Arabic-Persian Borrowings in Karaite Turkic; [Karaim Türkçesinde Arapça-Farsça Alintilar]

Karaites (or Karay), who accepted Judaism throughout historical processes, have highly interesting linguistic and cultural features among today's Turkic communities. The Karaites, who migrated from their ancient homeland of Crimea to Poland and Lithuania through historical migrations, have developed a unique Turkic dialect with borrowings from the languages of the neighboring communities they lived with. In addition to the Hebrew religious terminology, which is the sacred language of Karaite religion, Arabic-Persian borrowings passed through the Tatar Turks, who constituted the main settled Turkic group in Crimea's history, and finally, Russian borrowings that began to be strongly felt under Russian sovereignty in the 19th century. When the local borrowings of the Karaites living in Ukraine, Russia, Poland, and Lithuania are added to these borrowings, the colorful structure of Karaite Turkic vocabulary emerges. The lexicologic properties of the Arabic-Persian borrowings in the vocabulary identified by utilizing the largest existing dictionary of Karaite Turkic (Karaimsko-russko-pol'skiy slovar', pod. Red. N. A. Baskakov, A. Zayonçkovski, S. M. Şapşal. Moskva, 1974) and printed literary sources are the main subject of this article. Thus, it is analyzed what layers of meaning these Arabic-Persian borrowings, which are actually seen in the languages and written monuments of the Turkish communities in the Islamic circle, form in the vocabulary of the Karaims of the Jewish faith. In addition, the existing Turkic variants of these borrowings are also compared. © 2024 Hacettepe University. All rights reserved.