É. Apor (ed.): Codex Cumanicus. Ed. by Géza Kuun with a Prolegomena to the Codex Cumanicus by Lajos Ligeti. (Budapest Oriental Reprints, Ser. B 1.)
L. Ligeti: Prolegomena to the Codex Cumanicus
16 L. I-IGETI material, especially the verbs and substantives, is also arranged into columns. However instructive these vocabularies may be for material research, there is at present no proof that the anonymous authors of the Italian and German parts of the Codex Cumanicus drew upon any of them. The contemporary handbooks (manuscripts) of Northern Italian Latinity might offer further clues here. It remains to be the major task to edit the complete text of the Codex Cumanicus. Despite its several defects, G. Kuun's work renders great help. A new acceptable edition requires profound knowledge, so it is not surprising that no one has dared to undertake the task during the last hundred years. The facsimile edition of the Codex, published by K. Grönbech, is of great help 2 0; but regrettably, it is technically of mediocre quality, and often lets researchers down, right at the crucial points. The editor of a new edition cannot proceed without the original manuscript, no matter how good his fascimiles may be. The manuscript was written in the black letters commonly used in the Middle Ages. This script was retained by only a few scholars (Bang, Németh), and only for text editions. Kuun replaces this archaic script with Latin letters we use today. His decision cannot be objected to; several others did the same. The proposed new edition must be a precise transliteration, retaining abbreviations as well as errors due to copying. A good many examples of lapsus calami arising from copying are known. Errors due to dictation have received known Mugaddimat al-adab also follows this pattern. Cf. I. G. Wetzstein, Samachscharii Lexicon Arabicum Persicum ex codicibus manuscriptis Lipsiensibus, Oxoniensibus , Vindobonensi et Berolinensi edidit atque Indicem Arabicum adiecit —, Lipsiae 1850. Among the dictionaries of the Mongol period, reference should be made to Ibn Muhanná's work presenting the Turkish language of the Oyuz type. Its Turkish part: P. M. Melioranskij, Arab filolog o tureckom jazyke, St. Pbg. 1900, pp. 01—043. Its Mongolian part: P. M. Melioranskij, Arab filolog o mongoljskom jazyke , St. Pbg. 1904. The Persian, Turkish and Mongolian parts were edited by Iv. Rifat, Istanbul, H 1238 — 1240. By way of example, let us see the arrangement of Ibn Muhanna's Mongolian grammar-dictionary. The material is divided into 25 chapters following the order of tripartition. These are: 1. The name of God and the like (I). 2. Verbs in the past tense, in Arabie alphabetic order; 3. Grammatical rules, conjugation (II). 4. Partieulas. (Ill) Substantives. 5. Adjectives and antinomies; 6. Parts of the human body; 7. Names of kinship; 8. Time and cycles; 9. Heaven and heavenly phenomena; 10. Seasons; 11. Earth and seas; 12. Places and regions; 13. Foods, drinks; 14. Trees, fruits; 15. Cereals; 10. Bed clothes, instruments, tools; 17. Clothing, jewels, precious stones; 18. Flowers, colours; 19. Animals and beasts; 20. Weapons and accessories; 21. Illnesses, deficiencies; 22. Birds, birds of prey; 23. Trades; 24. Counting, numerals; 25. words not included in the previous chapters. 2 0 K. Grönbech, Codex Cumanicus. Cod. Marc. Lat. DXLIX. In Faksimile herausgegeben, mit einer Einleitung von —. Kopenhagen 193C. (Monumenta Linguarum Asiae Maioris I.) The facsimile of «Ave porta paradisi» (Grönbech, pp. 137 — 144)i earlier published by Bang (W. Bang —J. Marquart, Osttürkische Dialektstudien, Berlin 1914, III — X tables) is worth comparing. Undoubtedly, Bang's facsimiles are technically better than the reproductions of the same text in Grönbech's otherwise splendid volume.
