Köy is the word for "village" in Western Oghuz languages that are geographically western, such as Turkish,

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish (, ; ) was the standardized register of the Turkish language in the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian. It was written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet. ...

and Crimean Tatar. It is a loanword from

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

''gūy'' (or probably more likely ''kūy''), which originally means "path, street". In Ottoman toponymic history a multitude of settlements with köy are attested, such as Boghaz Köy or Ermeni Köy. Toponyms with the word köy apparently came into use only after the end of the

Seljuk Seljuk (, ''Selcuk'') or Saljuq (, ''Saljūq'') may refer to: * Seljuk Empire (1051–1153), a medieval empire in the Middle East and central Asia * Seljuk dynasty (c. 950–1307), the ruling dynasty of the Seljuk Empire and subsequent polities * S ...

period (1037–1194). For example, the word is not found in the ''

Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk The ' (; translated to English as the ''Compendium of the languages of the Turks'') is the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages, compiled between 1072–74 by the Kara-Khanid scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari, who extensively documented t ...

'' of

Mahmud al-Kashgari Mahmud ibn Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Kashgari; ; , Мәһмуд Қәшқири; , Махмуд Қашғарий was an 11th-century Kara-Khanid scholar and lexicographer of the Turkic languages from Kashgar. His father, Husayn, was the mayor of ...

(died 1102). The meaning of köy within the concept of an open village contrasts with that of the word ''kasaba'', which refers to a small town. In Western Oghuz languages located to the east, such as the dialect used by Iraqi Turkmens, the word "kend" (a Sogdian loanword) is used at all times when denoting a village rather than köy; however, the Islamologist and Ottomanist Johannes Hendrik Kramers adds that "sometimes this last word seems to have been replaced by köy". For instance, the settlement of Ḳāḍī Kend near

Mosul Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ...

changes into Ḳāḍī Köy.

References

Turkic words and phrases Ottoman Turkish language Crimean Tatar language Toponymy Turkish language {{Turkic-lang-stub