Oriental names of fabrics in medieval Avar poetry

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of eastern borrowings in medieval Avar poetry related to the names of fabrics. The relevance of the topic is due to the fact that most of the specified terminology has become outdated vocabulary, and it is not included in the dictionaries of Dagestan languages. The information contained in dictionaries of obscure words given in collections of medieval poetic texts does not adequately clarify the meaning of Eastern terms   To study the topic, we used folk lyrical and heroic songs, poetic works of the famous classics of Avar poetry Mahmud from Khahabroso and Tazhudin (Chanka), rich in eastern borrowings. The presented work contains excerpts of these works with interlinear translation into Russian. The translations are provided with the necessary comments. The article clarifies the features of the functioning of eastern names of fabrics in medieval Avar poetry. The meanings of eastern fabrics are determined, which in the Avar language have the linguistic forms darai, zarbal, sandus, khara, chilla, qatipa, shal, khatay, makhmal. To accomplish this task, reference literature in Persian and Arabic was used. In addition to their nominative function, borrowings perform cognitive, expressive-evaluative, style-forming functions, and reflect the socio-cultural environment and era. The fact that the images depicted in the above verses are not a figment of the artistic imagination of poets, not fictional characters, but real people from whom portrait sketches were made, gives a documentary quality to the descriptions. The costumes of the characters in folk songs and poetic works of Avar poets of the 19th – early 20th centuries reflect the historical era and the characteristics of the national culture. The conducted research will help a correct understanding of medieval Avar poetry, and can also be useful in compiling dictionaries of eastern borrowings for literary Avar texts.

Keywords:

Dagestan, names of fabrics, etymology, language contacts, Avar folk lyrics, poetry