Caşteğin Turgunbayer

Keywords: Kirghiz language, Orkhon Turkish, Old Uighur Language, culture, Turkic ‘kut’, ‘kıw’

Abstract

According to the research carried out on the basis of the etymologicaldictionaries, the word Kut, which has existed in all historical andmodern Turkic dialects since the oldest periods of Turkish, has a lot ofmeaning that changes depending on the period and dialect. In the Kyrgyzculture, we found that the concept of kut 'happiness' consists of aspectsof the abstract-concrete, external and internal world. The abstract planeconsists of such concepts as "god" and "luck", which are associated withthe perception of people of the outside world and such as "soul", "spirit","heart", "life energy", which are associated with the perception of theirinner world. We found that a specific plane consists of tangible objects,such as "talisman", "idol". The word kut in the general Turkic languagecontains the traces of the ancient Türkic faith and carries in itself as anabstract plane expressing «luck», «will», «happiness», which people believethey receive from God, and the expression of a concrete plan, as aguardian, which in reality, is no longer used in everyday life as an instrumentof protection against the evil eye because of the influence ofIslamic beliefs. It became clear that the amulet, which until recently existedamong the Kyrgyz but whose specimens are found today only amongthe Siberian people, and made of blue or red cloth, symbolizes the YağızYer and Kök Teñri existing in the old Turkic beliefs. As in other Turkicpeople, it can be seen that the word kut is used both in the names of boysand girls, because it expresses a positive meaning in the language.