The Lexical and Semantic Analysis of Zamakshari’s Dictionary “Muqaddimat Al-Adab” and its Relation to the Kazakh Language

Abstract

This article presents a linguistic analysis of the “Muqaddimat Al-Adab”, a 12th-century dictionary by Mahmud Zamakhshari that reflects the Kipchak language and its historical and cultural aspects. The article aims to study the construction, semantics, phonetic, and morphological features of each word in the dictionary. It also provides information about the life, relations, socio-economic development, and culture of the nomadic people of that period based on the vocabulary, phrases, and sentences in the dictionary. The article shows that the vocabulary of the “Muqaddimat Al-Adab” is composed of generalized lexemes that are closely related to the Kazakh language. Overall, it is concluded that the results of the linguistic analysis can be of practical importance in compiling the semantic dictionary of Turkish words. At last, the article suggests that the dictionary is a valuable source for Turkic studies and historical linguistics.

Keywords

• turkic language
• dictionary
• comparison
• language relationship
• semantics