language of the runic inscriptions served as a unified and standard literary language used by various Turkic tribes who spoke their own languages and dialects—the Oghuz, Uyghurs, Kyrgyz, Kimak, and others. The common written literary language of the runic inscriptions possessed stylistic uniformity and consistency in figurative devices, which are most richly represented in the Orkhon monuments. The commonality of language and literary canon in the monuments points to fairly close cultural ties among the ancient Turkic tribes and renders baseless any attempts to view the monuments as the linguistic and literary heritage of any single people.
Old Uyghur writing became established in the cities of East Turkestan beginning in the 9th century. The authors themselves called the language in which they wrote “Turkic.” Indeed, the language of these monuments was a direct descendant of the language of the runic monuments, differing from it only slightly in terms of grammar. However, being widely used in religious writings—mainly translations—and in legal documents reflecting the new ways of life of the Turkic population of East Turkestan, this language underwent further development and is characterized by a rich vocabulary and a variety of grammatical and stylistic forms.
In Central Asia and Kazakhstan, the Old Uyghur script was less widespread than in East Turkestan. In any case, its early monuments have not survived, but its use in this region is known from references in documents originating from the Turfan Oasis. For example, one of these documents describes Manichaean monasteries in Taraz, where works of a spiritual nature were written and translated into the Turkic language. Today it is known that the Manichaean variant of the Old Uyghur script is the oldest and closest to the Sogdian prototype.
Scriptoria in the Manichaean monasteries of Taraz likely existed during the 8th and 9th centuries. Correspondence (two labels) between Uighur and Karluk princes, written in the Old Uighur language and dating to the 10th century, has survived; it describes events in the Ili River valley; which mentions the Turkic Basmyl tribe and Sogdian captives. It is important to note that the label, written on behalf of the “ruler of the state of Bilge-bek,” mentions a message he received in the Sogdian language, which he “deigned to understand.” This attests to the continued existence of the Sogdian language and script within the Turkic milieu.
Even greater significance for the history of Turkic-Sogdian contacts in the Trans-Irans is held by the rock inscriptions in the Terek-Say Gorge. They date to the 10th–11th centuries, are written in the Sogdian language, and contain long lists of Turkic princes who visited the valley. The inscriptions indicate that even during the era of the Karakhanid state’s nascent Islamization of the nobility, the nobility continued to preserve Sogdian education and “pagan” names.
Thus, in the early Middle Ages, two types of Old Turkic writing—runic and cursive (Old Uyghur)—were in use in the Turkic states of Central and Inner Asia, while the Sogdian script, which had appeared there earlier, continued to be preserved. Undoubtedly, these were used primarily by the upper strata of Turkic society. However, the presence of amateur inscriptions, executed carelessly and without sufficient knowledge of orthographic tradition—such as, for example, the inscription on a bronze mirror from a female burial in the Irtysh region or on a spindle whorl from the Talgar settlement, indicates the widespread use of runic writing among the Turkic-speaking population of Central and Inner Asia.