On March 20, 2024, as part of its ongoing lecture series, the AMT hosted a lecture by Tumebayarin Zagarperenlei, a faculty member in the Department of Asian Studies at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, National University of Mongolia (NUM), and a doctoral candidate at NUM. The lecture was titled "Toponymy (Turkey)" and covered the subject of toponymy (the study of place names).

      Zagarperenlei, who studied in the Department of Asian Studies at NUM and graduated in Turkish Language and Area Studies, participated in the "Student Researcher" scholarship program from 2012-2014. While in the program, he expanded on the research he began as a student, ultimately writing his thesis on "A New Translation of the Inscriptions on the Kul Tigin Monuments." He further pursued studies at Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts in Turkey, specializing in Ancient Turkish Language and Literature, and completed his master's degree with a thesis titled "A Comparative Study of Mongolian and Turkish in the Uighur Golden Light (Volume 2)."

     He specializes in research on "Comparative Mongolic and Turkic Studies," "Ancient Turkish Language and Script Studies," and "Ancient Uighur Language and Script Studies." He has written numerous academic articles and presented more than twenty academic papers. Among his notable works is the paper “Explaining the syntactic and functional structure of 'jarliγ~yarliq' and 'lig4' conditions based on Turkic sources, particularly Uighur Golden Light,” which he presented at the "Young Mongolian Scholar" Scientific Conference organized by our center in 2021. His paper was later published in the "Oyunii Khelkhee" academic journal.

       In addition to his academic work, Zagarperenlei has published a poetry book titled "Kalavingka" (2016) and translated Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk’s novel Red Haired Woman into Mongolian in 2023. His lecture began by sharing his personal journey, reflecting on the knowledge, skills, and friendships he gained through his involvement in the Anton Mostert Mongolian Studies Center’s program. He continued by explaining what toponymy is, what concepts it encompasses, and how the differences between Western and Eastern cultures influence the approach to research in these fields. He also discussed the history, geography, language, and culture of Turkey, emphasizing the importance of understanding one's own heritage—language, history, ancestry, and cultural thinking—as a Mongolian. He reminded the audience of Mongolia’s long-standing tradition of promoting equality, freedom of religion, and non-discrimination, and shared personal experiences of how foreign countries often show more interest in Mongolia’s language, history, and culture than in those of other countries.

         At the end of the lecture, student researchers asked questions about the differences in language and culture between the two countries, how he learned languages, and his views on the origins of the Turkish and Turkic peoples.The lecture, which lasted for 2 hours and 30 minutes, provided insightful explanations on the Turkic Khaganate, the Ottoman Empire, the Bilge Khagan monument, the Kul Tigin monuments, the Silk Road, the 23 Oguz tribes, and the Eastern Turkic language, all in the context of toponymy.