A Lexico-Semantic Analysis of Persian Loanwords in Shajara-i Terakime

The linguistic study of Turkic written heritage, historical manuscripts and epic texts is essential for understanding the development and evolution of the language. This article examines Shajara-i Terakime written by Abu’l-Gazi Bahadur Khan in the 17th century, a medieval monument that provides valuable data on the history, culture, ethnography and toponymy of Turkic peoples. The text represents an Oguz-nama version written in Arabic script. Alongside Old Turkic vocabulary, the lexical structure of the chronicle contains a significant number of Arabic, Persian and Mongolian elements. This article analyses the lexico-semantic features of Persian loanwords found in the work and identifies their usage in Modern Kazakh, as well as in Kazakh folklore and the poetry of zhyrau. While Arab-Persian borrowings are often treated as a single group in historical lexicology, here Persian elements are examined separately as an independent lexical layer. Depending on their level of integration into Kazakh, Persian loanwords are classified into three groups: a) words that retain their original meaning and remain in active use; b) words that have undergone semantic change but are still used; c) obsolete or no longer used lexical items. Semantic features of these units in folklore and present-day Kazakh are also addressed. The aim of the study is to identify the Persian layer in Shajara-i Terakime and to reveal historical linguistic connections between Chagatai written tradition and the Kazakh language.