Шойманова М.Б.

Южно-Казахстанский Государственный Университет им. М. Ауезова, г. Шымкент

English borrowings in the kazakh language

The Kazakh language, belonging to the Kipchak group of the Turkish family, is spoken in Kazakhstan and other regions where ethnic Kazakhs live, such as West China, Russia, Central Asia, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan etc.

The Kazakh language takes the 70^th place among 5.651 world languages according to the degree of being spoken.

The combination of all the words of a special language is called its vocabulary. Vocabulary is the mirror of the national culture, economy and living conditions. It means that the more complicated the social, the economical and the cultural life of a specific nation the more complex vocabulary system the language has. Let’s have an example of the Kazakh vocabulary: “The explanatory dictionary of the Kazakh language” of 10 volumes has more than 100.000 lexical units. So many words are left non-included in the dictionary. Nevertheless not all the words are familiar for native speakers. Some of them maybe familiar, while others are not and that is not a fact to wonder. Because the vocabulary system of the Kazakh language consists of archaisms that have been maintained for so many centuries, borrowings, later appeared new words, terms, literary words, colloquial words, dialect words and professional words, in short the whole vocabulary system.

To comprehend the nature of the Kazakh vocabulary and its historical development it is necessary to examine the etymology of its different layers, the historical causes of their appearance, their volume and role, comparative importance of native and borrowed elements in replenishing the Kazakh vocabulary.

It was recorded in written manuscripts that the Kazakh language was in long and close contact with other languages, mainly Turkish, Arabic, Russian and nowadays English. The great influx of borrowings from these sources can be accounted for by a number of historical causes. The character and number of borrowings tell us of the relations between peoples, the level of their culture etc. It is for this reason that borrowings have often been called “the milestones of history”.

The number and character of borrowed elements do not only depend on the historical conditions, on the nature and length of the contacts, but also on the degree of the genetic and structural proximity of the languages concerned. The closer the language, the deeper and more versatile is the influence.

It must be pointed out that borrowings (or loan words) enter the language in two ways: through oral and written speech. Oral borrowings took place mainly in the early periods of history. Words borrowed orally are usually short and they undergo considerable changes in the act of adoption. Written borrowings preserve their spelling and some peculiarities of their sound form; their assimilation is a long process. Great number of borrowings in Kazakh is left some imprint upon the language. Thus the first effect of foreign influence is observed in the volume of its vocabulary. And while general historical causes of borrowings from different languages have been studied with a considerable degree of thoroughness the purely linguistic reasons for borrowing are still open to investigation.

The name Kazakh appeared in the scene of history in the fourteenth century when Kipchak and Turkic tribes were separated from the Golden Horde. The adherents of this theory conjecture that the Kazakh was constructed during this process. But there is still some discord in this theme. Other linguists confirm that it is the product of the ancient Turkic Runic culture. Orhon manuscripts written on stones witness the Kazakh language being spoken in the VII-VIII centuries. These stones are well preserved in Mongolia near Orhon and Selenga rivers.

In VI-VII centuries the great invasion of the Arabs began. The aim of this conquest was the dissemination of Islam to Central Asia. A professor from Manchester University, Canford Bossword, underlines the importance of this invasion and says: “It was a merging of two civilizations and a revival of new one.” Truly Turks accepted the Arabic language and it became a language of learning and religion not only for Turkic people but also for the whole world. The following words of Arabic origin are proof of it: алгебра (algebra), атлас (satin), карта (map), намаз (namaz: Muslim people recite five times per day), ораза (Islamic fasting during the tenth month of Ramadan), мұғалім (teacher), кітап (book), дәптер (notebook) etc.

The masterpiece of Balasagoon “Құтадғу білік” written in 1069 provides a total set of loaned words from Arabic.

The next significant occasion in the history of Kazakh people is Jungar’s invasion which took place in the spring of 1723. It also impacted on the word-stock of Kazakh language and some new words were borrowed such as: тұлға (trunk), аймақ (region, zone), дөнежін (three year old calf), атан (gelded camel) etc.

The consequences of these events in 1731, Kazakhstan joined Russia and the Russian language became the source of many borrowings such as: болыс (volost: small rural administrative unit), бекет (stopping place for travelers), кереует (bed), облыс (oblast, province), түрме (prison, jail) etc.

