Reconstructing the linguistic and cultural models of womanhood across the Kazakh and Kyrgyz epic traditions — and the “mirror” correspondences between them.
L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University · Republic of Kazakhstan
The study addresses the understudied comparative analysis of traditional and innovative female figures in medieval Turkic literary monuments.
The conceptual content of female figures is examined from a cultural perspective, with attention to how linguistic means realise these images. The study focuses on literary works from the Kazakh and Kyrgyz traditions, analysing key models of female characters — the wife-advisor, the keeper of the home, the faithful wife, the prophetic woman, the warrior woman, the mother, and the sister. The research examines how these characters reflect the values and norms of the medieval Turkic world, highlighting their linguistic construction through portrait sketches, behavioural descriptions, and emotional expressions.
The main goal is to reconstruct the linguocultural models of female representation in medieval Turkic texts and to identify similarities and differences between Kazakh and Kyrgyz traditions. The study was carried out through the analysis of the Kazakh heroic epic Koblandy batyr, the Kyrgyz heroic epic Manas, and the chronicle novel The Nomads by the Kazakh writer I. Yesenberlin. The methods employed were linguocultural, conceptual, contextual, comparative, and synthetic — allowing the identification of the key models and conceptualisation of female images in both literatures.
“Mirror” correspondences are observed between Kazakh and Kyrgyz traditions in models such as the wife-advisor, keeper of the home, and faithful wife. Kanykay is distinguished as a composite figure combining wife and warrior features. Karlyga and Saikal, both warrior women, display divergent narrative trajectories: Karlyga transforms into a spouse, Saikal remains a maiden-heroine. The figure of Zhakhan is more complex, embodying both a warrior woman and a mother. These characters were depicted using metaphors, epithets, rhetorical devices, hyperbole, and symbolic imagery.
The comparative analysis revealed that Kazakh literature employs a broader and more nuanced set of linguistic tools, resulting in more elaborate and multidimensional female images. Recurrent plot elements — such as mourning after a hero’s death and female warriors engaging in heroic battles — further reinforce the linguistic and cultural proximity of the female images in both traditions. The findings are significant for understanding the role of women in medieval Turkic societies and offer a foundation for comparative studies across cultures and historical contexts.
Existing research focuses mainly on Europe; Turkic material remains underexplored. The historical, cultural, and linguistic proximity of the Kazakh and Kyrgyz peoples — alongside their original plot developments and conceptual content — makes their comparison relevant for both culture and linguistics.
For the first time, a comparative linguocultural analysis of female images in Kazakh and Kyrgyz medieval literary monuments is carried out on the basis of both conceptual and linguistic data. The study not only identifies key conceptual models but also systematises the lexical, morphological, syntactic, and stylistic mechanisms through which they are realised — introducing a unified framework for analysing their conceptual content in the Turkic cultural space.
Identify and classify the key conceptual models of female images in Kazakh and Kyrgyz literary monuments.
Describe the linguistic levels and mechanisms — lexical, morphological, syntactic, and stylistic — that shape these models.
Determine the parallels and divergences in the conceptual and linguistic representation of women across the two traditions.
Interpret the revealed features in the context of the Turkic cultural worldview and gender-role distribution in the Middle Ages.
Across these works, the interrelation between cultural and linguistic paradigms was examined through a combination of methods. Contextual analysis traced how emotionality, speech, and mental reactions reveal gender roles within monologues, laments, and portrait descriptions. Linguocultural analysis explored how cultural meanings are encoded in language; conceptual analysis identified the main models; and the analytical-synthetic method integrated results into stable cognitive and emotional patterns.
The analysis confirmed five major archetypal models — wisdom, agency, the hearth, the maternal voice, and faith — alongside the kinship role of the sister. Each is encoded through distinct linguistic mechanisms.
A culturally significant model of pragmatic femininity: female wisdom and counsel that supports the hero’s actions, realised through advisory dialogue and evaluative speech.
Courage, resolve, and active participation in heroic events. Crossing social and gender boundaries becomes a mark of strength and agency rather than transgression.
The guardian of family values and domestic order — the most frequent role in The Nomads. Linked to family roles, hospitality, and domestic counsel.
Endearment, repetition, and lamentation encode collective memory and the sacred function of the maternal voice — a linguistic ritual of grief and prophecy.
