Abstract:

Inherited and borrowed items in Turkish vocabulary have been examined in terms of etymology by Turcologists from the West since XIX. century. After the 1850s, first Räsänen prepared an etymological dictionary of Turkish, and then, Clauson and Sevortjan also prepared the Turkish etymological dictionaries. However in all these studies, the etymology of elements in Turkish vocabulary has not been completed, etymological analyses of many words examined before in terms of etymology have been revised in the light of new information. The etymology of the word şimşek in Turkish and Azerbaijan Turkish vocabulary partaking in Oghuz group of Turkish has been analyzed differently by 4 scientists so far. These studies are etymological trials analyzed without reference to historical texts and just depending on principles of phonology, morphology and semantics of Turkish. In this article, the form of word şimşek in historical texts has been determined step by step, especially from XIV. century, different orthographies and synonyms of this word have been identified one by one in books of Melhame written in old Anatolian Turkish. Afterwards, the variants of the word şimşek in bilingual and multilingual dictionaries prepared between XVI.-XVII. centuries in the West have been propounded by scanning; moreover, forms and usages in different meanings of this word in Turkish dialects have been resolved. In light of all this information, the orthography of şimşek in historical Turkish texts written by Arabic letters has been identified as to how it should have been constructed and the etymon of şimşek has been determined based on this data

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