Abstract
THE SECRET LANGUAGE OF THE ABDALS IN TARIM BASIN: ÄYNU
The Abdals who live dispersedly in different cities, towns and villages where are located along Kashgar, Yarkand and Hotan from north to south at west edge of Taklamakan Desert located on the route of Silk Road, ancient commercial route of trade, where reached from China to Europe by passing Anatolia speak Uyghur in their daily life, however, in the case they want that others can't understand their speech, they use a different language in order to communicate each other. Though this language has a vocabulary containing many Persian words, their all grammatical properties are akin to grammatical properties of native Uyghur dialects. The Abdal groups are called Äynu by native people. Hence, this language is termed Äynu Language in literature.
In this paper, firstly it was given information about households, populations, daily life and origin of the Abdal classes known as Äynu. Then, it was expressed phonological, morphological and syntactic features and vocabulary of Äynu Language by comparing with Uyghur based upon etudes that were conducted relating to the language. Finally, it was stated ideas about quality and origin of this language and concluded that Äynu Language is secret language of Abdals living in Tarim Basin by expressing similarities between the secret language of Anatolian Abdals and Äynu besides socio-economic positions of Anatolian Abdals and Äynu's.
Keywords
Äynu, Abdals, secret language, Tarim Basin.