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
24 1. LIGETI alièi «buyer, sy who takes sg» (qan alìèi «blood taker») AL; alaci «celui qui prend» Arm.-Kip., Tat. aluvcu «nehmend, Nehmer», Kar. T, aluvSi, Nog., aliuii Krch.-Blk». alu «buying» Tuh.; aliq «a buy» Chag.; ally «trading» Chag. This short set of examples clearly displays the major traits of the Coman dialects of the Codex. It is worth noting that here too the final Old Turkish -y (-g) is irregularly represented by -q (-k ): bitik, bilik, sat'iq. The double distribution of the Coman language of the Codex Cumanieus clearly proves that the two dialects were spoken in two different regions; the first in territories in direct contact with the Italian colonies, and the second by the Comans (Tatars) among whom the Franciscan missionaries worked. It is easy to understand why the Coman linguistic material of the Codex Cumanieus and the relevant historical, commercial, and cultural-historical prcblems attrscted so much attention. Initially, the Persian material of the Codex was largely neglected. It is true that only the first part contains such material, and this is limited to grammatical and lexical glosses, without coherent texts. Oddly enough, the Persian material was at first resorted to when researchers hoped to use it to find the solution to a Coman linguistic problem. After the publication of the Codex some thirty years passed before a genuine interpretation of the Persian material appeared. Its author, the eminent Iranist, C. Salemann pointed out almost every essential feature of this valuable Persian linguistic record. 2 7 No less time passed before an up-to-date edition of the Persian part of the Codex was completed. Two scholars embarked upon this task almost simultaneously. Davoud Monchi-zadeh undertook the job with the advantage of native fluency in Persian, 2 8 while A. Bodrogligeti, a scholar of Persian-Turkic 2 7 G. Salemann, Zur Kritik des Codex Cumanieus : Izv. Ak. Nauk. 1910, pp. 943 — 957. The first section of this paper (pp. 945 (-51) covers the Coman texts of the Codex, challenging Bang. The second part (pp. 951—957) contains his valuable comments on the Persian section of the Codex. 2 8 Davoud Monchi-zadeh, Das Persisele im Codex Cumanieus, Uppsala 1969. The first part of this work (pp. 13—19) focusses on the linguistic characteristics, origin, and purpose of the Persian material. Part II (pp. 20—167) deals with the Persian vocabulary of the Codex. Part III (pp. 168— 195) contains an index of Persian words in the Coman part of the Codex in Arabic alphabetic order. Part IV (pp. 169 — 283) carries additions, and omitted words. Finally, Part V (pp. 204 — 219) reconstructs the whole Persian vocabulary in the Arabic script, marking the number of page and line. It is a significant source, and of great help in cases when a reading suggested by the author is not unambiguous. The index in Part III needs elaboration. Its material includes Persian words whose Persian and Coman forms are homonymous (contrary to M, aqiam «evening» written similarly belongs here). Words of differing forms like P adina «Friday», C ayina require some attention. These differences stem from various causes. Finally, a separate category is made up by words borrowed by Persian from Coman, or other Turkish languages.
