Mahmud al-Kashgari wrote his dictionary of the Turkic languages in Arabic between 1073 and 1077. It records several Turkic words for feasts.[1] Küdän is the wedding feast.[2] Soγdič is a feast that went round the people in winter, one household after another.[3] Kästäm is a feast prepared for drinkers who come to a man without formal arrangement.[4] The Oghuz called a festival day bayram, because it is a day of joy and pleasure.[5] The words belong to the Turkic peoples of the eleventh century among whom Kashgari gathered his material. No text of the Göktürk period names them.

The wedding feast

Kashgari glosses küdän with the Arabic walīma, the wedding feast.[2] On the same page kälin is the bride.[2] The dictionary does not describe the feast itself. Other entries, however, name what went with a wedding. Egät is the maidservant sent with the bride on the night of the nuptial procession to serve her.[6] Didim is the crown that the bride wears on that night.[7] Dīdäk is the curtain of a litter, by which the bride is always hidden from strangers when she leaves.[8] In the Čigil dialect mandiri is the room in which bride and groom are brought together at night, while the people shower them with coins.[9]

The guests received gifts.[10] Kädüt is a word for an item of clothing that was normally confined to weddings. At a wedding the relatives of the groom and the bride put on a certain garment in their honour.[11] Kädüt berdi means “he gave him a garment of honour”.[11] Bičiš is a piece of brocade given to the guests at the feasts of nobles and at wedding feasts.[10]

The winter feast

Soγdič is the name of a feast that circulates among the people in winter, in succession.[3] The entry gives no more than this.[1] The feast passed from one household to the next. Each household in turn was host.[3] A verse in praise of a man remembers him as one who often spread the table in the bitter cold of winter.[12] Tergi uruldi means “the table was set”.[13]

Invitations and feasts without them

A feast could be called for.[6] Oqut is an invitation or summons, to a meal or to a sultan.[6] A relative who had come from far away had to give a party for his kinsmen and others before he could go home.[14] After he had given them gifts, he received permission to leave. The meal was called bošuγ aši, “the food of permission”.[14] Bošuγ is also the leave that a ruler grants to a messenger sent to him. It is also the gift he gives the messenger.[14]

Kästäm is the opposite case. It is a feast that a man prepares for drinkers who come to him without formal arrangement.[4] The dictionary also names the drinks.[1] Qimiz is kumys, mare’s milk poured into skins, fermented and drunk.[15] Buxsum is millet beer.[4] The people of the Īla valley, the Yaγma, Tuxsi and Čigil, called wine qizil süčig, “red drink”.[8]

Guests

A house with guests is qonuqluγ äw. A guest house is qonuqluq äw.[16] Another name for the guest house is kälišlig barišliγ äw, “the house of coming and going”.[17] A verse that Kashgari quotes measures the present against the past by its guests.[18] “Gone are the men who, when they found a guest, used to reckon him as good luck,” it says.[18] Left are those who tear down their tents when they see a waymark stone or a scarecrow in the desert, for fear that it might stop with them as a guest.[18]

Festival days and merrymaking

Baḏram is joy and laughter among the people.[5] When the ground has blossomed with flowers, it is called baḏram yēr, “pleasant ground”.[5] Kashgari did not know the origin of the word. He had heard it from Persians.[5] The Oghuz, however, called a festival day bayram, since it is a day of joy and pleasure.[5] He explains that the Oghuz changed the ḏ into y, as was their custom. He concludes that from this point of view the word must be pure Turkic.[5]

A verse that Kashgari introduces as “describing a festival” uses the same word.[19] “We’ll put the youths to work,” it runs; “we’ll have them shake trees and fruits; we’ll have them hunt the wild ass and other wild beasts; while we occupy ourselves with merrymaking for a few days.”[19] The festival of the verse lasted several days. The young men brought in the fruit and the game for it.[19]

Feasts in the Kutadgu Bilig

The Kutadgu Bilig, finished at the same court a few years before the dictionary, names the occasions on which a man is invited to a meal. These are the wedding feast, küden aşı, the feasts of a circumcision and of the birth of a son, the funeral feast, yoğ aşı, and the feast of a man who has received a rank.[20] The host serves sweetmeats and fruit, dried and fresh. He sends his guests away with gifts: silk where he can afford it, and the “tooth-rent”, tiş teri, so that no quarrel arises.[21]

The record

Kashgari gives words and short glosses, not descriptions of the feasts. The wedding feast, the winter feast and the feast for unexpected drinkers stand in the dictionary as names with a line of explanation each. For the feasts of the Göktürks, four and five centuries earlier, the record comes from foreign guests at the khans’ courts. For the Turkic peoples of the eleventh century it comes from the words of their own language.

References

  1. ^ a b c Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk
  2. ^ a b c Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 308
  3. ^ a b c Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 341
  4. ^ a b c Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 360
  5. ^ a b c d e f Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 359
  6. ^ a b c Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 98
  7. ^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 303
  8. ^ a b Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 310
  9. ^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 366
  10. ^ a b Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 283
  11. ^ a b Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 277
  12. ^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 410
  13. ^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 192
  14. ^ a b c Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 286
  15. ^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 282
  16. ^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 369,374
  17. ^ Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 285
  18. ^ a b c Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 121
  19. ^ a b c Dīvān Lughāt al-Turk; al-Kāshgharī 1072–1074, p. 226
  20. ^ Kutadgu Bilig; Dankoff 1983, couplets 4575–4577
  21. ^ Kutadgu Bilig; Dankoff 1983, couplets 4659–4661

Sources

Literature

  • Maḥmūd al-Kāshgharī, Dīwān Lughat al-Turk (1072–1074)

Related

What links here1

Customs & Pastimes
Culture of the Turkic Peoples

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Feasts in Kashgari's Dictionary.” Turkic Atlas, revised 7 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/customs/feasts-in-kashgari/

Last revised: 7 November 2026