CONCEPT OF THE “NATIVE LAND”: HISTORICAL-CULTURAL MARKER OF TURKISH GEORGIANS

Abstract

In the linguistical literature, there is established view that the culture can be determined by the memory. People regard themselves as belonging to the culture, to which they are related by their origin, place of residence, upbringing, traditions and language. Concept that is the subject of linguoculturological studies, contains the lexemes, meanings of which result from national-lingual consciousness and they form the native speakers’ worldview. The work provides discussion of the lexical units denoting the concept of “native land” in the language of Georgians forcedly displaced to Turkey in 80s of 19^th century, by generalization of which, in some way, ethnocultural identification of Georgians from Turkey at emotional level is possible.

The work relies on the materials collected in the course of fieldworks in the villages of Inegol District, at different times, as well as the examples from the scientific literature and fiction.

The studies showed that the Turkish Georgians use only two lexemes of Arabian origin to denote the concept of “native land”: “Memleket” and “Vatan”, thus distinguishing the genetic / historical and the other / “acquired” native land.

They refer to their genetic/historical native land, Georgia using the lexeme “Memleket” and the other / “Acquired” native land – Turkey as “Vatan”.

In our opinion, choice of the mentioned lexemes is based, primarily, the human context and further – etymology of the world. Cause of this is the high degree of emotional perception of the words as such.

 Keywords: Turkish Georgians, concept “native land”, muhajir, historical memory.

Lexemes: Memleket, Vatan.