PRAGMATIC ADAPTATION OF ARABIC LEXIS IN THE INTERLINEAR MANUSCRIPT KITAB MUQADDIMA

Abstract

The article examines the pragmatic adaptation of Arabic lexis in the Mamluk-Kipchak lines of the bilingual manuscript Kitab Muqaddima by Abu al-Layth al-Samarqandi, preserved in the Ayasofya Collection of the Süleymaniye Manuscript Library in Istanbul under the shelfmark MS 1451.

The study is relevant because the manuscript reveals not only the lexical transfer of Arabic religious terms into the Turkic-speaking environment, but also the mechanism by which an Islamic normative text was pragmatically adapted for a recipient who thought and learned in the Kipchak language. The aim of the study is to reveal the linguistic mechanism through which Islamic norms are represented in Kitab Muqaddima. The material comprises fragments containing Arabic lines and Kipchak glosses.

Methods include textual description, semantic-pragmatic analysis, comparison of Arabic and Kipchak lines, and elements of conceptual modeling. The study analyses the imperative constructions namaz qylyñ and zekat beriñ together with the lexemes فرض (duty, obligation), دعاء (supplication, prayer), غیب (the unseen), جنّة (paradise), ذكر (dhikr), and شر / خیر (good and evil). Findings show that the translation does more than convey textual content and explain religious terminology: the Kipchak line constructs a linguistic model of religious norms oriented towards a Turkic-speaking recipient. Of particular importance is the rendering of Arabic second-person plural imperative verb forms through Kipchak analytical constructions formed with the verbs qyl and ber, likewise marked for the second-person plural. This grammatical correspondence preserves the collective orientation of the religious injunction while expressing it through Turkic verbal models of concrete action. Consequently, the Islamic norm appears not only as a general religious principle, but also as a practical instruction in which doctrinal meaning takes the form of an executable action. The proposed model may be applied to the description of medieval Turkic Islamic written monuments, religious terminology, and mechanisms of cultural adaptation in Arabic-Islamic discourse.

Keywords: theolinguistics, Kitab Muqaddima, pragmatic adaptation, religious discourse, imperative constructions.