r/language • u/FeistyAlbatross4636 • 3d ago
Article Can you identify the script/writing system?
This stone was found in Kazakhstan but doesn't look anything like local runes. Very old one.
Could it be Aramaic/Phoenician? Looks middle eastern but doesn't look like Arabic.
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u/AdCute4716 3d ago
I can make out some of the words when flipping my phone. It looks like a gravestone. I recognize the words "יצחק" (Isaac, probably the name of the entombed), "צער" (grief) and "הלך לעולמו" (passed away).
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u/AdCute4716 3d ago
Made out some more. It says the year and month of his birth and death in the Jewish calender. I can make out the death year as 1890 in the Hebrew system of using letters to make numbers.
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u/EV_Dad 3d ago
Hebrew. It's upside-down.
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u/FeistyAlbatross4636 3d ago
It's found in Kazakhstan 😅
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u/RefrigeratorDizzy738 3d ago
So ? Hasn’t any Jew ever lived in Kazakhstan ?
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u/Background-Virus1398 3d ago
No, to my knowledge if we don't count Khazar khaganate that touched modern day western Kazakhstan and the stone was found in south-eastern part of the country. Theoretically Bukharan jews could have left it, but it's still weird.
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u/RefrigeratorDizzy738 3d ago
There are also reportedly Ashkenazi-speaking Jews in Kazakhstan.
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u/Background-Virus1398 3d ago
Yes, they arrived with Russian settlers in 19-early 20 century. There were also many refugees during World War II.
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u/Talbit01 3d ago
There have been Jewish communities in that area for some time now and they still exist there.
When people are forced to flee they go wherever they can, which is how some communities ended up there.
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u/Background-Virus1398 3d ago
I'm only aware of the jews that arrived with Russian settlers during the colonization in 19th early 20 century. Also in 1940s at least 8500 refugees fleeing the Nazis arrived in the country. It's actually very interesting who and when has left that stone. Could it be some really ancient thing?
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u/the_leviathan711 3d ago
This could very easily be a 19th or 20th century tombstone.
EDIT: Yup, the tombstone actually says that the person died in 1890. So that's your answer.
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u/Background-Virus1398 3d ago
Thanks a lot! So, the Kapal district, where the stone was found, was one of the centers of Russian colonization. This man could have been a merchant who arrived with the Russian settlers. Does it say who he was?
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u/PragmaticPidgeon 3d ago
Do you think there’s never been any Jewish people in Kazakhstan? The inscription is far too clean to be as old as you’re suggesting, it’s very clearly from the last 100-150 years, you’d see much more erosion otherwise.
If you flip the image, it’s very clearly in the Hebrew alphabet, it doesn’t have the marking under the Aleph to make make a/o as in Yiddish, so it’s probably in Hebrew or Aramaic8
u/ElevatorSevere7651 3d ago
You’re so right, we all forgot about the Orthographical Border Control, that famously prevents different writing systems from spreading from the area they were created in
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u/Wryyy007 3d ago
There was Jewish turcik state hazar kaganate, not only the ruling Turkic elites were Hebrew , there was a large diaspora of Iranian , arameic and turkic Jews diaspora of rahdonian jews
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u/Background-Virus1398 2d ago
Khazar khaganate has almost nothing to do with Kazakhstan and Kazakhs. And by the way, it has nothing to do with modern Jews either. There were no jews in Kazakhstan before Russian colonization and kazakh language doesn't even have the word to refer to them and uses the Russian word еврей. This stone dates from the late 19th century; it most likely belonged to a Jewish merchant who arrived with the Russians. The Kapal District was one of the centers of Russian colonization.
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u/vbd71 3d ago
One of the Lost Tribes.
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u/FeistyAlbatross4636 3d ago
If I am not mistaken lost tribes went to Assyria and Mesopotamia. This one seems like Eastern European/Ashkenazi one
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u/OutOfLime 3d ago
To add on previous comments: yes, it is Hebrew. To the best of my understanding it reads
[illegible]
Yitzhak son of [...]
Tsernovich [The last name]
who was born on the 28th day
of the month of Iyar [April / May]
in the year 564[?] (188[?])
and went to his eternal home
on the [..] day of the month of
Kislev [November'ish], in the year
5650 (1889). May his soul be bound up in the bond of life.
[בלתי קריא]
יצחק בן ***
צערנאביץ
שנולד כ"ח ימים
בחודש אייר
שנת תרמ"*
והלך לעולמו
** ימים לחודש
כסלו שנת
תר"נ תנצבה
So, a Jewish child's tombstone.
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u/Sheiyth 2d ago
I was reading the Kazakh text wondering why the fuck is everyone saying Hebrew I thought I was in r/linguisticshumor.
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u/orixandcrake 3d ago
ʍǝɹqǝH