CC BY
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Section 6. Linguistics
Matbek Nursulu Kurmanbekkyzy, Al-Farabi KazNU, Almaty, Kazakhstan, Senior Teacher, Candidate of Philological Science Umirbekova Roza Kaldybekovna, Docent, Candidate of Philological Science Kasymova Zhanat Perdebekovna, Teacher E-mail: [email protected]
The nogai language is a cognate of the Kazakh language
Abstract: The article considers the history and development of the literary language of the Nogais, one of the indigenous Turkic nations who inhabit the Russian Federation, some areas of CIS and foreign countries and its status during historical stages. The article analyzes the usage areas and social and community function of the modern Nogai literary language. It reveals the fact that the Nogai language is related to the Kazakh and Karakalpak languages and moreover these nations’ literatures have the same roots, and ancient akyns’ (poets) poetry is common to the three nations.
Keywords: Nogai, Turkic language, alphabet, lexis, dialect, state, literary language, research.
The Nogai language is the mother tongue of the Nogais — the indigenous Eurasian nation who inhabit Astrakhan district, Republic of Dagestan, Republic of Karachay-Cherkessia, Stavropol Territory, Tumensk district, Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation. In the countries of CIS, to be exactly, in Kazakhstan, the Ukraine (Crimean Autonomy Republic) there live a few thousand Nogais. Except RF and CIS Nogai people live in foreign countries such as Romania (Dobruja, about 30 thousand people), Bulgaria (about 5 thousand people), also Turkey (about 2 million people). Moreover, many Nogais live in Poland, Lithuania and several other European countries. In Turkey and Romania there live descendants of the Nogais who moved and settled there in the XVIII-XIX centuries. Although they mainly accepted the ethnical similarity of surrounding Turkic related population that is Turks and Romanian Tartars, nevertheless they didn’t forget their ancestry. Descendants of the Nogais have mixed with Kazakh, Karakalpak, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tartar people, especially Bashkor and Crimean Tartar people.
In the last decade large Nogai communities have been founded in some areas of Russia — in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug.
According to historical documents, in Nogai Horde (XIV-XVIII centuries) the Nogai language had the status of the official language for diplomatic negotiations. By the 80s of the Х1Х century the Nogai language had been the language of international communication in North Caucasia.
At the end of the XVIII century as a result of the Russia’s active policy in the area the Nogai State disintegrated. A population area of the Nogai ethnos was decreasing.
During the Soviet Union the Nogais weren’t permitted to have their own country and the status of autonomy.
A significant part of Nogai people inhabit the Nogai steppe which was administratively divided into three areas such as Dagestan, Chechen-Ingush and Stavropol in 1957.
Researchers divide Russian Nogais into several groups: black Nogai, Aksai-Sulak, Ashykulak, Kuban, Kum and Astrakhan Nogais [1,4].
The Nogai language is in the system of Turkic languages. The Nogai language is connected with ancient Turkic, Uygur-Nayman scripts. From the XVIII century to 1928 the Nogai alphabet was based on Arabic graphics, from 1928 — Latin, and from the year of 1938 — Russian graphics.
In 1928 a Latin-based Nogai alphabet was created within the project of All-Soviet Union latinization. Its author was a teacher of the Ashybulak secondary school Abdulhamid Shershenbievich Zhanibekov. In 1929 the first ABC book was published with that alphabet. At end of the 1930s in the USSR there started a tendency of changing writing into the Cyrillic system.
The contemporary Nogai alphabet consists of 33 letters from the Russian alphabet and 4 special letters. Ever since the Nogai alphabet is used in the variant given below: А а, Аь аь, Б б, В в, Г г, Д д, Е е, Ё ё, Ж ж, З з, И и, Й й, К к, Л л, М м, Н н, Нъ нъ, О о, Оь оь, П п, Р р, С с, Т т, У у, Уь уь, Ф ф, X х, Ц ц, Ч ч, Ш ш, Щ щ, Ъ ъ, Ы ы, Ь ь, Э э, Ю ю, Я я.
