Editing Old Turkic script (section)

{{short description|Alphabet used by early Turks (6-10th centuries)}}
{{More citations needed|date=June 2019}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2020}}
{{Infobox writing system
| name        = Old Turkic script
| altname     = Orkhon script
| type        = Alphabet
| languages   = [[Old Turkic]]
| children    = [[Old Hungarian alphabet|Old Hungarian]]
| time        = 8th to 10th centuries<ref name="Scharlipp"/>
| unicode     = [https://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U10C00.pdf U+10C00&ndash;U+10C4F]
| iso15924    = Orkh
| sample      = Ongin inscription Bumin Qaghan.svg
| caption     = A line dedicated to [[Bumin Qaghan]] in the [[Ongin inscription]]
| imagesize   = 300px
}}
{{Location map|Asia|caption=Location of the Orkhon Valley in Asia|alt=Location of the Orkhon Valley in Asia|relief=1|lat_deg=47.55666666667|lon_deg=102.831389}}
The '''Old Turkic script''' (also known variously as '''Göktürk script''', '''Orkhon script''', '''Orkhon-Yenisey script''', '''Turkic runes''') was the [[alphabet]] used by the [[Göktürks]] and other early [[Turkic peoples|Turkic]] [[khanate]]s from the 8th to 10th centuries to record the [[Old Turkic]] language.<ref name="Scharlipp">Scharlipp, Wolfgang (2000). ''An Introduction to the Old Turkish Runic Inscriptions''. Verlag auf dem Ruffel, Engelschoff. {{ISBN|978-3-933847-00-3}}.</ref>

The script is named after the [[Orkhon Valley]] in [[Mongolia]], where early 8th-century inscriptions were discovered in an 1889 expedition by [[Nikolai Yadrintsev]].<ref name=sinor>{{cite encyclopedia|last=Sinor|first=Denis|title=Old Turkic|encyclopedia=History of Civilizations of Central Asia|volume=4|pages=331–333|publisher=[[UNESCO]]|location=Paris|year=2002}}</ref> These [[Orkhon inscriptions]] were published by [[Vasily Radlov]] and deciphered by the [[Denmark|Danish]] philologist [[Vilhelm Thomsen]] in 1893.<ref>Vilhelm Thomsen, [Turkic] ''Orkhon Inscriptions Deciphered'' (Helsinki : Society of Finnish Literature Press, 1893). Translated in French and later English (Ann Arbor MI: University Microfilms Intl., 1971). OCLC 7413840</ref>

This writing system was later used within the [[Uyghur Khaganate]]. Additionally, a [[Yenisei River|Yenisei]] variant is known from 9th-century [[Yenisei Kyrgyz]] inscriptions, and it has likely cousins in the [[Talas River|Talas Valley]] of [[Turkestan]] and the [[Old Hungarian alphabet]] of the 10th century. Words were usually written [[Right-to-left script|from right to left]].