Dialect Contact in Karakhanid and Khwarazmian Turkish (Lexically Equal Pairs)
Yaşar ŞimşekKarakhanid Turkish constitutes the third phase of the Old Turkic period and is the name of the literary language that developed in the 11th century in Kashgar. Following the Mongol conquest, the cultural center of the Turkic world shifted, and the historical literary Eastern Turkic gained a new identity upon absorbing the local Turkic dialect features in Khwarazm. Thus, Khwarazmian Turkish grew out of Karakhanid Turkish only to adopt a hybrid character due to the multiculturality of the surrounding region. This study compares the interlinear translations of two Qur’an translations in Karakhanid and Khwarazmian Turkish in terms of lexical equivalent pairs. The hope is to reveal whether any new vocabulary had emerged for the same Arabic words due to dialect differences, and if so, how that got reflected in the respective translations. In this case, the translations are word by word and interlinear, thus allowing this study to work the same way as well. The study then compares its findings with their Çigil, Kipchak, Yemek, Ograk, Oghuz, Tuhsı, Uyghur, and Yagma dialect equivalents in the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk. The article also takes a look at word frequencies in Kutadgu Bilig, Atabat al-Haqa’iq, Nahj al-Faradis, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, Mu'inü'l-Mürid, and Khosrow y Shirin and illustrates the dialect differences arising from lexically equivalent pairs in Karakhanid and Khwarazmian Turkish with plenty of examples, thus constituting the entire study.
Karahanlı ve Harezm Türkçesinde Leksik Denk Çiftler
Yaşar ŞimşekEski Türkçe döneminin üçüncü evresini oluşturan Karahanlı Türkçesi, XI. yüzyılda Kâşgar merkezli gelişme gösteren edebî dilin adıdır. Moğol fütuhatının ardından Türk dünyasının kültür merkezi yer değiştirmiş, tarihî Doğu Türk yazı dili, Harezm bölgesinde bünyesine kattığı yerli ağız özellikleri ile yeni bir hüviyet kazanmıştır. Harezm Türkçesi, her ne kadar Karahanlı Türkçesi temelinde gelişme göstermiş olsa da bölgenin etnik yapısında görülen çeşitlilik sebebiyle karma bir yapı hâlini almıştır. Bu çalışmada Karahanlı ve Harezm Türkçesi ile yazılan satırarası Kur’an tercümeleri leksik denk çiftler bakımından karşılaştırılmıştır. Kur’an’ın Türkler tarafından yapılan tercümelerinde aynı Arapça kelimenin lehçe farklarından kaynaklanan ve tercümeye yansıyan söz varlığını genel hatlarıyla ortaya koymak, çalışmanın amacını oluşturmaktadır. Çalışmada Kur’an tercümelerinin esas alınmasının sebebi, aynı eserin (Kur’an-ı Kerim) Karahanlı ve Harezm Türkçesi ile yapılan tercümelerinde lehçe farklılıklarının görülüp görülmediğini tespit etmektir. Satırarası Kur’an tercümelerinde her Arapça kelimenin bir karşılığı bulunduğu için eserleri söz varlığı bağlamında kelime kelime karşılaştırmak mümkün olmaktadır. Çalışmada elde edilen veriler, Dîvânu Lugâti’t-Türk’te Çiğil, Kıpçak, Yemek, Oğrak, Oğuz, Tuhsı, Uygur ve Yağma lehçeleri için verilen açıklamalarla karşılaştırılmış; kelimelerin Kutadgu Bilig, Atebetü’l-Hakayık, Nehcü’l-Ferâdis, Kısasü’l-Enbiyâ, Mu’üni’l-Mürid ve Husrev ü Şirin’de kullanım sıklıkları da gösterilerek Karahanlı ve Harezm Türkçesinde leksik denk çiflerden kaynaklanan lehçe farkları bir makalenin hacmi ölçüsünde örneklendirilerek değerlendirilmeye çalışılmıştır.
This study compares the interlinear translations of two Qur’an translations in Karakhanid and Khwarazmian Turkish in terms of lexical equivalent pairs. The hope is to reveal whether any new vocabulary had emerged for the same Arabic words due to dialect differences and if so, how that got reflected in the respective translations. In this case, the translations are word by word and interlinear and thus allows the study to work the same way as well.
Lexical units belonging to two different variants of a language are called lexically equivalent pairs if they express the same concept and in no way differ in terms of meaning.
This study compares the interlinear translations of the Qur’an in Karakhanid and Khwarazm Turkish (Rylands, TİEM 73, Meşhed/293, and Hekimoğlu), comparing and contrasting all lexically equivalent pairs. The study uses Qur’an translations as its basis because they allow the identification of dialect differences using the same work and ultimately illustrates the dialect differences arising from lexically equivalent pairs in Karakhanid and Khwarazmian Turkish through plenty of examples.
One can see in Ayah 9 of the Quran’s Surah 44 that the Turkish equivalent of the word dūne is aḍın in the Rylands and TİEM 73 manuscripts, öngin, özge, and bisre in the Mashhad/293 manuscript, and bisre in the Hekimoğlu manuscript. This difference in translation for the same Arabic word is a matter of century-based dialect evolution, more precisely the evolution of Eastern Turkish between the 11th and 14th centuries. In fact, Kâşgarlı Mahmud also recorded aḍın as “as Çigil dialect” in the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk. Accordingly, aḍın ~ öngi(n) ~ özge ~ bisre (“other, other than”) in both centuries are lexical equivalent pairs of each other. The study has compared and contrasted other pairs that are believed to be lexical equivalents with the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk, Kutadgu Bilig, Atabat al-Haqa’iq, Muqaddimat al-Adab, Nahj alFaradis, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ, Mu'inü'l-Mürid, and Khosrow y Shirin and assesses any differences between Karakhanid and Khwarazm Turkish by making note of how frequently the words in question appear in both translations.
14th-century written Eastern Turkic (Khwarazmian) had evolved out of Karakhanid Turkish but also includes linguistic features from other Turkic dialects due to the multiculturality of the surrounding region. Other studies on the relationship between literary Turkic languages and spoken dialects have shown that such differences had already begun as far back as the Köktürk period and thus weren’t unique to the 14th century. The main factor that distinguishes 14th-century literary Eastern Turkic from other periods is that the written language-dialect relationship is much more focused compared to the Old Turkic period.
This study examines the differences in lexical equivalent pairs from two translations of the Qur’an, one made during the 11th and the other in the 14th century. The findings show the Khwarazmian translation to have preserved words specific to the Karakhanid version while also containing a range of vocabulary from other Turkic dialects as well. What is interesting in terms of historical linguistics is that the latter phenomenon had emerged in Karakhanid Turkish, not Khwarazmian.
The following lexical pairs all appear side by side in the Karakhanid text: aḍın/öngin; balçıḳ/titig, ḳadaş/uya/ḳarındaş, kizle-/yaş(ur)-, çanaḳ/ayaḳ, tap-/kertgün-/inan-, tegre/yöre, törüt-/yarat-, tutaşı/ulaşu, and üsk/ḳat . Despite meaning the same thing, each pair or group of words is believed to hail from two different Turkic languages. Many are common in literary Köktürk and Old Uyghur. Similarly, aḍın is more common than öngin, and titig occurs more frequently than balçıḳ. Moreover, aḍın hails from Çigil Tukic, while balçık comes from Oghuz Turkic. In contrast, the frequency of these word pairs in Khwarazmian has changed direction all together. For example, the Old Turkic word titig had been completely forgotten, only to be replaced by balçıḳ, which Kâşgarlı stated was of Oghuz origin.
