In Turkic, there are four nouns, (h)irō, hirk, (h)irim, and (h)iriz, all of which roughly denote ‘omen’ and ‘divination’. The present study traces them back to the Proto-Turkic verbal base *pirŭ- and regards the latter as the source of Kitan *pur- ‘to bless’, Jurchenic *piru- ‘to pray’, ‘to curse’, Proto-Korean *piru- > Middle Korean : pil- ‘to pray’, and Proto-Mongolic *hiroɣe- ‘to wish well’, ‘to bless’. These borrowings are taken as a confirmation of the cultural impact of the Turkic-speaking peoples on the other Altaic peoples and their languages in the prehistoric era.

Keywords: Proto-Turkic; Altaic; language contact; loanword; divination