Source: А. З. Абдуллаев, Г. П. Мельников, К. М. Мусаев: “Международная Алтаистическая Конференция”, Известия Академии Наук СССР, Серия литературы и языка, 1970 29(4), pp. 369–371.
Editor’s Note: Translation from Russian to English heavily assisted by google.ai.
International Altaistic Conference
The 12th Meeting of the Permanent International Altaistic Conference (PIAC) was held from August 29 to September 2 in Berlin. It was organized by the Academy of Sciences of the GDR and the Berlin State Humboldt University. The primary objective of the annual PIAC Meetings is to discuss the problem of the genetic relationship of the Altaic languages: Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic-Manchu (and, possibly, Korean and Japanese). In the work of the current Meeting, as in previous ones, participation included not only linguists but also literary scholars, ethnographers, historians, and folklorists working in the respective fields of Altaic studies.
The participants of the Meeting represented many countries across Europe, Asia, and America, among them well-known foreign scientists such as A. von Gabain, L. Ligeti, L. Bazin, A. Zajączkowski, B. Rinchen, D. Sinor, and others. In total, about 150 people attended the 12th Meeting of PIAC. The USSR delegation was the most representative. It consisted of 37 scientists from the RSFSR (Moscow, Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Yakutsk), and the Uzbek, Kazakh, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Kyrgyz, and Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republics. Among them were Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences A. I. Kononov (head of the delegation), N. A. Baskakov, G. D. Sanzheev, S. K. Kenesbaev, P. A. Azimov, M. S. Silchenko, V. I. Tsintsius, T. A. Bertagaev, and others.
The work of the PIAC Meeting took place in the form of presentation discussions at plenary meetings and across four sections. The subject matter of the reports was highly diverse. Many of them were directly related to the problem of proving the validity of the hypothesis regarding the genetic relationship of the Altaic languages. Some were comparative-historical studies within individual groups of Altaic languages, while the rest touched upon specific issues of language, literature, folklore, ethnography, and history of individual Altaic peoples.
At the first plenary meeting, H. F. Junker, in his report “20 Years of Altaic Studies in the GDR,” spoke about the achievements of German scholars in researching the language and history of the Altaic peoples during the post-war period. The speaker noted that the library of the Academy of Sciences houses over 1,000 monuments of Old Uyghur script, the majority of which have not yet been studied or published. Significant work in this direction is being carried out at Humboldt University by a group of young scientists under the guidance of G. Hazai.
The Secretary General of PIAC, D. Sinor, reporting on the status and objectives of international Altaic research, emphasized in particular that Altaic studies are interdisciplinary; he called for strengthening scientific cooperation among scholars worldwide to resolve the problems of Altaic studies and noted the great contribution made by Soviet researchers to this field of science.
One of the plenary sessions was dedicated to the memory of the famous German orientalist W. Bang on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth. In their reports, A. N. Kononov and A. von Gabain spoke about W. Bang’s great merits in establishing the German school of Altaic studies. He was the founder of the Berlin archive and one of the first outstanding researchers of Uyghur textual monuments, the author of many works of great importance for the development of Altaic studies, as well as a mentor to prominent Turkologists such as K. H. Menges, G. Jarring, M. Räsänen, A. Zajączkowski, A. von Gabain, and others.
The problem of the genetic relationship of the Altaic languages was addressed primarily in the reports of Soviet scientists. A. N. Kononov, examining Turkic collective and plural affixes, used broad Altaic material to argue against attempts to trace every Turkic affix back to a once independent word. In his opinion, many modern affixes in Altaic languages historically go back to a combination of different affixes with close meanings. Based on data from various affixes, this idea was supported in reports by I. V. Kormushin and S. P. Muratov. On the basis of comparing both lexical and grammatical elements of the Turkic and Mongolic languages, S. K. Kenesbaev concludes that it is impossible to explain the obvious parallels observed in the compared languages solely as the result of their prolonged interaction. B. S. Orusbaeva and A. A. Darbeeva arrive at similar conclusions. M. Z. Zakiev, analyzing the structure of Altaic languages at the level of syntax, discovers that for the formation of a simple sentence across all Altaic languages, only two types of word connections are used: specifying (attributive) and predicative. Proceeding from the assumption that the leading grammatical trend (determinant) of all Altaic languages is the principle of affix economy, G. P. Melnikov concludes that differences in the structure of Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic-Manchu languages can be explained by the uneven evolution of these languages in the direction of the specified trend. For the research of the Leningrad Altaicists O. P. Sunik, V. I. Tsintsius, O. A. Konstantinova, and V. D. Kolesnikova, the starting point in proving the genetic relationship of the Altaic languages was data from the Tungusic-Manchu languages. Analyzing reflexive pronouns, kinship terms, names of dwellings, and body parts, these scholars demonstrated the material relationship of words belonging to the indicated themes across all groups of Altaic languages and presented the primary sound correspondences between them.
