STATUS OF THE KYPCHAK LANGUAGE IN MAMLUK EGYPT: LANGUAGE-BARRIER OR LANGUAGE-CONTACT?

The purpose of the study is to determine the status of the Kypchak language in the political, social and intellectual history of Egypt during the period of Mamluks’ rule. To clarify the situation, we have made an overview of the few primary and secondary sources that deal with the functioning of the Turks’ language and the analysis of its role and place in the Egyptian medieval society from the historical, religious and cultural positions. Metaphorically, the Kypchak language was the barrier language separating the social group of former slaves from the local population of Egypt and providing the right to a special position, up to the possibility of occupying the highest office of power. It also helped not to dissolve in a much larger society of Egyptians and to maintain the identity, the main component of which it was. However, the dominance of the military caste of the Mamluks did not engender language conflicts in medieval Egypt. Despite the cultural differences between the social groups the Turkic military elite and the bulk of the Egyptian population, the devaluation of local dialects and languages has not occurred. Moreover, the Mamluk rulers have even strengthened the status of the Classical Arabic by their strong support of the material and spiritual Islamic culture and infrastructure. However, the Kypchak language did not lose its positions remaining the language of communication not only of the Turks but also of the Türkicized Caucasian and Mongolian ethnic groups. We believe that the study of the language of the medieval Turkic world can be more productive if we include an interdisciplinary approach to the methodology of its study and not only Eastern but European sources as well. KEYWORDS

facilitate communication between the Mamluks and their subjects and servants. Although the Mamluk elite was ethnically diverse, those who were not of Turkic origin were nevertheless turkicized. Even Circassian warriors, who gained fame with the emergence of the Burji dynasty and became the dominant ethnic element in power, were educated in the Turkic language and were considered Turks by the Egyptian Arab-speaking population.
Some of the amirs plunged deeply into the Arab culture, writing poems, historical works, and treatises on "furusiyya" (chivalry). There were among them those who were interested in Hanafi or Shafi jurisprudence or hadithology. However, a deeper perception of Arab culture is more characteristic of the fifteenth century than of the early periods [3].
So, Sultan Kaytbai (1418 -1496) a highly cultured ruler of Circassian origin wrote religious poetry in Arabic and Turkic, as well as his son Muhammad ibn Kaytbai, who ruled from 1496 to 1498, and some other sultans and amirs [4].
Nevertheless, in the official sphere, some sultans continued to ignore Arabic and preferred to use an interpreter to translate their Turkic speeches. Even towards the end of the Mamluk period, during the reign of the last sultan al-Ghawri (1501-1516), the Mamluk, called Asanbay min Sudun, copied the religious Hanbali tract of Abu al-Layth in Kypchak language for the royal library. Thus, for more than two and a half centuries the Kypchak language has not lost its relevance among the Mamluks. Among the sultans and emirs of Bahri dynasty, a sense of pride and belonging to the Turkic Kypchak roots was especially cultivated. Ethnic consciousness was reinforced by cultural differences from members of other social groups of Egyptian society, with whom they had to engage in interaction. Obviously, ethnic origin was a key component of Mamluk's individual personality, because ethnic identity was not simply manifested through names and clothes, but, more importantly, gave access to administrative positions [5].
Abu Hayyan al-Gharnati (1256-1344) a grammarian, linguist, and a poet, who produced verses in Turkic and Persian, compiled his famous work "Al-Idrak li-Lisan al-Atrak" as an exposition of the Turkic language as it was spoken in Cairo. Bärkä Faqih's translation of part of "Khusraw and Shirin" from Persian into Kypchak Turkic in 1386 was the first work of high literature to be produced in the Mamluk lands. A few years later Sayfi Sarayi, the most prominent writer of Turkic verse to reside in Egypt translated Saadi's "Gulistan" into Kypchak language.
Sayf al-Din Sarghitmish al-Nasiri, one of the amirs and a fanatical partisan for the Hanafi madhhab, founded a Hanafi madrasah that became a magnet for theologians-"fuqaha" from all over the Turkic-speaking world [3]. All the above facts indicate that the Kypchak language remained a living, fundamental and demanded element of everyday life and local culture of the Mamluk community; it ensured the stable functioning of the constantly renewed military stratum of Egyptian society.
The sons and grandsons of the Mamluks -the so-called "awlad al-nas" -played a decisive role in the transformation of the Mamluk culture. They were intermediaries between the local educated stratum of scholars and writers and military nobility. The sons of the Mamluks usually did not hold positions in the military elite and instead often became part of the civil administration or the Muslim religious establishment. Among the most famous "awlad al-nas" were writers such as Ibn al-Dawadari, Nasir al-Din Muhammad ibn Jankali al-Baba, al-Safadi, Ibn al-Turkumani, Ibn Mangli, Ibn Sudun, Ibn Taghribirdi, and Ibn Iyas [6].
Judging by the writings of the generation of "awlad al-nas", which survived until today, they preserved the memory of their Mamluk roots and were ready to make the Turkic heritage the property of their new homeland [7].
The hybrid identity inherent in the "awlad al-nas", namely being a Turk and an Egyptian Muslim at the same time, is vividly represented in Abu Bakr ibn Abdallah ibn Aybak al-Dawadari (d. after 1336) and Jamal al-Din Yusuf bin al-Amir Sayf al-Din Taghribirdi (d. 1470). Both were proud of their belonging to the Turkic-Mongolian tradition and the Egyptian religious elite, and saw their mission in revealing the virtues and values of the Kypchak tradition, the legendary past of their ancestors. Objectively, they sought to remove from the Kypchak language the status of alienation, barbarism, to raise its significance in the cultural field. Nevertheless, given that culture in the Sultanate of that era was inseparable from religion, it can be stated that their attempts in the context of Egyptian society were doomed to failure. The orientation of the Mamluks in the study of the Arabic language was rather one-sided since there were very few non-Mamluks among the population of Egypt who sought to master the Turkic language, in which they did not feel the need. On the contrary, the existence of specialized centers for teaching the Arabic language and the Islamic sciences indicated to the ever-increasing desire of former slaves, constantly replenishing the Mamluk ranks, to master this second language.

