HISTORICAL FORMATION OF UZBEK TOPONYMS: CONTACT LAYERS, ADAPTATION, AND CULTURAL MEMORY

This article examines the historical formation of Uzbek toponyms from diachronic and linguocultural perspectives. Based on the revised Uzbek segment of the original corpus, it analyzes Turkic, Iranian-Sogdian, Arabic-Islamic, Mongolian, and late administrative layers, as well as the mechanisms of graphic and phonetic adaptation of place names across different writing traditions. The study establishes that Uzbek toponymy combines natural motivation with memory of trade routes, sacred geography, and ethnopolitical history. A four-stage model of the historical development of a place name is proposed: substrate - contact - adaptation - canonization.