Stereotype-Archetype- Prototype chain and Historical Semiotics of some Azerbaijani literary terms

Abstract

Words, like peoples, travel through their own evolutionary path, which can be retraced in one way or another. Like families and tribes, the words acquiring new shades of meaning crossbreed with other interpretations in fresh soil. Later these shades spill out into new words which, at the first glance, have nothing in common with the previous meaning of their progenitor; for example, the lexical series – semeni-sema-semela-zemlya – where each word appears to be original, however different cultures enter in new semiotic dimensions through interpretation and translation. So, interpreting individual words in translation without any knowledge of their cultural context leads to contradictions. They are evidence of cultural interweaving between far and close people and regions, and the Caucasian people are the important medium in this whirlpool of transfers of ideas, terms, and beliefs. In this work I suggest retracing the path of several literary terms or words, closely related to literary context of Azerbaijani and Turkish literary studies, such as ghazal, khamsa, kitab, şeir, ozan-hazzanutu, ədəbiyyat, which are not mentioned (as well as other appropriate terms from other eastern cultures) in the Western textbooks.