Turkic-Mongolian Names of Neat and Small Cattle in the Khalkha Mongolian Language

Abstract

The article investigates the terms for cattle and small ruminants on the material of the modern Khalkha-Mongolian language and compares them with the corresponding names of animals in the ancient Turkic language. Khalkha Mongolian animal names are compared with the Buryat, Kalmyk and Old Mongolian names. It allows pointing out their archetypes for their Turkic correspondences based on the information in these Turkic terms taken from etymological dictionary of the Turkic language. The article also reveals general Turkic character of corresponding lexeme and its Turkic protoform from comparative historical grammar of Turkic languages (the volume dedicated to the lexicon) which allows to conclude that relevant terms for cattle and small ruminants in the Mongolian language are of Turkic origin as a result of borrowing from the ancient Turkic people of Bulgarian group by ancient Mongolian people in an era when the ancient Mongols presented a unified society far from disintegration.

Keywords

• neat cattle
• small ruminants
• the khalkha mongolian language
• the buryat language
• the kalmyk language
• the old mongolian language
• archetype
• protoform
• ancient turkic language
• general turkic word
• bulgar group of turkic languages
• borrowed word