Abstract
The word prayer means “to call, to address, to ask; It is an infinitive like the words invitation and petition (da'vet and da'vâ ) meaning "to ask for help". It is used as a name for the features of "demand and supplication that occur from small to large, from bottom to top". Prayer is a person's wish for good for himself and for others. Although the graphic form of prayer is present, many burdens have an important place in prayer. Prayers are cultural mirrors that include a society's way of thinking, other societies with which it interacts and culturally exchanges, the point of view of these societies on life, as well as artistic and rhetorical features. Prayers are national entities that concern many fields such as sociology, psychology, history, morality, folklore and are worth being the subject of investigation and research in many respects, and they are very important compositions in terms of utterance, power of expression and richness of concepts. In this study, the prayers used in and around Gökçe village in Mardin province, one of the ancient provinces in the Southeastern Anatolian region of Turkey, are discussed in a comparative way with those in fluent Arabic and Turkish. In terms of oral narrative, the region is a very fertile region, but the fact that today's young people do not have a full command of their mother tongue and they speak Turkish makes it difficult to transfer this folklore from generation to generation. For this reason, the Arabic prayers used in and around Mardin Gökçe village, which is one of the values belonging to the folk culture that is in danger of being forgotten and destroyed by the effects of phenomena such as social life, technology and globalization, have been compiled and given in thematic order. Marriage, Engagement and Youth in Marriage Age, Business and Employees, Family Elders, Elderly, Travelers and Travelers, Protection from Evil (Trouble/Evil), Death and Funerals, Good Wishes and Wishes, Health and Healing, Family, Parents In our study, in which a total of twelve themes and one hundred and forty-three prayers, which are related to children, giving thanks and gratitude, receiving a new item, and students of knowledge, were discussed, besides the usage of the people of the region, the standard Arabic of the prayers was also given and their equivalents in Turkish were evaluated. The source persons with whom the interviews were conducted are given with an abbreviation between KK-1/KK-18 in the research. Comparisons were made by considering the contexts in which prayers were used, and etymological analysis of some words used in prayers was made. Similar and different aspects of these words with fluent Arabic have been mentioned. In addition, by considering the prayers used in Mardin Gökçe village and its surroundings, another goal is to record the oral culture, which may face the danger of extinction with the death of the elderly population, and transfer it to future generations. On the other hand, it is aimed to contribute to the literary and cultural richness of the language spoken in this region.