The Literary Function of The Tongue Twisters in The Literature of The Turkic Peoples' Common Motifs and Ethnocultural Codes

Abstract

Tongue twisters are among the most important features ​​of oral cultural heritage and folk literature. These texts reproduce and reinforce social norms and values ​​in an entertaining, memorable form. This study examines the literary functions, structural features, and thematic elements of tongue twisters in Turkish folk literature. It aims to reveal the reflections of common motifs, sound and rhythm elements, and geographical and cultural differences in these tongue twisters on the value system, worldview, and cultural memory of a society. This research adopted a systematic review, a qualitative research method. Within the scope of the analysis, relevant studies in Turkic and English published in Scopus, Web of Science, and TR Index databases between 2000 and 2025 were examined, and 27 studies were included in the research. The study revealed that tongue twisters, in the context of Turkic people, are folkloric products with multi-layered and deep functions, far beyond the generally accepted perception of language games. The findings of the reviewed studies strongly suggest that tongue twisters function as condensed cultural texts that reflect the cultural memory, worldviews, and value systems of the society to which they belong. In light of these findings, a systematic and comparative study of the motifs in tongue twisters with the motifs of other folkloric genres in the Turkic world may open new horizons on how cultural memory works. This study contributes to ethnic and cultural studies by demonstrating how tongue twisters function as carriers of cultural memory, social values, and ethnocultural identity among Turkic communities.