A Note on Turkic Lexical Elements in the Slovo o polku Igoreve and the Zadonščina

Abstract

While the literature on Turkic loan words in the "Slovo o polku Igoreve" is an important contribution to the study of Turkic loan words in Russian, Turkologists, until recently, had not paid attention to the presence of Turkic loan words in "Zadonščina". The existence of these lexical elements in the "Zadonščina", however, sheds light on the question (which played a critically important role in the recent controversy over the authenticity of the "Slovo") of the chronological relationship between the "Zadonščina" and the "Slovo". The juxtaposition of Altaic (Turkic) loan words found in the "Zadonščina" compared with the Turkic lexis of the "Slovo" shows that the "Zadonščina" is a secondary work, dependent on the "Slovo".