Abstract

It is water that has shaped the development of East-Central Asian civilizations. This region is known to be arid and heavily reliant on sophisticated irrigation systems. The current study attempts to reconstruct the history of water terminology in the region's diverse language groups, including Turkic, Persian, Arabic and Russian. The research traces the vocabulary used in legal documents, administrative and oral histories from ancient to Soviet and post-Soviet periods, revealing the political, technological and cultural influences on rhetoric of water management vocabulary. The analysis demonstrates that words like aryk (irrigation canal), mirab (water manager) and vodokhozyaystvo (water economy) tell the story of paradigm shifts in resource governance - from stewardship to centralized planning. In addition, the paper discusses the uses of language as instruments of power and power’s adaptation, where terms had been coined, blended or made to fit institutions in new forms which were intended to give enhanced flexibility. These layers of meaning provide an insight into the socio-political narrative not only in Central Asia but also on sustainable water management discourse at present. These shifts in terminology define the region's environmental heritage alongside the notion that culturally rooted concepts of water governance remains indispensable.

Keywords: Historical, Evolution, Water resource management, Terminology, Central asia, Linguistic landscape, Cultural influence