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
14 L. I-IGETI To date there has been no ambitions investigation of the contents and the authorship of the first part of the Codex. It contains a grammar and wordlist arranged by subjects. There have been suggestions that the anonymous author created his work with the help of a single interpreter who spoke both Coman and Persian. If this indeed was the case, the interpreter, was of mediocre ability, failing now in one, now in the other language, frequently attributing a single word to both. The Italian part calls for a more thorough analysis. Suffice to mention here that as is presently known, it was not the brainchild of a single anonymous person, but the application of a lost or so far unknown model. The core of the model is a simple and lucid grammatical outline written in Latin, containing verbs, adverbs, and substantives, followed by a list of substantives grouped by subjects. The verbs and adverbs are listed in alphabetic order. Next comes a sketch of the conjugation of verbs and the declension of pronouns and substantives. The section on verbs starts with the full conjugation of the first verb (audio), while the rest of the verbs are represented by three forms (present, past, imperative) and one or two nomina verbalia. Subsequently, between two verbs, some semantic-ally independent substantives are inserted in the alphabetical order. Passages of a similar grammatical and lexical material can be read in the second part of the Codex. They do not constitute an entity; one tends to regard them rather as random glosses from individual collections. The grammatical glosses on pages 127— 132 start with brief grammatical notes, eg. on the plural suffix (lar), the comparison of adjectives (asru and rac), the nomen agentis suffix (ói), the nominal suffix (lie), the interrogative particule (rnà), the privative suffix (sis), etc. This, however, is succeeded by the full conjugation of intelligo - anglarman in two columns. The affirmative takes the left, the negative the right column (non intelligo - anglamaman). The complete Latin Turkish paradigms are given without a single omission. They take up all of page 129 and part of page 130. On the same page the paradigms are followed bv Latin—Coman substantives in alphabetical order, the first five of which (referring to the seasons) being later additions. The alphabetical word-list continues or. page 131 with a sample of words beginning with b, followed by a completely chaotic list of Latin Coman words, and, from p. 132 onwards, Latin Coman expressions. The compiler cf this grammatical material did not necessarily know the grammatical sketch of the Italian part. He may have used either its source, or a similar outline, so it is a matter of coincidence that the two sets of paraable that the verbal compounds characteristic of Persian have very simple equivalents in Coman: war kardan [uar ehardam] «to light a lamp» — yandur-; pèdo èudan [peda suden; CI. paida sudari} «to appear» — C körűn--, etc.