So we shall accept the term “native” as words having consisted in Turkic word-stock before the seventh century. As for the foreign element of the language we accept the influence from many languages mainly Arabic, Mongolian, Persian, Russian and other languages.

The etymological structure of the Kazakh language:

The native element	The borrowed element
1. Turkish element 2. Kazakh proper element	1. Arabic-Persian element 2. Mongolian-Tartar element 3. Russian element 4. International element English element

The word-stock of a special language is not only enlarged by its own vocabulary. It is also enlarged by borrowing words form other languages. If we look through the history of the Kazakh nation we can understand that Kazakhs lived in close contact with many nations around them. “The history of Kazakh SSR” says about that: “The population of Kazakhstan developed marketing with China, Central Asia and Russia. The western and north-west population of Kazakhstan lived in close contact with Russia. From VIth B.C. there was a trade road which is called “Жібек Жолы” (Silk Road) beginning in China, through Central Asia until reaching Central Europe. Such kind of trade and cultural relations between Kazakhstan and other neighboring countries influenced the culture and language of Kazakhs.”

The term “borrowings” denotes the process of adopting words or the result of the process, the language material itself. Millions of nations existing in our universe, no matter large or small borrow words from each other to enlarge their vocabulary. Besides, countries that are not so developed or undeveloped there can not be found a country with a pure word-stock without borrowed elements. Scholars have found only 30 per cent of word stock of the English language as proper and the rest as borrowings. Such cases also can be found among the family of Turkic with others. According to G. Musabaev the names of animals especially that of birds were borrowed into Russian from the Turkic languages: айран (ayran, yogurt), алтын (gold), аул (village), бошка (barrel), болван (wrestler), караул (guard), кочевать (to leave), очаг (hearth), серьги (earrings) etc.

Till 1991 Kazakhstan was apart of the USSR. After getting its independence a new era began in the history of Kazakhstan. Kazakhstan became a member of UNO and UNESCO. Because of its geo-political situation as having the Caspian Sea in the western frontier, which is a rich deposit of oil and gas Kazakhstan now takes part in OPEC. These new circumstances attracted many foreign investments. E.g. American Chevron Oil and Gas Company invest the Karachaganak deposit in Atirau oblast and own 50% of its stock. British Oil and Gas Company take part in prospecting of the Kashagan deposit. These changes are due to the market economy which permitted the opening of all kinds of businesses. A boom in the sphere of manufacturing and service took place, henceforth, the word-stock of the Kazakh language was increased as new economic terms were borrowed. For example, a new branch of economic science appeared as marketing. Professions like брокер (broker), дистрибьютор (distributor), агент (agent), менеджер (manager) which were novelty several years before, are nowadays ordinary jobs.

The words such as офис (office), бизнес (business), фирма (firm) are entirely established in the Kazakh language that one can not differentiate their origin at once.

One of the latest borrowed words is barrel which is known as a result of oil prospecting. In English it denotes a large, round, often wooden container for liquids, but as an international term it is used to mean a certain quantity of oil, to be more exact one barrel is equal to 159 litres.

It must be taken into consideration that closer the relation between the languages, the more difficult to distinguish borrowings. Words of English origin which are formed by the rule of Bland, Acronyms are also transferred and it is difficult to know their origin. For example, NATO, UNESCO

LAZER-Light amplification by stimulated emission of Radiation

RADAR-Radio detection and ranging

MOTEL-Motor + hotel

Attempts are being made to find appropriate equivalents for the borrowed words in present day Kazakh. For example: ғаламшар instead of планета, дүлдүл instead of чемпион, ішірткі instead of рецепт, үнқағаз instead of газет, үнжария instead of радио, көктемір instead of робот and others. Most newly coined Kazakh words are absolete and fail to express original meanings of English words.

If we do not borrow international words, scientific and technical terms from other languages Kazakh nation will be lagging behind other advanced countries. As we know borrowings enrich any language and may help to replenish the word-stock of the borrowing language. Borrowing is an inevitable language process. Any language (including Kazakh) should borrow lacking words and specific terms from other languages. Professor R. Syzdikova adheres to this analogical view-point. Even English which has become the International language borrowed 70% of its word-stock from other languages.

Литература:

1. Антрушина Г. Б., Афанасьева О. В., Морозова Н. Н. “Лексикология современного английского языка”, Москва. ДРОФА, 1999

2. Crystal D. “A Cambridge Language Encyclopedia”, Cambridge University Press, 1996