' mm$
A different opinion from that which?! have stated has
been maintained respecting • thé’ Ouigours. M. Langlès
carries back the origin of civilisation among- theiii4 three
hundred years before the Christian era, and riiamtaih^
that they sent out many colonies into remote parts of Asia.*
Of these, j according to Rémusatj Chinese' Writers havd. no
notice.^ It 1ms been maintained by Schmidt, the editor
of Sanang-Setsen’s Mongolian history, that the Ouigours
were a people of Tibetan and not of Turkish* origin.- This
Opinion has been refuted by Klaproth,'AsbcFRémUsat, and
by Hamacker, on the evidence of original documents until
lately inaccessible. These documents’ prove in thé’‘clearest
manner that the Ouigours were Turks. Rubruquis had
asserted in l!K>f, that afoÉag the Jugurs is ^ h ^ ê ti^ ^ ^ f
the Turkish and Comanian language; J and by the' 1 Genoese
who made treaties in the fifteenth century with- thtf
Turks of the Black Sea,- the Turkish language is called
11 Lingua Ugaresca” The testimony of Bar-Hebraêus'! gbéfê
even further back: this writer lived "in the kingdom of
the Mongoles: he was born in 122Ö, a year-bëföre thé
death of Tschingghis-khan : he marks in his “ Chronicon
Syriacum^ the western limits of the MongdM^-at thd
country of the ®* Iguri Turcse;:” ’ and says,* th at the same
Mongoles conquered the “ Iguros Turcas,” and exacted
tribute from them. The same writer asserts, that these
Iguri or Ouigours, at the command of Tschingghis-khan,
taught the Mongoles the art of writing, and that since
that time the Mongoles had continued tb make ftfé of
the characters of the Ouigours, as the Egyptians used the
Greek and the Persians write in Arabian letters. Abel-Ré-
musat has observed, that as the Ouigourian and Mongolian
* Alphabet Maudchou, par M. Langlès.
t Rapport stir les travaux de la Classe d’Hist. Paris, 1811.—Rémusat,
Recherches.
t Rubruquis, cap. 28.—Abel-Rémusat ubi supra, p. 255.— Ritter Erd-
kunde von Asien,vi. s. 589.
alphabets, have the same origin and form, the latter having
more letters than the former which contains only fourteen
characters, it is probable that the Ouigourian which is
thfMmost simple,,.is in fact the most ancient, and that
Jibe Mongolian wa^Jformedi from^it with the addition of
certain lite rs . The alphabet of the Ouigours themselves
is-derived from the... Syrian Estranghelo used by the Nes-
torians, and has not, the^slighjtegt resemblance to the Deva-
Nagarj,-,or to any fpr^.of Indian writings tor the characters
which.the^if^iplgs.^of Buddha have spread through many
parts,, of .Asia. On tj^è model of this it would have been
f o r ^ J 'i? derived!,from, the Tibetan. Its analogy with
the- Syrian is;{a, sufficient proof, that ainqng./the numerous
Qhristian sects spn^were already, at vpry early times
spread through Central Asia,.*
I have gone the more, .into ,details in these* abstracts
from wri^rs whq^have investigated ih e history of the
Ouigours," because the conclusions which 1 shall attempt
to drayp- m .^he^pllowing sections, as> |p the relation of the
Turkish and Mongolian and Tungusian races, in a great
degree will turn on the, history of the Ouigourian dialect.
* In this character is the remarkable ippiption found, at Ne^ts^hingk, near
the ‘borders of China, and thencVbrougkt toSuPetergburg. It is engraved
'upon a grey granite block, which, is five feet high and mbriefthufe one foot broad,
dö '>fóur pèrpendïèhlar rows, which when read fromde'fVtb right, according to
Schmidt, contain the following, beginning-pf a formula of oath to the Eliyas, or
the winged,demons T—“ ^schingghis-^^after his return from the subjection
of Sartagol, after the annihilation of all hatred between all tribes of Mongolians,
to all*- the ihreè hundred and th'irtyifive’ Elizas.”/ . . .Sartagol is Kara-Khitay,
the capital of which, Kashgar, held by the, Nay man chief, Guschluk-khan,
was conquered inth^.year 1219-1220;. The stone is therefore a talisman against
the rëturn of the hatred of the Eliyas, to whqm probably vows or offerings
might have been made here.—Ritter ’s Erdkunde von Asien, Th. 5, s. 590.