Material nogajskogo âzyka v slovare Petra Simona Pallasa (1787-1789) : k ètnolingvističeskoj identifikacii

The matererial of the Nogai language in the dictionary of Peter Simon Pallas (1787-1789) : towards ethnolinguistic identification

This article is devoted to the lexis of the Nogai language recorded in the 18th-century dictionary of P.S. Pallas, Sravnitel’nyje slovari vsex jazykov i narečij [Comparative Dictionaries of All Languages and Dialects] (1787-1789). Pallas, an outstanding German zoologist and botanist, participant of numerous expeditions in the eastern provinces of the Russian Empire, became the editor of the dictionary on the order of Empress Catherine II. The classification system and nomenclature used by him show the 18th-century state of knowledge about the internal diversity of Turkic languages, whose speakers inhabited the territory of the Russian Empire. The Nogai language stands out from other Kipchak languages due to phonetic features that show both similarities and differences from the Turkic language family. The analysis of the collected lexical resource in connection with ethnographic data allowed for the identification of the recorded language.