Al-Farabi KazNU scholars conducted research on ancient Turkic toponyms in France

Shadkam Zubaida, Director of the Research Center “Written Monuments and Spiritual Herıtage” of Farabi University, and senior researcher Omir Tuyakbayev, visited Paris, France, on a research trip from November 11 to 21, 2025. The trip was carried out within the framework of the scientific project “BR24993043 Ancient Turkic Toponyms in Chinese and Other Eastern Sources – One of the Foundations of Modern Turkic Integration: Historical-Etymological and Linguistic Perspectives.” The main goal of the visit was to conduct archeographic studies of ancient written sources and to collect materials necessary for the project.

During their work in major libraries and archival collections of Paris, the scholars identified materials previously unknown to the academic community and relevant to the project’s topic. They also conducted linguistic and historical-etymological analyses of ancient toponyms found in these sources, paying special attention to the semantic and historical transformations of onomastic names. The findings contributed valuable new data that help clarify the historical geography of the Turkic peoples.

The research results demonstrated that toponyms preserved in ancient maps are of great importance for determining the Turkic cultural and geographic area. The scholars noted changes in several toponyms in historical works of the Timurid period, as well as frequent cases of Turkicized forms of river and city names originally found in Persian sources but appearing differently in later Timurid and Shaybanid texts. Based on these findings, it was emphasized that a systematic study of written sources from the 15th to 18th centuries should become a key direction in future research.

N.N. Kairanbayeva