On the Sociolinguistic Origins of the term Qazaq: A Proposal for an Alternative Etymology of ‘Cossack’/‘Kazakh’ and an Argument for the Analytical Usefulness of Register in Historical Linguistics

Abstract

Although the word qazaq is widely agreed to be the common ancestor of both ‘Cossack’ and ‘Kazakh’, there remains uncertainty about qazaq’s etymology. This paper proposes that qazaq originated as a variant of the central Turkic etymon qaç(g)aq and thus derives from the Common Turkic root qaç- (‘flee’). The paper draws on data generated through the traditional methods of historical linguistics—the comparative method and philological analysis—in conversation with recent work in anthropological and sociolinguistics on the concept of linguistic ‘register’ to better theorize qazaq’s historical development and the variation in its forms and meanings.