Archaic vocables in Ahmedî Dîvân

Language is the basis of communication, which has a history equivalent to the history of humanity and manifests itself in various forms. Just like the change and development of nature, humanity and social life, language also changes and develops accordingly. In this respect, it is possible to say that language is a living entity. For this reason, in order to understand a language, it is necessary to examine the process from the first period of its emergence to the last state of that language. Among the data obtained as a result of this examination, archaic words give us the most important clues about the history and development of that language. Studies on language contain deep information not only about the language itself, but also about the geography where that language is used, the society or societies that use that language, and the social lives and cultures of these societies. For these reasons, archaic words are the most important point of reference of language studies. Especially the first periods of Classical Turkish Literature which are 14th-15th centuries are very rich periods in terms of the use of the aforementioned archaic words, as the centuries are the transition centuries between Old Anatolian Turkish and Ottoman Turkish. In this respect, these centuries are very important because they provide so many resources for language studies. Ahmedî, one of the greatest poets of the mentioned centuries and a bridge poet between Old Anatolian Turkish and Ottoman Turkish, has been the mainstay of our study, especially because of the wide vocabulary he used in his Divan and the archaic words he frequently referred to. In our study, the latest edition of Ahmedî's Dîvân that prepared by Assistant Professor Emrah GÜLÜM was used. In this publication, 864 poems with a total of 9110 couplets, 75 odes, 2 terciibent, 8 terkibbent, 1 muhammes and 778 ghazals, were meticulously examined and the archaic words in these couplets were presented by examining them in terms of form and meaning. Anahtar Sözcükler: Language, Ahmedî's Dîvân, archaic words, Old Anatolian Turkish, Ottoman Turkish.