Turkic Bark and Russian Бpak “Brak”

Linguistic contact between the Turkic and Indo-European languages is often dated to the Orkhon or Hun periods; however, evidence suggests that such interactions can be traced back as far as the Scythian (Saka) era. These early contacts were not only cultural but also linguistic, resulting in the transmission of several Turkic-origin words into Western languages. One such word is “bar,” which is associated with concepts of marriage and settlement. Previous research has largely overlooked the presence of this term within Indo-European languages. This study is the first to identify and analyze the existence of the word bar across Indo-European languages, shedding light on its linguistic diffusion. Furthermore, it argues that the term, which also underlies the Old Turkic word bark found in the Orkhon Inscriptions, can be traced even further back to Sumerian origins. In this regard, the study provides a novel contribution to historical linguistics and etymological research.