Dụ̈ysenȧlị Ȧbdịlȧšịm. Eskị Ḳazaḳ ǰazba tịlị [The Old Kazakh written language]

Abstract

The paper presents a review of Düysen ̣ ȧlị Ȧbdịlȧšịm’s monograph “The Old Kazakh Written Language” (“Eskị Ḳazaḳ J̌ azba Tịlị”), which is written in Kazakh and published in Beijing in 2014. The monograph is a linguistic description of the documents of the Kazakh Khanates written in the period from the first half of the 18th century until the early 19th century. The Old Kazakh documents were mostly written by Kazakh Khans and Sultans and sent to Chinese emperors of the Qing dynasty and to officials in charge of the border. Currently all the documents are preserved in the First Historical Archives of China in Beijing. The monograph is designed as a manual for university students studying Kazakh philology. The significance of the book lies in its being the first and only book providing a comprehensive linguistic description of the Old Kazakh historical documents. The monograph is divided into three chapters. The phonetics and writing system of the Old Kazakh documents are studied in the first chapter. Chapter 2 investigates the nominal morphology, in which five word classes: nouns, adjectives, pronouns, numerals, and function words have been discussed. The last chapter presents lexical terms for temporal units. The review provides a short description of all chapters and points out that the usage of the term “Turki” is more appropriate for defining the language of the presented documents than the term “Old Kazakh Written Language”, since it manifests prevalence of non-Kazakh features.