Mahmud Kashgari

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Mahmud Kashgari

(1029-1101)

 Mahmud Kashgari (full name - Mahmud ibn al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Kashgari) - Muhammad, who lived in the XI century, was the emir of the city of Barskhan on the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul. He later moved to Kashgar, China, where in 1029 his son Mahmud was born.

  Very little is known about the life of Mahmud Kashgari. However, it is known that belonging to the Qarakhanid dynasty gave Mahmud the opportunity to study in his hometown, and later in Bukhara, Samarkand, Nishapur and Baghdad.

  From his childhood, Mahmud Kashgari was very interested in different languages, especially the languages, folklore and ethnography of the Turkic tribes. That is why he wrote down his impressions of the cities and villages he visited during his long travels, various traditions, legends, proverbs and historical stories, as well as information about the languages ​​and dialects of the Turkic tribes.

  According to sources, Mahmud Kashgari, who was in a number of cities in South-West Asia, lived in Baghdad for several years, where he studied the most delicate features of the Arabic language and literature. However, in order to study the features of the Turkic languages, the scientist traveled for several years "from Rome to Mochin" - from the Mediterranean and the Black Sea to China, visiting the lands, towns and villages inhabited by various tribes.

  Kashgari wrote about it: “I have traveled for many years in the cities, villages and pastures of the Turks, Turkmens, Oguzs, Chigils, Yagmals, Kyrgyz, and collected dictionaries. I studied and identified the features of the word. I did this not because I did not know the language, but to determine the meaning and form of the languages ​​of these tribes and the small differences between them. The languages ​​of the tribes are completely in my heart. I have arranged them in a thorough and thorough manner. "

 Mahmud Kashgari, who systematized the historical, linguistic, geographical, and ethnographic data collected during his long travels, identified about 1072 Turkic tribes living in the area from China and Mongolia from Byzantium in 1074-30. He created the great work "Devonu lug'otit turk" (Dictionary of Turkish words, hereinafter "Devon"), which was valuable in terms of life, language, customs and way of life. It is noteworthy that, unlike many of his contemporaries, Mahmud Kashgari wrote his work not in Arabic, but in Turkish. According to sources, the scholar edited this work several times and in 1077 presented it to Khalifa Muqtadir.

  "Devon" covers a wide range of materials on folklore of Turkic peoples, ceremonial songs, epics, historical memoirs and legends. The play also provides valuable information on medicine, astronomy, geography, and ethnography. According to orientalists, "Devon" is the life of the Turkic peoples in the XI century, various objects related to their culture, lifestyle, ethnonyms, toponyms, tribal relations, concepts of genealogy, titles of various officials, food, housing and wildlife, animal husbandry, geographical terminology, cities, names and medicines of diseases, metals and minerals, military, sports and administrative concepts, names of various historical and legendary heroes, religious, ethnic ceremonies and even children's games is the only source of information that provides complete information about

  In the process of creating Devon, Mahmud Kashgari set himself the goal of learning only words related to the Turkic languages. Therefore, the services of the scientist in the study of common Turkic languages, the development of comparative grammar of dialects, folklore and ethnography are enormous. At the same time, Kashgari made a significant contribution to the development of terminology of various natural sciences, including geographical terms. The invaluable geographical heritage of Mahmud Kashgari from Devon - natural geographical terms, place names and their interpretations, a world map attached to the work, the geography of the population, the system of calendars on astronomy, muchals and their history. data.

  Attached to the Devon is a unique map of the world, created in the XI century, which shows the Turkic tribes and other places. This map consists of a single circle, the main part of which corresponds to the present eastern hemisphere. According to sources, the diameter of the Arabic version of the map is 24 cm, and the Uzbek version - 18 cm.

  An interesting aspect of Mahmud Kashgari's map is that it shows high mountains or large rivers with thick lines, and smaller ones with thin lines. A dark green circle is drawn around the map, and when you look at it, you get the impression that the earth is surrounded by oceans on all sides. This indicates that the author of the map, Mahmud Kashgari, was sufficiently aware of the laws of cartography.

  Coincidentally, M. Kashgari's contemporaries and later scholars did not write anything about "Devon". The original of the work has not survived, and the information in it came to us thanks to the calligrapher Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr, who copied the book in 200, 1266 years after the time of Kashgari.

  Eight centuries later, in 1904, when the Devon was first published by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, it came to the attention of linguists, historians, geographers and ethnographers. Ten years later, in 1914, in the Istanbul bazaar, Ali Amiri, a fan of ancient manuscripts, accidentally bought a copy of the work from a bookseller. The manuscript consisted of a large volume of 319 pages, the pages of which were torn and torn. That is why Ali Amiri commissioned Rifat Kilas, a Turkologist and repairman of old books, to compile this manuscript. R. Kilasli copied from Devon and published his first and second books in 1915 and his third book in 1917 in Istanbul. At the same time, extensive research on Devon in various ways began.

  Many specialists were engaged in the study and publication of the work from the linguistic point of view. In particular, the German scholar K. Brockelman expressed the terms in the work in alphabetical order and published a German translation of them. Turkish scholar Basim Alatay translated a copy of the manuscript into Turkish in 1914 and published it in Ankara in 1934-1943 as a three-volume book.

  Uzbek linguist Salihkori Mutallibov studied the text and content of "Devon" in depth in 1960-1967 and translated it into Uzbek. This translation created great opportunities for Turkic researchers and made their work much easier. The Uyghur translation of the work was published in China, and according to the Azerbaijani scholar A. Demirchizoda, "Devon" was translated into Azerbaijani and published.

  Mahmud Kashgari died in 1101 at the age of 72. His mausoleum is located in the town of Wupar in Shufu County, present-day Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China.

  Mahmud Kashgari's Devon is an encyclopedic work that contains valuable information in terms of language and literature, geography, cartography, astronomy, ethnography and a number of other disciplines. That is why representatives of various spheres consider Kashgari "theirs". Indeed, looking at the information in the Devon written by the scientist, the question inevitably arises: "Is Kashgari a geographer or a philologist, an ethnographer or a cartographer?" This proves that Kashgari was a leading encyclopedic scholar of his time. That is why the orientalist N. Baskakov called Mahmud Kashgari "a guiding star in the comparison of Turkic languages", and another well-known philologist-Orientalist A. Samoilovich described the scientist as "Radlov of the XI century". was.