A writer Issa Kapaev says in his historical essay “Bessmertnaya step" (“Deathless steppe"): “The Cyrillic alphabet is not a convenient alphabet for the Nogai language. Everybody is revealing advantages of the Latin alphabet. ...In learning the mother tongue at schools children are encountering some difficulties in pronouncing
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The nogai language is a cognate of the Kazakh language
words with a letter «в» (“v”) correctly. This problem, however, concerns adults too. For example, it is spelled «авыл» (avyl), but it is pronounced as «ауыл» (auyl), it is spelled «саьвле» (savle), but it is pronounced as «сэуле» (saule). If Turks show interest in reading publication of the contemporary Nogai literature, they will be surprised by reading. It is impossible to read in the Nogai language on your own without any explanations. The Ancient Sumerian language will be more understandable than the modern Nogai language. Contemporary turcol-ogist scientists are investigating the problem...” [2, 60].
Research works concerning the Nogai language began to be published at the end of the XIX century and at beginning of the XX century. They are the following works: Osmanov M. “Nogai and Kumyk texts” (was published in Arabic graphics) (1883); Professor Falev P. A. “A Nogai fairy tale about Ak-kobek” (Proceedings of the Anthropology and Ethnography Museum of the Russian Academy of Science, Petrograd, 1918); the same author’s “An Arab novella in the Nogai epos” (Simferopol) and “Scripts of Nogai folk literature works in the Stavropol guberniya” (Scrits of East Department of Russian archaeology community, 1916) and “Introduction to Turkic literature and language investigation” (Tashkent, 1922).
Despite some achievements in the Nogai linguistics the Nogai language is one of the less investigated languages. Such scientists as N. A. Baskakov, S. A. Kalmykova made a significant contribution to research of the language. N. A. Baskakov distinguishes three dialects of the Nogai language: Nogai (Stavropol Territory), black Nogai (Dagestan) and white Nogai (Karachay-Cherkessia) [3, 4]. These dialects have quite a bit differences and similarities too. However, in comparison with the dialect of white Nogais there are more similarities between the dialects of Nogais and black Nogais.
The modern literary Nogai language differs from the Kazakh language with its phonetics (slightly simplified and with peculiarities of North Caucasian languages) and lexis — a big amount of borrowed from Arab, Farsi and North Caucasian and Russian languages. Moreover, it has saved some features of Nogai-Kypshak languages which disappeared from the Kazakh language. Comparatively it was not very long since Nogai and Kazakh entirely separated, it coincided with the period ofJunggar invasion.
In the main vocabulary of the Nogai language there are a lot ofwords borrowed from other foreign languages except native words which belong to the Turkic language system. Firstly, there is a big proportion of words from Arab and Farsi languages which came with the religion
Islam, secondly — international and soviet words, what’s more words from the Russian language.
There are sufficient amount of international and soviet words (borrowed through Russian) and Russian words. In comparison with rural people these words are likely to be met more frequently in speeches of people of urban areas.
Contemporary researchers identify two dialects of the Nogai language: black Nogai and Kuban dialects [5, 492]. The Nogai literary language is based on the black Nogai dialect and Nogai parlance.
The Nogai language belongs to the Kypshak-Nogai branch of the North-West (Kypshak) group of Turkic languages. By phonetic, lexical, morphological and syntactic features the most cognate languages to Nogai are the Kazak, Karakalpak languages, the North steppe dialect of Crimean Tartars and some dialects of the Uzbek language.
Relationship connections of the Nogai language with the Kazakh and Karakalpak languages are very deep — ancient types of folklore: proverbs and sayings, epos and poetry are common for them. these nations’ literatures have the same roots, and ancient akyns’ (poets) are also common to the three nations. An art of music and poetry have a significant place in cultural heritage of Nogais.
Heritage of Nogai folklore is very wide. There are a lot of prominent pieces of epos such as “Koplanly batyr”, “Orak”, “Mamay”, “Er Kosay”, “Er Shoban”, “Er Kokshe”, “Kambar”, “Er Sayn”, “Vozyigit”, “Kyz-Yibek”, “Kozy Korpesh-Bayan Syluv”, “Takhir-Zuhra”, “Edige”, “Shora batyr”, “Er Targyn”, “Adil Soltan”, etc. Works of such medieval Nogai akyns (poets) are as Asan Kaigyly (XIV c.), Shal Kiyiz Tilenshi uly (XV c.), Kazy-Tuvgan Suinish uly, Dosmambet Azav-ly (XVII c.) are considered to be classics ofnational poetry, in the art of music there are renowned works of Korkut-Ata (VIII-IX c.), Ket-Buga Naimanly (XIII c.).
