Continuity of the Language of Sopy Allayar’s Work with Old Turkic and Modern Kazakh Languages (based on the work “Sabat ul-‘Ajizin”)

Abstract

Written monuments preserving the literary norms, developmental patterns, and linguistic features of different periods constitute a primary source for studying the history of the Kazakh literary language. Although its history dates back to ancient times, many aspects of its written literary tradition remain insufficiently studied. Modern scholarship considers the Chagatai literary language one of the sources that influenced the formation of the Kazakh written literary language. Its widespread use among the Kazakhs is evidenced by Abai’s poems written in this tradition and his references to Sufi Allayar in the Words of Edification. Drawing on previous scholarship, the article clarifies the concept of the “Chagatai language” and employs related terms such as “Central Asian Turkic literary language” and “tradition of Turkic written literature.”

The study examines the grammatical, phonetic, and lexical features of Sufi Allayar’s Sabat ul-‘ajizin (“The Perseverance of the Weak”). Particular attention is given to the historical development of grammatical forms, including the ancient dağ/dek and modern day/dey, dative and ablative case endings, the archaic participial form -mysh and its modern counterpart -ğan, and the Old Turkic formant dür, which expresses emphasis but is no longer independently used in modern Kazakh. The analysis also considers the use of -lar with plural third-person verb forms and Arabic-Persian izafet constructions, as well as the phonetic correspondences s~sh and sh~ch. The text contains numerous Arabic and Persian lexical borrowings and religious anthroponyms, many of which have entered the modern Kazakh anthroponymic system.

As a poetic historical monument, Sabat ul-‘ajizin preserves linguistic, phraseological, grammatical, and lexical features of its period. Its linguistic evidence demonstrates the continuity between the Central Asian Turkic literary tradition and the development of the Kazakh written literary language, contributing to a deeper understanding of its historical formation and evolution.