Abstract:
The article „The flatbreads „çörek‟, „pita‟ and „turta‟ in traditional household culture of the Gagauz people‟ is dedicated to one of the oldest
types of bread – the flatbreads, cooked on ashes or on the bottom of the furnace (on the pan). Nowadays flatbreads are used in different rites
linked to family and calendar holidays. On the example of birth customs and rites (the birth and first stages of child‟s life) the polysemy and
polyfunctionality of the rite flatbreads and their symbolic meaning is revealed.
The main attention is given to the flatbreads‟ names. In the Gagauz language for their denomination are used lexemes different by their origin – çörek, pita, turta. The lexeme çörek is Turkic in origin, and is fixed in old Turkic monuments. The denomination pita (from Greek) known to all Balkanic peoples has come to the Gagauz people from Bulgarians, but turta – from Moldovans (turtă < lat. *turta=torta [panis] „round bread‟). In different rituals are fixed certain flatbreads‟ denominations. Thus, for example, for denominating the rite flatbreads on occasion of a baby‟s birth are used the lexemes pita and çörek (ballı pita, ballı çörek, Panaya pitası), for denominating different child‟s life stages – çörek (yaş çörää, adım çörää, diş çörää) and only in one rite – when the baby is weaned from the breast – is used thelexeme turta. In the Gagauz people‟s household speech the aboriginal Turkic lexeme çörek is used less often than the borrowed Bulgarian lexeme pita. This is explaned, firstly, by the fact that çörek (dry
unleavened flatbread which used to be the only food for the poor) left the everyday use, and, secondly, by the polysemy of the lexeme pita. It mainly denominates the ritual bread. The preservation of ritual bread in the Gagauz people‟s customs and rites contributed to the preservation of its name. The lexeme turta is more often used in the settlements that are surrounded by Moldovan villages, and is the linguistic equivalent of the terms çörek and pita. The coexistence in the language of the Gagauz people, along with the originally Turkic name of the bread, also thouse of Bulgarian and Romanian denominations, point to close and centuries-old intercultural interactions between these peoples.
