Urum language

Urum is a Turkic language spoken by several thousand ethnic Greeks who inhabit a few villages in Georgia and Southeastern Ukraine. The Urum language is often considered a variant of Crimean Tatar.

The name Urum is derived from Rûm ("Rome"), the term for the Byzantine Empire in the Muslim world. The Ottoman Empire used it to describe non-Muslims within the empire. The initial vowel in Urum is prosthetic: originally Turkic languages did not have /ɾ/ in the word-initial position, and in borrowed words used to add a vowel before it. The common use of the term Urum appears to have led to some confusion, as most Turkish-speaking Greeks were called Urum. The Turkish-speaking population in Georgia is often confused with the distinct community in Ukraine.

Sounds

Consonants

(1) /ts/ is found only in loanwords.

(2) /θ/ and /ð/ are found only in loanwords from Greek.

Writing system

A few manuscripts are known to be written in Urum using Greek characters. During the period between 1927 and 1937, the Urum language was written in reformed Latin characters, the New Turkic Alphabet, and used in local schools; at least one primer is known to have been printed. In 1937 the use of written Urum stopped. Alexander Garkavets uses the following alphabet:

Urum

Urum may refer to

`Urum

`Urum is a village in eastern Yemen. It is located in the Hadhramaut Governorate.

External links

Coordinates: 14°57′N 48°09′E / 14.950°N 48.150°E / 14.950; 48.150

Tell Uqair

Tell Uqair (Tell Uquair, Tell Aqair) is a tell or settlement mound northeast of Babylon and about 50 miles (80 km) south of Baghdad in modern Babil Governorate, Iraq.

History of archaeological research

The site of Tell Uqair was excavated during World War II, in 1941 and 1942, by an Iraqi Directorate General of Antiquities team led by Seton Lloyd, with Taha Baqir and Fuad Safar. The buildings and artifacts discovered were primarily from the Ubaid period, Uruk period, and the Jemdet Nasr period and included four proto-cuneiform tablets.

Tell Uqair and its environment

Tell Uqair is a small mound just north of Tell Ibrahim, the large mound marking the site of ancient Kutha. The topography consists of two sub-mounds separated by what is apparently the bed of an ancient canal. At maximum the hills are 6 metres (20 ft) above the terrain line.

Occupation history

The site of Tell Uqair first had significant occupation during the Ubaid period, and grew to its greatest extent during the Jemdet Nasr and Uruk periods. Some Early Dynastic graves and a scattering of Akkadian and Babylonian artifacts indicate the location continued in limited use up through time of Nebuchadnezzar. Because of clay tablets found at the site, it is believed to be the ancient town of Urum. The toponym for Urum is written in cuneiform as ÚR×Ú.KI, URUM₄ = ÚR×ḪA, besides ÚR×A.ḪA.KI, from earlier (pre-Ur III) ÚR.A.ḪA.