DIWANU LUGATI’T-TURK AND CONTEMPORARY LINGUISTICS

Abstract

The branches of linguistics such as Sociolinguistics and Applied Linguistics
are relatively young disciplines compared to the much older fields of linguistics
such as General Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, and Theoretical Linguistics. 1
These new disciplines have not only brought new dimensions to linguistics, but
have also expanded our general understanding of the world languages. In this
article, I will attempt to evaluate both the approaches and techniques that had been
employed in the composition of the eleventh century Turkic dictionary Diwanu
Lugati’t-Turk (DLT) by Mahmud Kashghari (1072-1077).2 To undertake this task,
I will examine this work consistent with the most recent approaches in Applied
Linguistics and Sociolinguistics.