A inventor of a Nogai script, the author of Nogai alphabet and grammar is an ethnographer Abdulhamid Zhanibekov (1879-1955). Writers and poets who have written in Nogai are Abdulzhalilov Fazil Apasov-ich (1913-1974), Zhanibekov Abdulhamid Shershen-bievich (1879-1955), Kapayev Suyun Imamalievich (1927-2001), Kapayev Isa Suyunovich (1949), Kum-ratova Keldihan Isayevna (1944), Temirbulatova Kadria Orazbayevna (pen name — Kadria) (1949-1979) [6].
The main part of the Nogais who live in Dagestan know their mother tongue — the Nogai language. Moreover, the Kumyk language is also widely spread among them. 1136 Nogais consider the Kumyk language as their mother tongue, because they have been living in close vicinity with Kumyk people during several centuries.
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Section 6. Linguistics
In Dagestan the level of teaching the Nogai language is very low. It is not taught in preschool educational establishments at all, so kindergartens function only in the Russian language. Education in primary schools is also organized only in the Russian language. The Nogai language is taught at secondary schools as a discipline.
At the end of the 50-s the government of the Stavropol Territory and Chechen-Ingushetia closed down Nogai schools; publication of newspapers in the Nogai language was stopped.
At the end of 80-s and at the beginning of the 90-s representatives of Nogai community organizations raised a question of teaching a native language. Among them an organization “Birlik” took an active part in solving this problem. Thanks to this organization teaching the Nogai language in areas where it was previously stopped reenacted.
In order to train teachers of the Nogai language community organizations managed to open a branch of Hasav-iyrt pedagogical college in the village Terekli-Mekteb, the center of the Nogai region in Dagestan. During 21 years this branch was training teachers of the Nogai language not only for Dagestan, but for the Stavropol Territory, Chechen Republic and Astrakhan district. What’s more, it prepared specialists for Karachay-Cherkessia which used to train teachers on their own. Unfortunately, in 2013 the branch closed down because of small enrollment.
Nowadays the Nogai language is widely used in the information space in the Republic of Dagestan. Literature in the Nogai language is being published although the quality doesn’t meet the modern requirements. In the Nogai language it is published a republican newspaper “Shol tavysy” (A voice of desert), children’s magazine “Lashyn” (Accipi-ter). A national channel functions in the republican state television, radio programs are broadcasted.
In Karachay-Cherkessia it is published a republican newspaper “Nogai davysy” (A voice of Nogais), radio and TV programs are broadcasted. In Cherkessia during several years a social-political and artistic-literary magazine “Poloveckays luna” is being published.
Intensification ofthe process oflanguage assimilation is a quite disturbing problem for Nogais. 97 438 people out of hundred thousand Nogais know their mother tongue, and 3 804 changed to the Russian language. Even in the republics where Nogai has a status ofthe state language actually it is an insignificant language. The fact that Nogai isn’t taught at primary schools influences on the process of language assimilation. Thus, the future of the Nogai language is uncertain, the threat that it won’t be used even as an everyday language in the near future is very high.
Territorially scattering of the Nogai ethnos cause difficulties in development of the Nogai culture. The problem of Nogais is one of the most complicated ethnosocial topics of the North Caucasus.
References:
1. Yarlykapov A. A. Nogaicy./Zhivopisnaya Rossia, 2007. - № 3.
2. Kapayev I. S. Istoricheskie esse. - Astana: Audarma, 2008.
3. Baskakov N. A. Nogaisky yazyk I ego dialekty: Grammatika, teksty I slovar. - Moscow, 1940.
4. Kalmykova S. A. Alfavit nogaiskogo yazyka.//Voprosy sovershenstvovaniya alfavitov turskih yazykov SSSR/Editor N. A. Baskakov; Institute of Linguistics of AS USSR. - M: Nauka, 1972.
5. Ibragimov M.-P. A., Adzhieyev A. M., Kildasov R. B. Nogaicy.//Narody Dagestana/editor Arutiynov S. A., etc. -M., Nauka. - 2002.
6. Wikipedia.//[Electronic resource]. - Available from: http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nogaisky yazyk.
Stojani Edita,
Polytechnic University of Tirana, Phd Candidate in Linguistic,
Faculty of Mathematics Engineering and Physics Engineering Centre of Foreign Language E-mail: [email protected]
Reflections on basic issues of Albanian terminology in theory and practice
Abstract: The separation of terminology as an independent linguistic study field, also as a special lexicon in the languages of developed countries, is accepted since the middle of the 20th century. In Albania organized work with
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