Abstract
The article examines phonetic, lexical-semantic, morphological and syntactic features of Magzhan Zhumabayev’s poetic language that differ from present-day Standard Kazakh. The study aims to systematize these forms and to determine whether they are related to Old Turkic layers, early twentieth-century written usage, colloquial or regional variants, and the rhythmic and syllabic organization of verse. The material consists of the first volume of Zhumabayev’s works published in 2013, together with historical, etymological and dialect dictionaries and studies on the history of Kazakh and Turkic languages. Descriptive, comparative-historical, contextual and componential methods are applied. The analysis shows that forms such as ертеңді-кеш, бұ, тұмақ, ұжмақ, үзім, шүйінші, тәңірі, нажағай, есіт- and ұсау have historical parallels in Old Turkic sources and in modern Turkic languages. The archaic or historical semantics of адас, күлік, құртқа, там, ділдә, тамұқ, кешу, саяқ, жай тасы, орда, ноян and көбе are also identified. The paper further discusses the forms -ын/-ін, -тұғын, -улі and дағы, as well as several non-standard compounds and word combinations. The findings suggest that the poet’s linguistic distinctiveness should be treated not as accidental deviation from a norm, but as a poetic system that preserves several historical layers of the Kazakh literary language.