Translation
- Avitohol lived 300 years. His clan was Dulo and his year (of ascending to the throne) dilom tvirem.
- Irnik lived 150 years. His clan Dulo and his year dilom tverim.
- Gostun, the regent, 2 years. His clan Ermi and his year dokhs tvirem.
- Kurt ruled 60 years. His clan Dulo and his year shegor vechem.
- Bezmer 3 years and his clan Dulo and his year shegor vem (vechem).
These five princes ruled the kingdom over the other side of the Danube for 515 years with shaven heads and after that came to this side of the Danube Asparuh knyaz and until now (rules).
- Asparuh knyaz 61 years (ruled). His clan Dulo and his year vereni alem.
- Tervel 21 years. His clan Dulo and his year tekuchitem tvirem.
(An additional ruler is sometimes inserted here, depending on the reading.)
- Sevar 15 years. His clan Dulo and his year toh altom.
- Kormisosh 17 years. His clan Vokil and his year shegor tvirem.
- Vinekh 7 years. His clan Ukil [Vokil]. And his year (imen)shegor alem.
- Telets 3 years. His clan Ugain and his year somor altem.
- Umor (ruled) 40 days. His clan Ukil [Vokil] and his year dilom tutom.
The italicized words are in the Bulgar language as given in the original manuscript and represent the year and month of ascending to the throne of each ruler according to the Bulgar calendar. Their translation is uncertain, but there appears to be a consensus that they are based on a system similar to the Chinese calendar (which was also adopted by many Turkic peoples and by the Mongols), with a cycle of 12 years, each bearing the name of an animal. The first word in each date is the name of the year, the second is an ordinal number designating the month.
There are widely diverging translations of the nominalia and especially of the Bulgar dates. This is partly due to the difficulty in identifying word boundaries, but the greatest differences today are due to the contrast between the traditional analysis of Bulgar as a Turkic language and historian Petar Dobrev's recently advanced proposal that it was an Iranian, more specifically Pamiri language. The "Turkic" reading, along with the "cyclic calendar" interpretation itself, was originally proposed by Finnish Slavist Jooseppi Julius Mikkola in 1913. Later, there have been various modifications and elaborations during the 20th century by scholars such as Géza Fehér, Omeljan Pritsak, and Mosko Moskov. Dobrev's "Iranian" reading actually preserves all but one of the previous translations of the year names, arguing that the Turkic names of the animals, far from proving that the Bulgars were Turkic, show that the Turkic peoples had borrowed these words from the Bulgars. He does change the numbers of the months. Dobrev backs his linguistic analysis with a thorough mathematical analysis to find no errors in dates and time spans,[2] contrary to Moskov's claim of erroneously rounded time spans like the strange-looking some years and 15 months rounded down to some years.
The following table shows three interpretations - one of the earliest versions of the "classical" Turkic one by Zlatarski (1918, adhering closely to Mikkola), one of the most recent "Turkic" versions by Moskov (1988), and the "Iranian" one by Dobrev (1994).
More information Bulgar date, Turkic theory (Vasil Zlatarski) ...
Bulgar date |
Turkic theory (Vasil Zlatarski)[3] |
Turkic theory (Mosko Moskov)[4] |
Iranian theory (Petar Dobrev)[5] |
dilom tvirem |
Serpent, the 9th |
Serpent, the 9th |
Serpent, the 4th |
dokhs tvirem |
Boar, the 9th |
Boar, the 9th |
Boar, the 4th |
shegor vechem |
Ox, the 3rd |
Ox, the 3rd |
Ox, the 5th |
vereni alem |
Wolf, the 1st |
Dragon, additional |
Dragon, the 1st |
tekuchitem tvirem |
Dog, the 9th |
Ram, the 9th |
Horse, the 4th |
toh altom |
Hen, the 6th |
Hen, the 6th |
Hen, the 12th |
shegor tvirem |
Ox, the 9th |
Ox, the 9th |
Ox, the 4th |
(imen)shegor alem |
Horse, the 1st |
Horse, additional |
Ox, the 1st |
somor altem |
Rodent, the 6th |
Rodent, the 6th |
Rodent, the 12th |
dilom tutom |
Serpent, the 4th |
Serpent, the 4th |
Serpent, the 2nd |
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