The Turkic languages and dialects are spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, from the Pacific to the Baltic Sea, and from the Arctic Ocean to the Persian Gulf. There are many classifications of modern Turkic languages and dialects. According to the classification by Talât Tekin, Kyrgyz is the only representative of the ayaq/tōlū-group.
The Earthly Branches (地支 dìzhī, or 十二支 shí'èrzhī “twelve branches”) provide one Chinese system for reckoning time. They are represented by 12 animals. Therefore, they are a 12-year animal cycle. They are widespread among the Turkic and Mongolic languages in Central Asia. They are also found in Tajik. However, they are not found in the dictionaries of the Turkic languages such as Turkish, Azerbaijanian, Urum, Kumyk, Chulym Turkish, Shor, Tofa, Yakut, Dolgan, Khalaj, and Chuvash.
The Earthly Branches are found with the word for ‘year’ in the Turkic languages. The Heavenly Stems (天干 tiāngān, or 十干 shígān) are not used in the Turkic languages, although they are found in the old documents like Türkische Turfan-Texte VII and Wǔtǐqīngwénjiàn (五體淸文鑑).
The Altaic Society of Korea had recorded some parts of the Epic of Manas from the Manasčï Talantaalï Bakčiyev in 13 files for 10 hours. In the first 5 minutes 40 seconds of the 13th file (= 06_Kyr_36), he gave a explanation of the 12-year animal cycle.
This paper is the first part of the study which treats his explanation of the 12-year animal cycle and the first six Earthly Branches, namely, 子 zǐ, 丑 chǒu, 寅 yín, 卯 mǎo, 辰 chén, and 巳 sì. The rest six Earthly Branches, namely, 午 wǔ, 未 wèi, 申 shēn, 酉 yǒu, 戌 xū, and 亥 hài, will be treated in the second part.