Vocabulary studies have a great importance in surveys on a language. Language of a society presents both its life style and how it perceives the life. With vocabulary studies while the improvements in a language are being followed on the other hand the data about culture and geography of people come to light. Dîvânü Lugâti’t Türk, which is a work of Karahan Turkish era, is also very important as it reflects the vocabulary of 11th century Turkish language. There are 8783 words in index of Dîvânü Lugâti’t Türk. It is possible to find every kind of data about social life in the work as it reflects Turkish culture. This vocabulary has been investigated from various angles so far. This study is also about how the names of animals take place in the Dîvânü Lugâti’t Türk. It is frequently mentioned about animals and proverbs about animals in the dictionary which reflects cultural life of Central Asia. The animals, whose names were said in the work, emphasize nomadic people’s way of life and the importance of animals in people’s life and also they reflect geographical, cultural, and social life of the time. The data that was obtained by scanning from the work named Dîvânü Lugâti’t Türk analyzed by documentary analysis method. The words about animals were classified according to alphabetic order and the data handed discussed in a lexical system. The headwords in the work which are related to animals were examined. These terms were given together with their meanings and additional information in the work. As the work contains a very rich language and cultural material it is thought that new studies will be added in other words the area of research is seen as a continuously developed area. Dîvânü Lugâti’t Türk is a precious work which should be handled and studied in every issues not just in terms of language, culture, and literature. With this study it was aimed to contribute new studies on the topic by making a lexical study about animal names.
Key Words: Animal names, Dîvânü Lugâti’t Türk, Karahan era, Vocabulary.