𐰖𐰀𐰖

An inherited Turkic season name, from Proto-Turkic *yāy, originally meaning “summer”. This meaning is particularly clear in sources in which yay occurs alongside yaz “spring”, küz “autumn” and kış “winter”, as well as in derivatives referring specifically to summer pasturing.

In parts of the Turkic-speaking area, however, the semantic distinction between yay and yaz became unstable at an early date. As a result, yay is also attested with the secondary meaning “spring”. This usage occurs in a small number of Old Turkic passages and in Karakhanid, including the Dīvānu Lugāti’t-Türk, where both “summer” and “spring” are attested, as well as in some medieval Kipchak material. These occurrences are best understood as a secondary semantic development rather than as evidence that “spring” was the original meaning of the word.

In several modern Turkic languages, the competing word yaz expanded to denote “summer” and eventually replaced yay as the ordinary name of the season. Thus modern Turkish yaz, Kazakh jaz, Uzbek yoz, Nogai yaz, Crimean Tatar yaz and Uyghur yaz mean “summer”. In some of these languages, the older yay stem nevertheless survives in derivatives connected with summer pasturing. Old Turkic yayla “to spend the summer” and yaylağ “summer pasture”; compare modern Turkish yayla, Turkmen ýaýla / ýaýlag, Kazakh jaylaw and Uzbek yaylov preserve the older association of yay with summer even where yaz has taken over as the ordinary word for the season.