Söylem Filoloji Dergisi

Öz

The period known as Old Uyghur Turkish, which has a privileged place in terms of the works produced in the Old Turkish period, reveals many linguistic features of Turkish. The idioms köŋül örit- and köŋül turgur- encountered in Old Uyghur texts are one of the important forms of expression specific to this period. The idiom köŋül örit- is recorded with the meaning of ‘to develop a thought’ and köŋül turgur- is recorded with the meaning of ‘to nurture an intention’ in the work titled Eski Türkçenin Deyim Varlığı. However, in the scanned texts, it was observed that these idioms are synonyms and close meanings, and accordingly, they are often used interchangeably in the texts. The verbs örit- and turgur-, which constitute the idiom, also form a doubling within themselves and express the meaning of ‘emergence, bringing into being’, a meaning that is not shown in the sources where the doublings are compiled. In the texts, it was observed that the idioms köŋül turgur-, köŋül örit- are generally conveyed as developing a thought, revealing a mentality. The translations made from Chinese and Sanskrit during the Uyghur period and the relationship of the word köŋül with mind and heart in these languages caused some problems in determining the meaning of this idiom in Uyghur. Based on the context, it was observed that the idioms were used in some texts in the sense of ‘revealing a feeling-feeling’. The meanings of ‘give heart’, ‘intend’ and ‘raise’, which appear according to the use of idioms, emerged according to the structures used before the idioms themselves. According to this, the meaning of idioms is shaped according to the elements used before them, after the words that take case suffixes, after the structures reporting cause and effect and according to the word in the object position used before it.