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
PROLEGOMENA TO THE CODEX CUMANICl'S 39 The question remains open, but let me point out that there are two aspects of this problem. One is the question of the homeland of the Persian language of the Codex. This cannot be answered for the time being, although the correct solution doubtless lies somewhere in the above-mentioned hypotheses. The other aspect of the question, namely, where was this language used, can be answered without hesitation. It was used at the caravansaries along tlie trade routes, and it was the interpretors who were its vehicle and medium. They played a great role in the Mongol empire along with the "coming and going envoys", and the tradesmen. The interpreter of the Persian part of the Codex was obviously not a Christian, but a Moslem. Suffice it to refer to the names of months, whose Arabic origin points to a Moslem source. The enumeration and examination of single words will be dispensed with here, — but one group of data should perhaps be mentioned. The chapter of the Codex on time (p. 71), which includes the calendar, also gives the names of the seven horae canonicae of the Christian terminology. However hard the Persian (and Coman) interpretor of the Moslem faith tried, he could not translate the Latin definitions of these. He got around the problem by giving the names of the times of Muslim prayers for five of the seven horae. It was not plain sailing, however; confusion arose at two points. The Latin column lacked the name of (hora canonica) sexta, while in the Persian and Coman columns spaces for the Persian and Coman counterparts were left blank. Géza Kuun (p. 80) tried to make up for this deficiency by leaving the Persian and Coman equivalents of completorium blank. In the Codex, the Persian and Coman correspondents of L hodie shifted a line upwards; the same happened to the lines above it up to tercia. The erroneous list can be corrected by inserting sexta. The original list of the Codex can he reconstructed as follows: 1. L matutinű — P ni saou C tank 2. L prima — P sabagh C erta 3. L tercia — P seft — C aS octi 4. L sexta — P nim rox C tüS 5. L nona — P namaz digar C echindu 6. L vesperas — P acfan — C acfan 7. L conpletorium P souagam — C chezae. The interpretor chose analogues for the first and third horae canonicae, while the rest he coupled with the names of the five Muslim prayer hours. Our examples are from the pentaglot dictionary of Yemen, which gives the Persian, Arabic and Turkic equivalents. (N. B. this dictionary used a Turkish tongue belonging to the Oyuz, not to the Kipchak languages.) The data are (f. 4rA29 — 31 and 4rBl - 2):
