Common Lexis for Headgears and Adornments in Khalkha, Buryat, and Kalmyk

Abstract

The article deals with the lexis denoting headgears and ornaments in the major Mongolic languages, such as Khalkha, Buryat, and Kalmyk. Due to the fact that no profound research in the field had been carried out, it appeared necessary to have a closer look at the subject in question. The main goal of the study was to find out which of the terms for headgears and ornaments were indigenous to the Mongolic languages and which of them had been borrowed from others. It was relatively easy to trace the origin of the words already described in the dictionaries and scholarly works. For instance, the word малгай ‘hat, headgear’ is unilaterally defined as an indigenous Mongolian word, and its variations can be found in the majority of modern Mongolic languages and dialects. The names of several headgears worn by lamas apparently derive from Tibetan - шанам ཞྭ་སྣམ་ zhwa snam ‘woolly felt of yellow or red of which lam caps are made’; шашир (шасир) ཞྭ་སེར་ zhwa ser ‘yellow hat’; гомшоо སྒོམ་ཞྭ་ sgom zhwa ‘meditation hat’. Such words as лоовууз ‘fur hat’, юүдэн ‘hood’, жинс ‘jewel or bead on a Qing official’s hat that indicates his rank’, found in Khalkha, are clearly of Chinese origin. In some particular cases it was quite difficult to find the exact matches for the Chinese borrowings. Thus, no matches for the words as follows were discovered: лоовууз ‘fur hat’, юүдэн ‘hood’, сампин ‘knot on top of a traditional Mongolian hat’, бонс ‘the biggest of the rosary beads’, and гуу ‘charm-box’ (or is it Tibetan ka’u?), though the article suggests some versions of their Chinese counterparts. The most complicated task was to identify Turkic borrowings from indigenous Mongolic words later borrowed by Turks. In many cases, it is not clear whether those were Mongols who borrowed this or that word from Turks or those were Turks who borrowed that particular word from Mongols. Following the suit of the previous researchers, when it comes to the supposedly Turkic borrowings, the paper carefully offers to compare the Mongolic and the Turkic version of the word, e. g. the Mongolian boγtu ‘tall hat worn by married women’ and the Turkic boγtak ‘tall decorated hat’. All in all, indigenous Mongolic words are well interlaced with Chinese, Tibetan, and Turkic borrowings which shows that Mongols have had their own culture of making and wearing headgears, but, on the other hand, quite a large number of loanwords in this lexical group implies its proneness to outer influence.