Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T16:26:57.209Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Unity of Man in Turkish-Mongolian Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Louis Bazin*
Affiliation:
Paris
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

It is certainly simplifying to attribute a common way of thinking to vast human groups. This evident observation is particularly applicable when examining the ethnolinguistic ensemble traditionally designated as “Turkish-Mongolian”. The definition that can be given to this ensemble is based above all on linguistic facts. Two language families exist in Eurasia, Turkish and Mongolian respectively, scientifically well-defined and attested to, not only by living speakers but also by documents that go back, for the former, to the 8th century, and to the 13th century for the latter. Moreover, there are considerable affinities between these two families, both in structure and in vocabulary; these affinities can be explained either through an original relationship between them or through many centuries of reciprocal influences, consequences of a long symbiosis. In addition, at a very early date there can be observed a very profound community of social structures and cultural traditions between the two groups (ranging from beliefs to material organization), the vestiges of which subsist even in our own times.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)