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Exploration of Loan Words in the Kipchak Translation of Gülistān

Author(s)

Ayiguli Abuliemiti

Affiliation(s)

Faculty of Chinese Language and Literature, Northwest Minzu University, Lanzhou, Gansu, China

Abstract

The Kazakh translation of the Gülistān represents a rare documentary witness to living Kipchak vernacular speech. Alongside indigenous Turkic vocabulary, the text preserves stratified layers of loanwords and neologisms constructed from these borrowings; a single lemma may surface in multiple morphological guises, each bearing subtle semantic nuances that attest to successive stages in the diachronic biography of the Kipchak lexion. Employing the historical-comparative method and intergrating both synchronic and diachronic perspectives, this study examines the 1391 Kipchak translation of the Gülistān to systematically analyze the structural patterns, morphological characteristics, and semantic evolutionary trajectories of foreign loanwords within its vocabulray. Within this lexical system, Arabic-Persion borrowings numerically predominate over native Kipchak stock. A salient feature this textual language is the prolofic derivation of neologisms through the affixation of both borrowed and indigenous morphemes. These lexical elements survive in various forms in modern Kazakh; certain borrowings have become fully naturalized components of the Kazakh lexion, having undergone diverse adaptive modifications through prolonged language contact and historical development phonologically via epenthesis, deletion, and systemic alternation; semantically through extension, narrowing, or categorical shift. Furthermore, specific loanwords have shed their autonomous semantic functions, now requiring recourse to auxiliary lexical strategies to fulfill particular grammatical or expressive roles.

Keywords

Gülistān; Kipchak Translation; Loan Words; Structural Characteristics; Semantic Features

References

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