Number System and Number Names in Dîvânü Lügâti’t-Türk

Dîvânü Lügâti’t-Türk which was written between the years 1074-1077 by Kâşgarlı Mahmud ise one of the main works of the 11th-century. The work was written in order to teach Turkish to Arabs. For this reason, beginning items were arranged in the form of dictionary from Turkish to Arabic and given examples in order to be understood the meaning of words very well. This dictionary is accepted one of the works of Islamic period with Kutadgu Bilig which was written in the period of Karahans. The content of the work is very rich and this language material was collected from the Turkish world. It contains about 8000 words. In this study, the numbers matter and the system that the numbers created will be discussedThe dictionary which gives the various informations about the names of people, tribes and places; Turkish geography and folk literature is an encyclopedic work. As in all matters, Dîvânü Lügâti’t-Türk gives informations about the numarel names which have an important place in the lexicon of languages and accepted as the basic words by linguists. Usually in languages there are cardinal numbers and drived numbers which are maden because of needing. In this study was explained the system of Turkish numbers, number names, cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers in Dîvânü Lügâti’t-Türk. Turkish numbers have been classified under there main headings such as cardinal numbers, drived numbers and ordinal numbers. Firstly, the numbers in the classificattions were mentioned as beginning items and given examples about the numbers in the texts. Later, was shown the method of ordinal number derivation in Turkish. At the same time, in this study it is aimed to reveal that from the ancient times to the present day, decimal sytem was the dominant one between Turkish people.

Keywords

Karakhan Turkish, Dîvânü Lügâti’t-Türk, Number Names, Number System, Cardinal Number, Ordinal Number.