Prophetic dreams, omens, and steadfast loyalty. Through metaphors of constancy — “my silver is unbendable” — the woman embodies moral integrity.
Kinship attachment and family bonds, realised through expressive syntax and emotionally marked statements that situate the woman within the family.
Female figures are constructed through recurrent patterns: kinship-based forms of address, emotionally marked speech, animal and bodily metaphors, advisory speech, and lament. The original epic lines below carry these devices.
An affective vocative with an animal metaphor conveys attachment and moral support; the metaphor of silver symbolises firmness, loyalty, and a wise, steadfast spouse.
Images of wings, tail, and horse express closeness and inseparable connection; the parallel syntax creates an anaphoric effect of kinship devotion and emotional solidarity.
In dialogue with her husband she shares practical decision-making; the collective horse imagery conveys unity, while portrait epithets join natural imagery with aesthetic evaluation.
Introduced through episodes of independence and active participation; her attire reflects the material culture and aesthetic norms of the period. A hybrid image, uniting mother and warrior.
A rhetorical question draws attention to her unconventional nature, while hyperbole amplifies the epic magnitude of battle. The most multidimensional figure — strategist, caretaker, and prophetess.
She refuses Manas’s proposal, unwilling to interfere with his bond to Kanykay. Her autonomy and secret disappearance reinforce the diversity of female archetypes — independence and personal choice.
Across 33 contexts in The Nomads, each occurrence of a female character’s description, speech, or evaluative reference was treated as a separate analytical unit and classified by its dominant semantic and functional features.
Distribution across 33 analysed contexts (Figure 1)
Presence of linguistic tools across the two traditions (from Table 3)
The Kazakh tradition draws on the full range of tools, including epithet portraiture, monologue speech, and cultural image-symbols; the Kyrgyz corpus foregrounds metaphor, rhetoric, hyperbole, and comparison — a more functional, heroic register.
Central female archetypes correspond across the two traditions — wife-advisor, warrior, and mother — linguistically encoded through overlapping metaphorical and pragmatic models (Figure 2).
The mirror alignment confirms the systemic nature of gender conceptualisation across the Turkic cultural continuum. Together the traditions reveal a stable cognitive-linguistic matrix of womanhood as wisdom, agency, and sacrifice within the medieval epic worldview — shared through the kinship-vocative system, the animal–human metaphor, and the lament–prophecy discourse frame.
Three tables systematise the conceptual roles, the layers of character construction, and the comparative inventory of linguistic tools across the two traditions.
| Tradition | Work / Character | Dominant conceptual role | Linguistic realisation | Cultural function |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kazakh | Kurtyka Koblandy Batyr | Wife-advisor | Affective vocatives; advisory speech and evaluative expressions | Female wisdom supporting the hero’s actions |
| Kazakh | Karlyga Koblandy Batyr | Devoted / emotionally expressive woman | Metaphorical transfers involving animal imagery (“horse”, “wings”, “tail”); parallel syntactic constructions | Expression of loyalty and emotional solidarity |
| Kazakh | Karlygash Koblandy Batyr | Sister / family member | Expressive syntax; emotionally marked statements | Representation of kinship attachment and family bonds |
| Kazakh | Rabiu-Sultan-Begim The Nomads | Faithful wife / household adviser | Dialogic speech with the husband; evaluative descriptions; portrait epithets | Representation of family roles and domestic counsel |
| Kazakh | Zhahan The Nomads | Independent female character | Portrait descriptions; references to attire and appearance | Illustration of diverse female roles in the narrative |
| Kyrgyz | Kanykay Manas | Courageous and active female character | Emotional monologues; parallel constructions; rhetorical questions | Expression of determination and active participation in events |
| Kyrgyz | Saikal Manas | Autonomous female character | Dialogic statements expressing refusal of marriage | Representation of independence and personal choice |
Shared patterns include kinship-based forms of address, metaphorical transfers between animal and human domains, and emotionally marked speech such as laments. Kazakh texts more frequently emphasise domestic and relational contexts; Kyrgyz passages more often present women in heroic events and conflict.
