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 41 and ikindü (Tkm.) «afternoon till sunset» (al-'asr ); 6 . aqSam «evening» (al-magrib); 7. yatsun «bed-time» ('iSd' al-axir). 5 8 The above examples clearly show how closely the Oriental languages of the Codex were related to each other and to Islam. Arabic and Coman elements are mixed with the native Persian vocabulary, and Persian and Arabic elements mingle in with the Coman. It is not always easy to find our way in their midst, and this often makes us forget that the two explanatory Occidental languages, Latin and German, are right there too with their complex mediaeval problems. So far no one has systematically worked on the Latin language of the Codex. G. Kuun (pp. 369—378) annotated some of the seemingly irregular Latin words of the Italian part in their order of occurrence, mainly relying upon Du Cange's dictionary. Grönbech appended an alphabetical list of the Latin words of the Codex to his dictionary (pp. 278 — 301), but this list does not include the Latin words which have no Coman equivalents. Since it was compiled for Turcologists, it even fails to show whether a word appears in the Italian or German part. Let me put forward a few passing remarks on the Latinity of the Codex. Even a cursory glance reveals that two variants of mediaeval Latinity are present. In the first part a vulgar Latin with special Italian features is apparent. This Latin was used by the Italian colonists living along the Black Sea. The second part of the Codex reveals the ecclesiastical Latin of the mediaeval monasteries. The idiosyncrasies of Italo-Latin seemed strange and unintelligible to the users of the latter variant. No sooner had the Franciscan friars obtained the first part than they started translating the Italian idiosyncrasies into normal Latin. This trend dominates in the beginning of the Codex: a corrector elucidated the words abradilo, abrachiaui, abrachia, by inserting ampledor, amplexatus sum, amplede next to the Coman counterparts, in black ink (p. 71). Hoping to clear up the meaning of aleno, alenaui, alena, the same corrector added suspiro, suspiraui, suspira (and suspirio) to the Coman equivalents on the same page. Also on this page we find the explanatory, «intelligible» Latin words libero, liberaui, libera (and liber homo ) beside the Coman equivalents of abasso, abassaui, abassa. On page 9 the Latin equivalent of ballo etc. is plaudo etc.; on page 10, casso etc. is explained by the Latin destruo etc. The Latin 5 8 Cf. The Anonym of Leiden, Ms. f. 30a: 12-13 - 30b: 1 -5. Th. Houtsma, Ein türkisch—arabisches Glossar, the Arabic text, p. 18: 13 — 17. A. K. KurySzanov, Issledovanie po leksike iTjurkske — arabskogo slovarj a», pp. 58 — 59, arbitrarily changed the sequence of words and even inserted three words that originally came after the list. This is all the more surprising since Kuryázanov worked with Houtsma's printed Arabic text, and not the manuscript.
