Turkic Elements in the Floral Vocabulary of the Kalmyk Language

Abstract

On the material of the Kalmyk language with reference to the Khalkha Mongolian, the Buryat languages and old Mongolian script, the article considers a thematic group of floral vocabulary to identify the Turkic-Mongolian parallels. The names of trees and shrubs both wild and cultivated, the names of melons and gourds as well as truck crops, cereals and herbs were taken for the analysis. To prove the fact that the Turkic parallel was of the Turkic nature, the authors referred to the Ancient Turkic Dictionary and the dictionaries of the Kazakh, Nogai, Bashkir languages (the languages of Kalmyks’ nearest neighbors who had contacted with them). In addition to the comparative material from the Mongolian and Turkic languages these terms were also accompanied by comparative-historical as well as etymological analyses which revealed the Turkic origin of the Turkic Mongolian parallels in the composition of the floral vocabulary of the Kalmyk language. Some of the given terms, as it was revealed, along with the Kalmyk language, exist also in the Khalkha Mongolian and Buryat languages and were even recorded in the old Mongolian script. It suggests that these terms have been stored in the Kalmyk language since the time of the ancestors of Kalmyks - Oirats, who lived in the steppes of Central Asia with the Mongols and had contact with the ancient Turks, from whom they borrowed the terms. Many of the floristic terms are presented only in the Kalmyk language and coincide with those of the Kazakh, Nogai, Tatar and Bashkir languages, which had been borrowed by the Kalmyks from these languages as a result of later contacts.

Keywords

• the kalmyk language
• mongolian languages
• ancient turkic language
• the kazakh language
• the nogai language
• the tartar language
• the bashkir language
• language contacts
• borrowings
• fl oral vocabulary