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
22 L. I-IGETI A in place of the final a must also reflect a linguistic characteristic: yarlilerga [varlilergae] «for the frail» (137:20), yarqinìnda [iarkinindae] «in its light». Gabain (Fundamenta I, 63- 64) interprets the initial g- before i as f- : filtra- [giltra-] «it's lightning», fil [gii] «year», femiS [giemis] «fruit». Grönbeeh disregarded this possibility, presumably because gi in the German part equals yi, and f occurs in very few words besides regular y-. Gabain's position is acceptable not only because certain Kipehak languages of today also have the initial f- but also because this initial phoneme existed in the language of the Hungarian Comans (fer «land», faman «evil»; Németh in: BOH II, 53). The phenomenon is limited to the Coman dialect of the Italian part. An exact analogy of this can be detected in the Kazan Tatar language, where the two initial phonemes co-exist, i.e. besides the dominating y-, f- can also be found: fil «wind», fimes «fruit». In the Codex such are: filari [gillan] «snake», f'iryaq [girgac] «hook», fièqìc [gischic] «mint» and some others. Also, conforming to the Northern Italian dialect (which ?), i is used to denote f: fovap [ioap] «answer», fahan [iaghan] «world». Gabain claims that the copier of a passage of the second part translated into Coman («Reminiscens beati sanguinis», pp. 149 — 150) made a distinction between the velar and palatal i. The Coman words are written under the relevant notes, but their transcription is so blurred, as Kuun already pointed out, that not even the facsimile can provide sufficient clues to establish the difference. Gabain thus remains alone in her view. Kuun fails to comment on it (this would not be decisive in itself, though), nor does Drimba mention it, who was a very careful reader of the Codex. Cf. Gabain, Fundamenta I, 50 and 70— 73; the latter pages carry the transliteration of the text along with its transcription («standardization») and translation. Traces of the sporadic final -z > -s occurrence are detectable in both the Codex and the Hungarian Coman language, as Németh (BOH II, 56) pointed out. These cases, however, are not marked in the transcription. It is worth remembering Németh's observation, though I myself would not distinguish the final unvoicing, partly because of the inaccuracy of the orthography in the Codex, and partly because it does not constitute a distinctive phonemic feature of the Coman (Kipehak) tongue. There is no room here to elaborate on the dialects of the Coman material of the two parts. A single item devoid of problems of transliteration will shed light on this issue which was regarded as hopelessly intangible by Grönbeeh. Let us consider the behaviour of the final Old Turkish -y (-g). In I, it generally remains in monosyllabic words, and changes into a diphtong with u (w) in G: I yay [yag] «fat, oil» — G yav [jav]; I tay [tag] «mount» — G tav [tav].
