Revisiting the Mongolian Stratum of Kazakh Place Names

Abstract

The study examines a representative sample of toponyms located in the territory of Kazakhstan, that can potentially be of Mongolian origin. These toponyms are classified into three categories: 1) settlement names (oikonyms), 2) water body names (hydronyms), and 3) geographical feature names (oronyms). In cases of duplicate toponyms (oikonym and oronym), precedence is given to the geographical feature name, following the most common direction of toponymic transfer. The analysis investigates the significance of Mongolian names in the Kazakh language, encompassing motivational, word-formational, and etymological aspects, and proposes new hypotheses of their origin while considering earlier theories. The authors identify the main challenges faced by etymologists and toponymists and review previous authors’ unsuccessful etymological solutions. Errors detected in the data include references to Russified place names borrowed into contemporary Kazakh, inattention to early toponym records, neglect of phonetic changes in Kazakh and Mongolian, as well as their relative chronology, and disregard of potential phonetic adaptation patterns that one could expect based on the phonological peculiarities of both the source and receiving languages. The study aims to categorise place names according to the time and source of borrowing, each name being evaluated based on whether it was initially borrowed as a toponym or an appellative word that later integrated a Kazakh toponym. The analysis concludes that Kazakh toponymy of Mongolian origin (i.e. place names that were borrowed as toponyms) is predominantly recent and associated with the borders of two historical Mongolian states — the Dzungar and Kalmyk khanates.

Keywords

• etymology
• language contacts
• lexical semantics
• mongolian languages
• toponyms
• turkic languages