RELIGIOUS AND PAGAN RITUAL VOCABULARY IN THE DICTIONARY OF MAHMUD AL-KASHGARI

Zifa Kakbaevna Temirgazina

Ezikov svât/Ezikov svât, 2026

Full text Open access: Gold Metadata (CSL-JSON)
DOI 10.37708/ezs.swu.bg.v24i2.7
Data confidence 70 medium
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Abstract

Mahmud al-Kashgari's 11th-century dictionary, “Divan Lugat at-Turk,” is a repository of linguistic and encyclopedic information on the spiritual culture and worldview of the ancient Turks. Pagan and religious ritual vocabulary includes a complex of words and expressions thematically related to the sacred sphere in a given culture: beliefs, rituals, and rites. Lexical units describe actions, concepts, and beings within this thematic group. The personal code includes the names of gods (theonyms), spirits, and demons (demonyms); the actional code includes the names of rituals and their actions (exorcism, fortune telling, fumigation, and spellcasting); and the subject code consists of terms related to the performance of rituals (e.g., amulets, sacrifice). The applied ethnolinguistic analysis reveals that the religious beliefs of the Turks are characterized by dual faith. They retain pagan Tengriist ideas, although they had already officially adopted Islam by this time. Particularly revealing in this regard is the theonym Таӈрӣ (Tengri), which the dictionary's author translates as Allah. The theonym Умãй (Umay), part of the Tengriist pantheon of gods, is also actively used. The dictionary contains a wide variety of demons, naming various types of evil spirits. They cause harm to humans and cause possession, which, according to Turkic beliefs, can be treated through the rite of exorcism. Exorcism is performed by к̣ãмы – shamans who perform magical acts and use magical artifacts. Religious and pagan ritual vocabulary is one of the most lexically represented thematic groups in the dictionary – 38 lexemes, which testifies to the importance of religious and pagan concepts in the ancient Turkic tribes.