Abstract:

The definition of etymology varies from researcher to researcher. According to some researchers, etymology only consists of indicating the language the word comes from or showing the oldest form. According to others etymology is the representation of the smallest units and the derivational affixes that make up the word. Etymology, in its most widely known sense, is the work of making such explanations. The first known etymologist of Turkish language was Mahmud al-Kashgarî, who prepared Dîvânu Lugâti’t-Turk. Kashgarî was followed by Ottoman lexicographers, and Şemssettin Sami with his Kâmus-ı Türkî (according to me) was the most distinguished among them. Vámbéry outside of Turkey, B. Kerestedjiyan from Ottoman Empire can be counted as the firsts of the field. The oldest Turkish name for etymology is užik bošgutı “knowledge of syllable/vocabulary”. If we want to look up etymology of a word in contemporary Turkish, we should look at H. Eren, A. Tietze, S. Nişanyan and Kubbealtı Akademisi’s Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük. When it comes to the history of Turkish and the history of borrowings, the widespread understanding tells that the age of the written language of Turkish has gone back to 1300 years. Actually, it is the age of the common written language. In their known history Turkic languages have borrowed words from other languages within the framework of certain rules. Below are examples of borrowing of foreign words starting with r-.

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