№ 8(36), Vol.3, August 2018
But at the same time, within the Mamluk environment, another, equally interesting phenomenon, about which we have already mentioned, happened -the Kypchak language really turned into a language bridge, in which representatives of different ethnic groups participated.
Discussion. Languages evolve, grow, change, live and die. Naturally, they come into contact and interaction in those different historical and geographical contexts in which their carriers find themselves, and sometimes situations arise when the speakers of one language contribute to the preservation and prosperity of not only their native language but also a foreign language.
For the Egyptians, the Mamluks were foreigners in the language and by geographical and ethnic origin, but at the same time, they were defenders of Islam. They protected it from external threats, and were generous benefactors of religion, literature, architecture and fine arts, although Egyptian ulama and adibs considered them semi-literate barbarians and tyrannical rulers. The military Mamluk caste did not engender language conflicts in medieval Egypt; it is obvious that the habitus or "sense of their own place" of the first generations of Mamluks allowed them to dispense with their native language in everyday and professional spheres. In the period of XII-XV centuries, among the military groups in Egypt, Kypchak, Oguz, Karluk and Turkmen dialects were used, but the Kypchak language was a "lingua franca" for the representatives of different ethnic groups constituting the Mamluk army, turning it into a single monolithic structure, which allowed achieving high discipline and efficiency. Thus, the existence of a socio-political barrier was supplemented by a language barrier, which, however, was not insurmountable, at least for Turks. The adoption of Islam required them mandatory studies of the Arabic classical language and the foundations of religion. The Mamluks were motivated in this respect by personal piety or political expediency towards Islam, which was simultaneously an assimilating and unifying factor between the Mamluks and most of their subjects. Mamluk Egypt as the last major Islamic power was able to resist the Crusaders and the Mongols. Thus, the state and administrative activities of the Mamluk elite contributed not only to the preservation but also to the consolidation of the positions of the Arab classical language and the religious circles.
The increasing use of the Arabic language in social spheres by the generation of "awlad al-nas" allowed them to enter the religious community through the system of religious education. Because of the presence of intellectuals and aristocrats who spoke fluent Arabic and Turkic-Kypchak, and because of the preservation of the status of the palace and official language by the Kypchak language, the Turkic-Arabic bilingualism became more and more widespread. Government officials and judicial circles spoke in at least two languages, while ordinary locals spoke mainly in Egyptian Arabic dialect.
Egyptian identity, Islamic laws, and social values were not violated, just like the ethnic environment of the Mamluks, which was fueled by language, the flow of new slaves, and migration of relatives and oriented by political interests. However, the invasion of the religious element into the consciousness of new Muslims significantly influenced their identity, giving it a hybrid character, combining elements of Turkic thinking, culture and behavior with an Islamic religious foundation, fixed by that time by the long development of Islamic theology, legislation, the Koranic sciences and classical philology. The Turkic cultural heritage did not have such a degree of elaboration, order as an Arab heritage and was not sanctified by a strong monotheistic religion. History knows many examples of how the barbarians and pagans conquered the mighty empire, but culturally the invaders usually obeyed conquered people.
The language boundary, based on a special Turkic history, culture and heritage, became thinner with the continuous disappearance of this alienation. The gradual adaptation of the Mamluk stratum into the environment, started in religious sphere, when paganism gave way to Islam, then in social and cultural -through marriages and the creation of families with Egyptian women, the gradual adoption of alien culture, and finally, through the recognition of the community of historical destiny, which was promoted by the strengthening of the state precisely as a Middle East bulwark of Islam, to resist the enemy in the west and east.
The elements of the original and genuine Turkic Mamluk culture were kept less and less. In addition, the ethnic composition of the Mamluks was gradually expanding due to captives of Caucasian and Mongol origin. All of them communicated among themselves in the Kypchak language but still had a different cultural foundation. Few Mamluks managed to preserve their national traditions, living in a new environment that was generally hostile to the Turkic-Caucasian-Mongolian heritage, ruled solely by the postulates of Islam and relied on its rich cultural background. Nevertheless, the social order in the military layer was still based on the system that was established in the earliest period of the Mamluks' rule, and then the group was required to maintain this order and function as the materialization of collective memory, reproduce the achievements of its predecessors. The group intention to preserve its existence, to ensure its reproduction and social functioning led in a linguistic context to giving the Kypchak language the role of the "cementing factor" and universal tool, which ensure the effective communication within this multiethnic social structure. Thus, the