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
46 L. I-IGETI Originally, the third fascicule comprised a single independent booklet, made and used by Franciscan missionaries, before they got to know the Italians' guide for interpreters, written on two fascicules. It is possible that the existing third fascicule was preceded by a Franciscan first fascicule, which has not come down to us. The extant third fascicule is worth studying closely. We can contend that the first two pages of it (today pp. 120 121) contain a «neutral» text: Coman riddles. It is this very material, totally different in content from the rest, which leads us to believe that these two pages may not be the beginning, but rather the continuation of an earlier, lost fascicule of similar contents. The riddles are followed by a new subject, the actual subject-matter of the Franciscans, on pages 122- 159. The bulk of it is religious writings in Coman along with a few comments on the Coman language and grammar. The explanatory language of this part is exclusively Latin. Its word-lists also serve religious purposes, e.g. p. 131 contains: baptiste(r)ium «baptistery», venalia pec(ca)la «venial sins», confiteor «I confess», etc. This Latin language also needs a thorough examination before we can rest content with the definition «mediaeval clerical Latin». The Latin material of the Codex has a third group which should be subjected to an extensive investigation. It emerges in the glosses, and was obviously included by the German glossators. They can be found in the Italian part together with, or without, the later inserted German glosses. Most of them, however, are found on the blank pages at the end of the second and third fascicules, in ether words, in the vicinity of the German glosses of the Codex. For this reason alone we need to focus our attention on the other explanatory language of the Codex, German. The hometown of G. Kuun was one of the centres of the Transylvanian Saxons. The Saxons were settled there by Géza II, king of Hungary, in the 12th century. Their privileges enabled them to preserve their language and culture. G. Kuun devoted special attention to this.archaic German language, se he naturally lot ked closely at the German glosses of the Codex, as far as his rudimentaiy philological method allowed him to. This is evidenced by the appendix of his book entitled «Vocabularium Germano-Latinum» (pp. 353 368), which enumerates the German glosses of the Codex in alphabetic order. In his review, Teza also touched upon the explanations which Kuun had added to the German glosses. Kuun responded to these comments in Addidamenta zu dtm germ. Olossen des Codex Cumanicus, published in No. 11, Vol. XIV of Korrespondenzblatl des Vereins für Siebenbürgische Landeskunde, which is hard to come by these days. At any rate, Kuun was fully aware of the importance the German glosses had for the history of the German language. This awareness must have induced him to include an explanation of Busbecq's
