Metalinguistic reflection of kazakh toponyms

Аннотация

The research work analyzes the influence of metalinguistic processing of geographic names in Kazakhstan.
Any person or traveler wants to understand the meaning of a geographic name, when he sees
familiar or unfamiliar geographic names during his journey. Thus, a traveler seeks for coincidence of
geographic names with the words he already knows, and then he pays attention to the place and its history.
The process of understanding and remembering geographic names takes place in different way in
people’s minds. Some people pay attention to the coincidence of geographic names with the names of
object or phenomenon, some people associate them with the names of heroes of epics.
Names, especially toponymic names are closely connected with the history of the country or locality.
Kazakhstani respondents usually associate toponymic names with the historic events. The main reason
of this is the relations between Kazakh and Mongol, Kazakh and Kalmyk and Kazakh and Russia. The
close relation between these peoples led to wide spreading of foreign names in the territory of Kazakhstan.
Such names as Petropavl, Oskemen, Pavlodar, Semei, Ablaketka, Kaskelen, Shamalgan, Boraldai,
etc are the evidence of this process.The results of the research allows to assume that the respondents associate
names with the geographic information. For instance, Karagandy, Shymbulak, Keles, Betpakdala,
Arkalyk, Saryarkaand others.The results of the research can be further grouped into several subgroups.