Category talk:Bulgar language

RFM discussion: April–May 2017
The Bulgar language  is effectively unattested. Depending on who you ask, it's a cover name either for "whatever language the people called the Bulgars spoke", or more specifically "whatever Turkic language the Bulgars spoke" (and for all we know, either of these could actually have been a whole bunch of different languages). The only use we seem to have for it is an etymology source for loanwords in Hungarian, Ossetian etc. that were adopted from some early Oghuric variety. However, there is usually no positive evidence whatsoever to claim that they were specifically from Bulgar and not from e.g. Khazar, Hunnic, or some unattested Oghuric language entirely, and these should be entirely adequately covered as simply "derived from Oghuric".

(Khazar is also very scantily recorded, but we do have an entry for the single (!) directly attested word, in a sense probably making it the language most comprehensively covered on Wiktionary.) --Tropylium (talk) 17:54, 30 April 2017 (UTC)


 * There are supposedly more than fifty Danube Bulgar inscriptions in Madara, Preslav, Murfatlar, and especially Pliska. There are also said to be Volga Bulgar inscriptions. If the language is indeed attested, it cannot be merged into a family code. - -sche (discuss) 06:48, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * They are indeed inscriptions left by the Bulgars, but to my knowledge there's no evidence that they would represent a single "Bulgar language". But yeah I guess such inscriptions are in principle still eligible for inclusion, & cannot be included simply as "an Oghur language". Maybe I shall just prune the "derived from Bulgar" categories in favor of "derived from Oghur". --Tropylium (talk) 09:45, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * If scholars prefer to write that the language of the inscriptions is undetermined, we could follow suit; compare how 𐇐 (Category:Phaistos Disc symbols) and ΗΤΖΙΓΗ (Category:Buyla inscription particles) are included. We could even split Danube Bulgar and Volga Bulgar. But since we know the Bulgars spoke at least one language, and we have inscriptions written by the Bulgars in some language(s), it seems not implausible to handle the inscriptions as "Bulgar". - -sche (discuss) 17:52, 10 May 2017 (UTC)
 * On further throught: withdrawn pending further evidence on the current Turkological stance on the Bulgar inscriptions. Cleaning up the "derived from Bulgar" categories will be sufficient for now. --Tropylium (talk) 15:00, 20 May 2017 (UTC)