The Lexical Features of the Written Monument “Central Asian Tafsir”

Abstract

During the Middle Turkic period, profound political, social, historical, and cultural transformations led Turkic languages to a new qualitative development stage and initiated their gradual differentiation along emerging ethnic and national lines. The written monuments created in this era are of exceptional importance for the history study of the modern Kazakh language, and their linguistic analysis remains a pressing issue in contemporary Turkological research.

The purpose of this study is to examine the linguistic and, in particular, lexical features of the written monument known as the “Central Asian Tafsir.” This manuscript is regarded as one of the earliest translations of the Qur’an into a medieval Turkic language. The absence of a definitive scholarly consensus concerning its linguistic classification and characteristics underscores the relevance and timeliness of the present research. The practical value of analyzing the language of this monument lies in the fact that its recorded lexical material provides rich evidence of the Common Turkic-Kipchak layers underlying the Kazakh language.

The research employs the historical-comparative method, as well as diachronic and synchronic approaches, descriptive analysis, and systematic lexical classification. The findings reveal a substantial number of lexical units that correspond to modern Kazakh both formally and semantically. These units were categorized into major parts of speech, including nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns, adverbs, verbs, and auxiliary nouns. Such lexical parallels shared by two historical stages of the language constitute an important empirical basis for Kazakh historical lexicology. From the standpoint of contemporary Kazakh, the root morphemes preserved in the monument represent ancient foundations and enduring structural elements that connect the modern language with the medieval Turkic-Kipchak and Old Turkic traditions.

The study concludes that the language of the “Central Asian Tafsir” reflects a mixed Kipchak-Oghuz character and serves as a significant written source for reconstructing the historical development of the Kazakh language.

Keywords: Middle Turkic period, tafsir, vocabulary, root bases, Kipchak-Oghuz language.