One of the most important problems of sound correspondences in Altaic languages—the problem of rhotacism and lambdism—was the focus of a report by G. D. Sanzheev. The Hungarian scholar A. Róna-Tas put forward a hypothesis regarding the ancient influence of Indo-European languages through Tocharian on the lexicon of Turkic languages.
A number of reports examined current issues in Turkology. N. A. Baskakov outlined a well-structured theory for describing the architecture of Turkic affixes. L. Bazin shared interesting data in his report on the influence of lexical taboos on the development of Turkic languages. F. Zeynalov examined methods of expressing modality in Turkic languages, suggesting criteria for identifying modal words. N. Z. Gadzhieva spoke about two sources forming the conditional period in Turkic languages. L. A. Pokrovskaya presented the results of a study on the stability of Turkic kinship terms. A. Eyvazov analyzed existing viewpoints among Turkologists regarding the study of the adjective. A. Z. Abdullaev advanced a hypothesis on the origin and development of the directive case affix from the word gar —”hand”.
Several reports were built around the study of Turkic and Mongolic textual monuments. Reports by A. von Gabain, G. Hazai, P. Zieme, E. Fazylov, S. Kleinmichel, A. S. Tveritinova, F. Ratchnevsky, N. G. Munkuev, G. Kara, and I. Melikoff were received with great interest. The audience’s attention was also drawn to reports by Z. Korkmaz, S. Buluç, S. Atamirzaeva, and E. Taube, which examined the characteristics of Turkish, Uzbek, and Tuvan dialects; and to a report by a young Turkish researcher, S. Tezcan, who uncovered a number of features reflecting an archaic state of Turkic languages in the Khalaj dialect on the territory of Iran. A. Bodrogligeti, I. D. Cirtautas, and D. Schultz dedicated their presentations to specific questions concerning modern Turkic languages. Reports by K. M. Musaev, H. Kaleši, and S. Kakuk provided results on the mutual influence between Turkic languages and languages of other systems.
Problems of literature and folklore of the Altaic peoples occupied a significant place in one of the sections, featuring reports by M. Silchenko on the typological study of the works of poets representing Turkic-speaking peoples; I. V. Stebleva on the development of aruz (prosody) forms in 11th-century Turkic literature; A. Karahan on the characteristics of literature from the Karakhanid period; R. Fish on the poetics of Nâzım Hikmet; I. T. Tatarli on the prose of Sabahattin Ali; H. Bicari on Shahriar’s poem “Heydar Babaya Salam”, and others.
P. N. Boratav, P. Khorloo, and G. Bethlenfalvy raised important issues regarding the study of Turkic and Mongolic folklore in their reports. N. P. Shastina spoke on the status of Mongolian studies in the USSR, while a young Japanese linguist, I. Ikegami, discussed the principles of classification for Tungusic-Manchu languages. P. Mijatev spoke on the state of Altaic studies in Bulgaria. Reports and presentations by B. Rinchen, E. Lot-Falck, T. A. Bertagaev, K. Uray-Kőhalmi, S. Mukhamediyarov, W. Enderlein, E. Esin, and others were dedicated to popular beliefs, shamanism, ethnography, folk art, and other specialized topics in Altaic studies. H.-P. Vietze reported on a computer program designed for the automated compilation of a reverse dictionary of “The Secret History of the Mongols”.
At the 12th Meeting of PIAC, 68 reports were heard, 31 of which were delivered by Soviet scholars. Although until recently the attitude of many Soviet specialists toward the hypothesis of a genetic relationship among Altaic languages was highly reserved, their interest in this problem has grown in recent years. The outcomes of the 12th PIAC Meeting demonstrated that Altaic studies in our country are at a remarkably high level. This is only natural—representatives of nearly all Altaic languages reside within the territory of the USSR, qualified national specialists from these peoples have emerged over the last 25 years, and a great deal of attention in our country is devoted to studying the spiritual and material life, as well as the history, of the Altaic peoples. Soviet scholars have much to show their foreign colleagues, who, as PIAC Secretary General D. Sinor pointed out in his report, are insufficiently informed about our work, just as we are about theirs. The Berlin Meeting demonstrated that Soviet scholars need to participate more actively in the work of PIAC, more broadly promoting abroad our achievements in the study of languages, literature, folklore, history, and ethnography of the Altaic peoples. This will significantly increase the efficiency of the work of Soviet scholars: Turkologists, Mongolists, and Tungusic-Manchu scholars.
At the final plenary session, a number of scientific and organizational issues were discussed. In particular, it was decided to publish the materials of the 12th PIAC Meeting in the form of a special volume and to convene the next, 13th Meeting of PIAC in 1970 in Strasbourg, France. The French Turkologist, Professor of Strasbourg University, Madame I. Melikoff, was elected President of the next Meeting.
It is necessary to note the efficient organization and execution of the 12th PIAC Meeting by the scientists of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, Humboldt University, and, first and foremost, by the President of the 12th PIAC Meeting, G. Hazai, and his colleagues.