Abstract
CONCEPT AND CULTURE OF ACCOUNTING IN UIGHURS WITH REFERENCE TO THE ACCOUNT VOCABULARY IN UIGHUR CIVIL DOCUMENTS
Accounting is a technique which deals with association and dissociation of numbers in mathematical operations. These operations, which cover simple or complex operations ranging from determination of time to taxation, delimitation of area to market operations is an evidence of urbanization and civilization. From the point of view of the history of Turkish literary language, sources related to accounting from the Early Ottoman period are extant and as a result, a clear idea about the relevant practices can be made for that period. When it comes to earlier Turkish cultures, researchers have attempted to identify the enumeration terminologies, number systems and the contexts where they were used in the Old Turkish period. However, some current terms of this early period such as a-, san-, sana-; sakış, sagış, artuk, eksük, kat, kata, bölüg, üçkil, törtkil etc. have not been examined in terms of accounting culture. Since the texts about accounting from Old Turkish (6th-13th centuries) lack, capacities of these populations are not thoroughly studied albeit some information about activities regarding to time designation from Kokturk and Uigur periods have been revealed. Uighur Civil Documents, an important source of this study, offer some additional and new hindsight in this respect.
In this study, our findings of the Turkish account during the Uighur period will be shared according to the vocabulary of the account in Uighur Civil Documents. It is thought that our work will contribute to Turkish scientific language history, mathematics history and cultural history studies.
Keywords
Uighurs, Uighur civil documents, account, conceptual field, account culture.