Distinctive diacritics in the Atil-Turkic epitaphs and in the Yarkand documents

Prof. Dr. Marcel Erdal is an internationally renowned linguist and Turcologist, widely recognized for his foundational contributions to Old Turkic studies and general linguistics. He earned his PhD from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1976 and served as a Professor of Turcology at Goethe University Frankfurt from 1993 to 2010, where he also held prominent administrative roles, including Dean and Director of the Institute for Oriental and East Asian Philologies. As a leading authority in the field, Prof. Erdal has authored seminal works such as A Grammar of Old Turkic (2004) and Old Turkic Word Formation (1991), which remain essential reference texts in Turcology. His profound impact on the discipline is evidenced by his election as an Honorary Member of the Turkish Language Association (TDK) in 2000 and his appointment to the scientific steering committee of the Turfan Studies Project at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. Furthermore, he has directed monumental digital humanities initiatives, including the VATEC project (Pre-Islamic Old Turkic Texts Electronic Corpus), bridging classical philology with modern digital documentation.