Abstract :
The article deals with the origin of the idiom ant içmek ‘to swore, to take an oath’, certain idioms based on the word naks ‘design; chance’ and expressions that literally means ‘one was (and) one was not’. Their common feature is that they concern mythology and folklore. All of them are of Mesopotomian origin. The etymology of the idiom ant içmek ‘to swore’ (lit. ‘to drink an oath’) is connected with an ancient oath tradition, mentioned in Babylonian, Hitit, Persian, Hebrew and Chinese sources. Within this tradition, which was popular in a wide geography including the territories populated by the Turks, the juror swallowed a substance at the time of the oath. It was believed that the substance would be destructive for the juror in the case of perjury. In the article, the origin of the mythological term naks that is seen in certain idioms and proverbs of Turkic languages and the languages of neighbourting peoples is connected with Giš-ḫur (‘lit. design; plan’), the name of a supernatural force in Sumerian mythology. The starting formula of folktales “one was (and) one was not” (bir varmıs, bir yokmus; biri vardı, biri yoxdu; bolganmıdı bolmaganmıdı; yeki bud, yeki ne bud; kân yâ mâ kân etc.) which is popular in Central Asia, Caucasia, Middle East and Anatolia was also firstly attested in Sumerian texts.
Keywords :
common language elements , idiom , starting formulas of folktales , mythology , origin
