On the Sociolinguistic Origins of the term Qazaq: A Proposal for an Alternative Etymology of ‘Cossack’/‘Kazakh’ and an Argument for the Analytical Usefulness of Register in Historical Linguistics
Journal: Acta Orientalia
Year: 2023

Although the word qazaq is widely agreed to be the common ancestor of both ‘Cossack’ and ‘Kazakh’, there remains uncertainty about qazaq’ s etymology. This paper proposes that qazaq originated as a variant of the central Turkic etymon qaç(g)aq and thus derives from the Common Turkic root qaç - (‘flee’). The paper draws on data generated through the traditional methods of historical linguistics — the comparative method and philological analysis — in conversation with recent work in anthropologica