"MUHOKAMAT UL-LUGHATAYN" AND ITS ROLE IN THE FORMATION OF TURKIC LANGUAGE THEORY

Abstract

. This article examines Alisher Navoi's treatise "Muhokamat ul-Lug'atayn" ("Judgment of the Two Languages"), written in the late fifteenth century, as a foundational work in the theoretical study of the Turkic (Chagatai) literary language. The study analyzes Navoi's comparative methodology, his critique of the linguistic hierarchy that privileged Persian over Turkic in literary and official circles, and his systematic argumentation for the expressive and semantic superiority of the Turkic language. The article further explores the literary imagery employed in the treatise, particularly Navoi's discussion of youth and poetry, and situates the work within the broader intellectual tradition of Timurid Central Asia. Drawing on the original text and secondary scholarship, it is argued that "Muhokamat ul-Lug'atayn" represents not only a polemical defense of Turkic but also one of the earliest examples of systematic comparative linguistics in the Eastern scholarly tradition. The work continues to hold methodological relevance for contemporary Uzbek and Turkic linguistic studies.