Article

Name: Turkic-Mongolian parallels among the terms of spiritual culture in Mongolian languages

Authors: Valentin I. Rassadin, Svetlana M. Trofimova, Luvsandorzh Bold

Kalmyk State University, Elista, Russian Federation; Institute of Language and Literature of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

In the section Linguistics

Abstract: The paper is devoted to the comparative-historical study of some terms related to the sphere of spiritual culture of the Mongolian languages – Khalkha-Mongolian, Buryat, Kalmyk and oldwritten Mongolian, and also in some of their dialects that have Turkic parallels. This is due to the fact that Mongolian and Turkic languages have been interacting with each other for millennia and interpenetrating in the field of vocabulary. However, there is still no list of these common lexical elements, so that it would be realistic to assess this lexical interpenetration by establishing the origin of each lexeme and finally solving the question of the existence in the distant past of the existence of a hypothetical Turkic-Mongolian proto-language. It is most rational to study the general Turkic-Mongolian lexicon within the framework of semantic groups. For the analysis, the terms of colour designation, the names of some of the most characteristic musical instruments, the names of the species of shamans and certain terms of the Buddhist religion that are deeply attached to the sphere of spiritual culture were taken. The comparative material shows that all these Mongolian terms have Turkic parallels, the Turkic etymology of which is beyond doubt. All the considered common Turkic-Mongolian words are well etymologized from the Turkic languages, which indicates their borrowed character in the Mongolian languages. Moreover, this borrowing took place in the era of the proto-languages as a result of close contacts of the Mongolian tribes with the Turkic, specifically – with the Bulgarian-type tribes, as these Turkic words spread throughout Mongolian languages as the Mongolian ethnos expanded and modern Mongolian languages were formed. Such penetration of Turkic lexicon into the Mongolian languages and its full adaptation occurred already in antiquity at the level of proto-languages as a result of various contacts and interaction of Mongolian and Turkic ethnoses.

Keywords: vocabulary, Turko-Mongolian parallels, spiritual culture, terms of color designation, names of musical instruments, shamanic terms, Buddhist terms, Turkic etymology, historical contacts, interaction of ethnoses

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