An Overview of Legend Terms in Turkmen Folklore

Abstract

Although there have been many studies on Turkmen oral cultural values since the beginning of the 20th century, the classification and naming of species and similar issues have not been resolved yet. Eliminating the confusion about the terms used to meet the term "legend" in Turkmen Folklore is one of the most important issues that have not been resolved until today. Therefore, in this article, the concepts related to legend, which have not been consensus about their meanings and uses until today, are emphasized, and the aforementioned concepts are discussed scientifically and a final result has been tried to be reached regarding their use. First of all, after mentioning the terms used to describe the term legend in the Turkmen culture in the past with reference to the written sources belonging to the 11-17th centuries, the current terms used in return for legend in Turkmenistan based on the 20th century sources are discussed and the current situation regarding the naming of the Turkmen legends has been revealed. Later, based on the views of Russian and Turkmen scholars, the terms legenda, efsana and rovayat, which are used in return for the term "legend" in Turkmen, were evaluated and as a result, it was concluded that these concepts were used to meet the same folk literature genre. In addition, the necessity of using a single term that corresponds to the legend type in order to eliminate the confusion between the terms that has been going on for a long time is emphasized.