Siberian Turkic languages include Altay, Khakas, Sakha (formerly known as Yakut), Shor, Siberian Tatar, and Tuvan. I don’t have any dictionaries of them on hand, though I have looked through the Altay, Khakas, and Sakha dictionaries or grammars. Then I remembered that the Gök Türk language of the 8th-century Orkhon Inscriptions was related to the Northeast group of Turkic languages, which includes most of the Siberian Turkic languages I listed. I had a copy of A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic on my desk and found the word qar[symbol]g[/symbol]u 'watch, patrol, guard; watchtower’. So maybe that’s where the “tower” comes from. Now we see, just as Yes had done hommage to John Lennon, in “Your Move,” here is a subtle nod to Dylan and Hendrix.
So far, the only match I’d had for that word is that khatru means ‘air, wind’ in Tamil.
Where does your daughter go to school anyway, that they study Yes lyrics! Gotta be the School of Rock! Life imitates art?
I think a more subtle meaning of “Don’t surround yourself…Move on back two squares” is to avoid becoming too self absorbed, step back (two squares) and reassess yourself and how you are affecting the “game.”
Ah. So it doesn’t. I just saw “Uighur” there and that was good enough for me. Apparently that’s not good enough for everyone. Here’s a link that mentions Siberia, with maps:
You can see that other Turkic peoples like the Khyrgyz also have Siberian history. There are probably other Turkic peoples in Siberia, but I’m not sure enough of any right now. I think the Yueh-Cheh were Turkic, but I’m not sure. If anyone does know for sure, I’ll be glad to receive the correction.