𐱃𐰃𐰭𐰞𐰀-

tıŋla- means primarily ‘to listen (to), give attention to what is heard’, and secondarily ‘to hear, receive by hearing’. It is already attested in the Költegin inscription: bu savımın edgüti eşid katıgdı tıŋla ‘hear my words well and listen to them carefully’ (KT G 2). The coordination of eşid- ‘hear’ and tıŋla- suggests a distinction between perception and attentive listening in this passage: a distinction preserved well in modern Turkish languages.

Morphologically, tıŋla- is most plausibly a denominal formation tıŋ + -lA-, the latter being one of the common Old Turkic suffixes forming verbs from nominals. The origin of the base is disputed. Räsänen connects the verb with tıŋ ‘sound’. Wilkens records Old Turkic tıŋ ‘listening, hearing; sound, tone’ as a loan from Chinese 聽 tīng (Late Middle Chinese thiajŋ); this makes an early Chinese loan-base followed by the Turkic suffix -lA- plausible, but does not by itself prove that the already eighth-century verb originated in this way. Clauson had likewise considered Chinese as a possible source but noted phonological difficulties. Starostin, Dybo and Mudrak instead reconstruct *dɨŋla- / *diŋle- from a Turkic noun *dɨŋ ‘reason, mind, cleverness’. The denominal analysis is therefore probable, while the ultimate origin of the base remains uncertain.