Toponymic Legends of Kazakh Turks


Throughout history humans have always made up some thoughts and theories when they haven’t been able to understand what is going around in external world. In this process of defining and recognition some ideas about the origin, creation and composition of the world were developed. This course of thinking ended up with the formation of oral literature. One of the genres of this literature is myth. Legends are short narratives that are believed to be true, that have no stylistic features and that have educational aspects to give moral messages. They dictate us about the consequences of our inappropriate behaviors. Kazakh Turks name the term “legend” with the words “a?ız”, “äpsana” or “hikayat”. The academicians, although some of them offer some different classifications, generally classify the legends of Kazakh Turks under two topics as historical and toponymic legends. This paper examines twenty toponymic legends that were created to explain the names of regional places and places of water. Thus it is aimed to clarify the importance of these legends in Turkish culture and mythology.


Keywords


Legend, Kazakh Legends, toponym, Sky Tanri, Umay

Author : Seyfullah YILDIRIM
Number of pages: 2101-2121
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7827/TurkishStudies.3078
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Journal of Turkish Studies
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