A Comparative Analysis of Somatic Units in Devonu Lug‘otit Turk and Modern Uzbek Language

Abstract

Somatic vocabulary forms one of the most ancient and universal layers of human language, reflecting how societies conceptualize the human body and its symbolic meanings. Mahmud al-Kashgari’s Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk (11th century) serves as the earliest and mo[st comprehensive source for Turkic somatic lexicon, preserving numerous body-related terms that continue to exist, though transformed, in modern Turkic languages, particularly Uzbek. In spite of this significance of somatic lexemes in linguistic and cultural changes, comparative research studies focused on semantic and phonetic isomorphism of these lexemes from Old Turkic to modern Uzbek are rare. The study will examine 115 somatic lexemes from this 11th/12th century text (Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk), comparing them with modern forms in Uzbek to identify lexemes preserved or transformed, archaic or obsolete, and to explore patterns of linguistic continuity and change. The dissection of this type showed that some somatic units such as til (tongue), tish (tooth), ko‘z (eye) preserved their original forms and meanings, whereas others were phonetic shifting (e.g. baş → bosh, boğuz → bo‘g‘iz), archaic or obsolete due to narrowing content (see Semantics in the theory of linguistic signs in Feuda 1924) and cultural reasons. Here the work outlines a systematic classification of somatic lexemes that preserves the division between conservation and change in Uzbekistan tools, as well as their chronological development through the centuries. The findings contribute to historical lexicology and comparative Turkic linguistics, offering insights into how somatic vocabulary encapsulates both linguistic stability and cultural adaptation within the Turkic language continuum.