Nomadic Place Names

Abstract

This paper considers some toponyms of the Republic of Kazakhstan as the cultural, historical, and linguistic heritage of nomads and labels them the nomadic toponymic sphere. An in-depth study of nomadic toponyms assisted in finding new nomadic types of comonyms like “qystaus” and “zhailaus”, which were characterized here as unique time- and space-bound nomadic types of comonyms by means of explanatory research. It also revealed that existing definitions of “qystaus” and “zhailaus” do not correspond to the nature of these nomadic comonyms, which differentiate the toponymic sphere of nomadic culture from that of sedentary culture. A detailed etymological analysis of nomadic place names revealed that they primarily served descriptive and informative purposes. In addition, etymological analysis showed some main mechanisms of naming the geographical objects used by nomads who once lived in Central Asia. Further, these mechanisms served as the base that was used to classify nomadic place names into the five groups.

Received: 20 September 2022 / Accepted: 27 December 2022 / Published: 5 January 2023