Abstract:

The first written examples of the Turkish language belong to the Old Turkish period, which started with the Orkhon Turkish in the eighth century before developing further with the Old Uyghur. In this second phase of the period, more works were presented than in the first phase, and these had a greater diversity of subjects. In this respect, a majority of these texts inherited from the Old Uyghur have a religious character. Although most of the works are related to Buddhism, there is a small number of works or fragments on Manichaeism and Christianity. The main aim of this study is to identify the religious expressions related to Christianity in Old Uyghur. In the first part of this study, I outline the Nestorian sect, which was accepted by the Christian Turkish communities, and its spread among the Old Uyghurs. Then, I explain the content of the texts belonging to the Christian milieu. In addition to explaining the religious expressions in the texts with examples, I question their existence in Buddhist, Manichaean, and other Old Turkish texts. Besides, I intend to compare them with other works written after the acceptance of Islam.

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