Lexical Syncretism in Classical Chagatai Poetry: The Use of Common Turkic Words in the Ghazals of Atoiy

The classical ghazal, originally a Persian literary form, was deeply integrated into the Chagatai-Turkic literary tradition, bringing with it a heavy Perso-Arabic lexical and stylistic influence.  However, the enduring vitality of Turkic poetry lies in its ability to synthesize these “high” literary  loanwords with native, Common Turkic vocabulary. This paper examines the use of Common Turkic  words in three specific ghazals by the classical poet Atoiy.