| Linguistic tool / level | Description of linguistic realisation | Cultural & narrative function |
|---|---|---|
| Portrait sketches | Lexical and syntactic patterns describing appearance, attire, and external attributes (epithets, similes, evaluative adjectives). | Reflect aesthetic ideals and social characteristics in the narrative context. |
| Characterisation by others | In isolated cases, female characters are characterised through brief dialogic or narrative evaluations by the narrator or other characters. | Present social attitudes toward female characters and situate them within family and social relations. |
| Behaviour and actions | Narrative descriptions of actions and participation of female characters in events. | Illustrate the roles and involvement of female characters within the plot. |
| Emotional-state descriptions | Expressive syntax and lexical indicators of emotional states (vocatives, repetition, interrogative sentences). | Convey emotional reactions and personal attitudes of female characters. |
| Artistic speech techniques | Use of metaphor, parallel constructions, and expressive repetition in monologues and dialogues. | Enhance emotional expressiveness and emphasise key moments in speech. |
| Linguistic tool | Kazakh | Kyrgyz |
|---|---|---|
| Portrait characteristics using epithets | ✓ | ✕ |
| Metaphorical transfers | ✓ | ✓ |
| Rhetorical figures | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hyperbolisation, gradation | ✓ | ✓ |
| Monologue speech | ✓ | ✕ |
| Descriptive and comparative constructions | ✓ | ✓ |
| Introduction of linguistic and cultural image-symbols | ✓ | ✕ |
Kazakh and Kyrgyz epics exhibit mirrored systems of female imagery grounded in shared Turkic conventions. The conceptual field is more widely represented in the Kazakh tradition — despite the larger volume of the Kyrgyz epic — with greater emphasis on emotional expression through monologic speech. In Kyrgyz epics the images are less voluminous, except for Kanykay, who fuses the helper-wife and the warrior woman.
Against folklore studies that read women as passive and domestic, the Kazakh and Kyrgyz material shows the opposite trend: women help their husbands, make decisions at their own risk, and act as advisers and warriors. Even in medieval works there was already an understanding of woman as a strong, deep, and warlike personality.
The Turkic concept of “girl / young woman” is saturated with purity, loyalty, and honour, acquiring modern meanings of education and autonomy — aligning with characters who combine domestic and heroic traits in one semantic field.Shokym et al., 2022
Heroes in Turkic epics “cross the line” between moral poles. The same mechanism applies to women: crossing social and gender boundaries becomes a mark of strength and agency rather than transgression.Duman, 2020
Where modern Turkish culture stereotypes single and married women differently, the epic prototype blurs the boundary: the ideal woman is both independent and morally legitimate.Sakallı Uğurlu et al., 2021
The “warrior” metaphor frames agency and resistance; the Kazakh and Kyrgyz texts likewise foreground courage, resolve, and active participation, while bodily and nature imagery proves durable.Reali & Avellaneda, 2023 · Öcalan et al., 2025
Structures of endearment, repetition, and lamentation encode collective memory — corresponding to the laments of Kanykay and Analyk, where repetitive syntax and emotional rhythm form a ritual of grief and prophecy.Usenova, 2023
Pre-Islamic Turkic beliefs still inform visual and linguistic archetypes of women — from protective spirit to warrior guardian — making gender imagery a cognitive interface between myth, ethics, and identity.Ucan, 2024
Five major archetypal models were confirmed — the wife-advisor, the warrior woman, the keeper of the home, the mother, and the prophetic or faithful woman. The two traditions are closely related linguistically and conceptually, yet differ in stylistic expression.
Kurtyka and Rabiu-Sultan Begim combine the wife-advisor, keeper of the home, and faithful spouse — the Kazakh counterparts of Kanykay in the Kyrgyz tradition.
Analyk and Zhahan correspond to the archetype of the mother and protector, sharing conceptual similarities with Chiyyrda.
Karlyga and Saikal share a belligerent quality, yet diverge: Karlyga evolves into a wife, while Saikal retains the image of a maiden-goddess and warrior throughout the epic.
Zhahan is a hybrid of mother and warrior, while Kanykay is the most multidimensional figure — uniting strategist, caretaker, and prophetess in a single conceptual field.
Kazakh texts employ a broader, more diversified set of tools — epithets, animal–human and nature–human metaphors, rhetorical figures, gradation, hyperbole, and symbolic imagery.
Kyrgyz epics rely less on portrait description and symbolic detail — though Kanykay stands out for her linguistic richness and emotional depth.
The full bibliography of 35 works cited in the study.