Abstract
BIRD NAMES IN MAHTUMKULU’S LANGUAGE
Mahtumkulu, the founder of Turkmen written language, is one of the most important literary names of the whole Turkish world, chiefly the Oghuz, not only the Turkmen. His poems reflect his power of style with their rich vocabulary. Bird names have a special place in this large vocabulary. In Mahtumkulu’s divan, many bird names are included to provide representation of symbols and metaphors. This style shows that the poet frequently makes use of idiom transfers in his narration.
In this article, the bird names in the Mahtumkulu’s divan are examined one by one. Bird names found by detailed scanning of the Divan are analysed by its etymology and its meaning in the book. We tried to determine the foundation structure of words with Turkish origin, and to focus on their use in the modern Turkish dialects. Here, we tried to give priority to the Turkmen Turkish due the racial origin of Mahtumkulu. Besides, we tried to determine whether the bird names used by Mahtumkulu live in the modern Turkmen Turkish. For this purpose, we applied to some main and established Turkmen Turkish dictionaries. We identically quoted information for the birds found in these dictionaries. Finally, in order to determine the importance and the place of the bird names in Mahtumkulu’s narration, the number and frequency of the names in the poems is shown in a schedule.
Keywords
Mahtumkulu, Turkmen Turkish, bird names, onomastic.