ONOMASTIC UNITS IN TALAS WRITTEN MONUMENTS
Authors: Biyarov B. N. 
Published: April 2023

The paper summarizes and etymologically analyzes onomastic units in the group of Talas monuments belonging to ancient Turkic monuments. Although ancient Turkic monuments have been studied in terms of genre, written language, and alphabetic features, in terms of literary criteria, the onomastic space in ancient texts they have not been fully considered. In particular, the relevance of the topic is determined by the absence of proper names in the Talas monuments, which are small in size.

The purpose of the study is to identify the onomastic space in the Talas monuments, which was not previously considered, and to conduct an etymological analysis of each onomastic unit. In connection with this goal, it is planned to perform the following tasks: provide information about the discovery and study of Talas monuments; dial all the proper names in the Talas monuments and divide them into onomastic types; group the found onomastic units by type and perform an etymological analysis of each; identification of common features of proper names in the Talas monuments with the Yenisei, Orkhon onomastic units.

The author compares the previously expressed opinion, and conclusions about the meaning of historical names, and then offers his own conclusions. The study used retrospective analysis, description, grouping, and comparativehistorical methods characteristic of linguistics. Due to the peculiar difficulty of deciphering the etymology of historical, ancient names, the author notes that the predictive nature of the conclusions proposed by him prevails. Nevertheless, it is not difficult to see that etymological analyzes have been made quite successfully. In the introductory part of the research paper, small information about the discovery and study of Talas monuments, the specifics of the appointment, and the timing of the appointment are given. Scientists who read and translated Talas monuments include V. V. Radlov, P. M. Melioransky, G. Geikel, S. E. Malov, Yu. Nemet, H. N. Orkun, A. S. Amanzholov, etc. He was a turkologist-scientists, mainly engaged in such things as the correct reading of texts written in stone, transcription, translation into modern Turkic languages, the definition of the genre, and comparison of historical data. And the onomastic units in the Talas meters have not been studied separately. Some researchers leave only comments on open proper names, the meaning of which is clear. For example, Professor A. S. Amanzholov adds his own etymology to the anthroponym Udun ("Skverny") at the monument to Ayyrtam-Oi. The anthroponym was not isolated from the text and did not make a separate analysis.

The translation of proper names found in the Talas texts was taken by professors I. A. Batmanov and A. S. Amanzholov. The correct names found in about 20 monuments found in the Talas River Valley were analyzed etymologically. In particular, anthroponym, ethnonym, and toponym types of proper names were typed. Since most of the ancient Turkic monuments are written in the epitaphic genre, it is quite natural that the share of anthroponyms among these texts prevails, so 17 antroponyms were identified and linguistic analysis was carried out. In addition to that, two ethnonyms, and one toponym, met. Not all ancient monuments have proper names, however, even this small group can provide quite rich linguistic and historical information. In the final part of the paper, the specific features of the onomastic space in the Talas monuments, their connection with proper names in the Yenisei and Orkhon texts, and valuable conclusions were made regarding the history of ancient Turkic writing. It is proved that the Talas-Yenisei-Orkhon written monuments were written in one language. These findings are a novelty of the paper.