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Kirghiz Proverbs from the Sphere of Family Life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
The people living in the Turkestan steppe region and usually known as “Kirghiz” call themselves “Kazakh”, and they are by customs and dialect different from their Turco-Tatar relatives who lead a half-nomadic life in the Tien Shan and in the Pamir Alay Mountains of Central Asia and who, though recorded in Western literature as “Buruts” or “Karakirghiz“, are the real Kirghiz. As they are one of the earliest known Turco-Tatar tribes, both the language and history of this little people merit some attention, all the more because since the foundationof the Kirghiz Socialist Soviet Republic (in 1924) the language has become aliterary one and, together with social and economic life, has developed a good deal.
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1948
References
page 134 note 1 According to the census of 17th January, 1939, in the U.S.S.R. there are 884,306 Kirghiz; their number in Chinese Turkestan may be estimated at half a million.
page 135 note 1 kyBθlyy “having witnesses” from ky Bo(<Pers. guwáh) “witness”.
page 135 note 2 BijBice (arch.) “the eldest of the wives, the first wife; mistress of the house”.
page 135 note 3 Bljla “to tie; to fat (because the cattle they wish to fatten are not allowed to run about)”.
page 136 note 1 eçeke is a pet form for eçe “the elder sister; the elder wife (with regard to the younger one)”.
page 136 note 2 qalp (<Arab, qalb “inversion, transposition”) “a lie”, qalp ajt- “to tell lies”.
page 136 note 3 qanbrbṣ “not well listening”, of. also qanbraq “a man with a defect of speech and hearing”, qanbrt taBbṣ “loud from afar”, qanbrt uojulat “it is scarcely heard from afar”.
page 137 note 1 aza (< Arab, 'azā) “mourning”, hence azadar (< Pers. 'azádár) “mournful”.
page 137 note 2 For the Bashkirs, e.g. it is recorded under No. 417 in the book Gabidov-Vildanov Boronojblardbn, hyððǝre (Bashkir, “Proverbs”), Moscow, 1924Google Scholar. Cf. Dmitrijev, N. K. “Proverbi dei Bāshqird“, Oriente Moderno, vii (1927), 4Google Scholar.
page 137 note 3 kylysten, kerysten from Persian gulistán, gúristán.
page 137 note 4 The grammatical construction of this phrase is rather difficult. We should expect alb qalat “the name of…remains” instead of alb qalBijt “the name of … does not remain”. Other examples of this kind have not yet occurred to me; the usual construction may be seen in the phrase: qbl dedirmejinceqbBlajt “unless you have him told to do it he does nothing”.
page 137 note 5 The common Turco-Tatar suffix + daṣ denoting a fellow, a companion reads + laṣ in Kirghiz, the l of which may change to d, t according to the phoneticlaws of this dialect. Cf. also proverb No. 69.
page 138 note 1 cij is a kind of steppe-grass (Lasiagrostis splendens) used for mats, especially for covering the frame-work of the tents.
page 137 note 2 qbrbm means “far apart, remote” in Kirghiz, cf. the proverb (32a) Quṣ Balasb çbrbmoja qarajt, it Balasb çbrbmoja qarajt “the hawk looks far away, the dog looks to the thong (he wishes to bite off)”. I am uncertain whether this Kirghiz word qbrbm takes its origin from Turkish Qbrbm “the Crimea” or whether the (hitherto unexplained) name of the Crimea may originate from qbrbm “*the remote town or country” which perhaps might be etymologically connected with the common Turco-Tatar qbrbj “bank, shore, beach; limit”; cf. Karaim ez kyryj “the native country”, jat kyryj “foreign country”, and kyryjdahy “the farthest”.
page 137 note 3 Kirghiz Boozu- <Boojaz + b- <Boojaz (Kirgh. Booz) “pregnant with child”.
page 137 note 4 The construction of the phrase requires the note that the genitive suffix (+ nbn; here + ibn after q) is appended to the short phrase enesi Boluṣcaaq. atasb Boluṣcaaq “her mother is charitable, his father is charitable”.
page 137 note 5 çete means the origin of a person, çetesiz is “without parents or relatives”, then “a child growing up without parental control”.
page 139 note 1 In Yudakhin's Dictionary we find the translation “a house with an old man does not lack superstitious beliefs” and indeed this may be correct with regard to the meaning of brbm “belief in supernatural things, superstition”. In the proverb (52a) brbsb çoqtun brbmb kyc “who has no luck has strong superstition” we find the two assonant words brbs and brbm side by side in a clearly distinct use. But viewing the fact that brbstuu “blessed, happy” and brbmduu “pleasant, agreeable” not only by formation but also in meaning come rather near to each other, I preferred to translate brbmsbz by “unpleasant” so that the proverbs Nos. 51 and 52 are essentially the same.
page 140 note 1 Cf. also (57a) çoo sbrbn çoo Bilet “(only) an enemy knows the enemy's secrets”. Terlcyn means the “relations of the wife” (the spelling türkün in the indexes of Káshghari's Díván ought to be corrected to törkün), cf. (57b) Buqada qajbn çoq, inekte terkyn çoq “the ox has no brother-in-law (brother of the wife), the cow has no relations”, and (57c) Çaman qatbn cbqqan çerin terkynsyjt “a bad wife does terkynsy- the place she has come to (by marriage)”, terkynsy- means “to have the same relations which a married woman has to her parents' house and country, i.e. only to pay short visits”.
page 141 note 1 Kirghiz, Teleut, Shor, etc., bş as well as Kazakh, Sagay, Koibal bs “smoke, soot” show that we ought to spell in the Káshgharí-indexes īş instead of iş. The first part of the above proverb is rather common, cf. (67a) Qazanoja çaqbn çyrse, keesy çuoyat “if one passes near the kettle, its soot sticks to him (= Uzbek qazanoja jaqbn jyrmǝ, qarasb juqar)”, whilst the second part is not clear to mǝ though Yudakhin gives the hint that the “maid” is the sister of the husband. I doubt whether kyj- is translated correctly; it means “to wait; to burn; to fade, to disappear; to trouble oneself, to care; to fall in love”, and if we prefer this last meaning we get “the maid who is near to the wife of the elder brother falls in love” (but with whom?).
page 141 note 2 aBbsbn is the term of affinity between the wives of two brothers; kyny means the affinity between the wives of one man. Cf. with Káshghari küni “a fellowwife” and the saying (68a) küniniņ küline tegi jaojb “hostile to the ashes of the fellow-wife”.