İbrahim Sabah Kasım Irak Türkmen Türkçesi Dakuk İlçesinde Kır Bitki İsimleri (Dil İncelemesi)

Abstract

The dialect spoken by Iraqi Turkmens belongs to the Azerbaijani Turkish dialect group within the eastern branch of the Southwestern Oghuz Group. Iraqi Turkmens are Oghuz people who migrated from Central Asia. In written language, Turkmens use Turkish rather than their spoken dialects.

As Turkmens interact with their surroundings in their new living areas, they update their knowledge of plant varieties. While preserving the old Turkish plant names they have traditionally used, they have occasionally adopted Arabic or Persian names for new species. In some cases, they have even created new terms that align with their linguistic structure.

This study compiles old plant names used in the Dakuk district within Iraqi Turkmen dialects and aims to examine them comparatively with their equivalents in Turkish and Old Turkish. Iraqi Turkmens have adapted borrowed Persian and Arabic words to fit their phonetic characteristics. Consequently, these loanwords have undergone phonetic changes, including sound shifts, elisions, additions, and semantic shifts.

Key words: Iraqi Turkmen, Dakuk, Oghuz, plant names, loanwords.