Abstract
On Terms of Physical Geography in Old Uyghur
Old Uyghur, a branch of the historical Turkic languages, is an important period in which religious and non-religious texts are produced and contains the vocabulary relating to various concepts. The vocabulary studies on historical Turkic languages do not only give information about the geography and culture of the languages studied; it also sheds light on the social and economic life of that period. These texts, which contain the terms on many subjects such as agriculture, husbandry, household items, musical instruments, etc., are among the source of language and cultural studies. For this reason, analyzing the content of written sources and determining their vocabulary helps to draw the historical and geographial boundaries of that culture. In this context, this paper aims to prepare a study on the terms of physical geography documented in religious and non-religious texts in Old Uyghur. The terms of physical geography in our study has been studied in two subtitles of Terms of Natural Resources and Structural Geomorphology Terms. In addition, Terms of Natural Resources, the first part of the paper, consists of four sections: Forests, Mountains, Hills; Soil; Water Resources and Continent. The second part of the paper, Structural Geomorphology Terms consists of two sections: Fluvial Geomorphology Terms and Coastal Geomorphology Terms.
Keywords
Old Uyghur, terms of physical geography, vocabulary, terminology