The Codex Cumanicus is a

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

manual of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

, designed to help

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

missionaries A missionary is a member of a religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Mi ...

communicate with the

Cumans The Cumans (or Kumans), also known as Polovtsians or Polovtsy (plural only, from the Russian exonym ), were a Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman–Kipchak confederation. After the Mongol invasion (1237), many so ...

, a nomadic

Turkic Turkic may refer to: * anything related to the country of Turkey * Turkic languages, a language family of at least thirty-five documented languages ** Turkic alphabets (disambiguation) ** Turkish language, the most widely spoken Turkic language * ...

people. It is currently housed in the

Library of St. Mark The Marciana Library or Library of Saint Mark ( it, italic=no, Biblioteca Marciana, but in historical documents commonly referred to as ) is a public library in Venice, Italy. It is one of the earliest surviving public libraries and repositorie ...

, in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

(BNM ms Lat. Z. 549 (=1597)). The Codex was created in

Crimea Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a p ...

and is considered one of the oldest monuments of the

Crimean Tatar language Crimean Tatar () also called Crimean (), is a Kipchak Turkic language spoken in Crimea and the Crimean Tatar diasporas of Uzbekistan, Turkey, Romania, and Bulgaria, as well as small communities in the United States and Canada. It sh ...

, which is of great importance for the history of Kypchak and Oguz dialects — as directly related to the Kypchaks (Polovtsy, Kumans) of the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, ...

steppes and particularly the

Crimean peninsula Crimea, crh, Къырым, Qırım, grc, Κιμμερία / Ταυρική, translit=Kimmería / Taurikḗ ( ) is a peninsula in Ukraine, on the northern coast of the Black Sea, that has been occupied by Russia since 2014. It has a pop ...

Origin and content

It consists of two parts. The first part consists of a dictionary in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

, Persian and

Cuman The Cumans (or Kumans), also known as Polovtsians or Polovtsy (plural only, from the Russian exonym ), were a Turkic nomadic people comprising the western branch of the Cuman–Kipchak confederation. After the Mongol invasion (1237), many sou ...

written in the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

, and a column with Cuman verbs, names and pronouns with its meaning in Latin. The second part consists of Cuman-

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

dictionary, information about the Cuman grammar, and poems belonging to

Petrarch Francesco Petrarca (; 20 July 1304 – 18/19 July 1374), commonly anglicized as Petrarch (), was a scholar and poet of early Renaissance Italy, and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch's rediscovery of Cicero's letters is often credite ...

.
Codex Cumanicus (Kumanlar Kitabı) However the Codex referred to the language as "Tatar" (''tatar til''). The first part of Codex Cumanicus was written for practical purposes, to help learn the language. The second part was written to spread Christianity among the

and different quotes from the religious books were provided with its Cuman translation. In the same section there are words, phrases, sentences and about 50 riddles, as well as stories about the life and work of religious leaders. The

Codex The codex (plural codices ) was the historical ancestor of the modern book. Instead of being composed of sheets of paper, it used sheets of vellum, papyrus, or other materials. The term ''codex'' is often used for ancient manuscript books, with ...

likely developed over time.

Mercantile Trade involves the transfer of goods and services from one person or entity to another, often in exchange for money. Economists refer to a system or network that allows trade as a market. An early form of trade, barter, saw the direct exch ...

, political, and religious leaders, particularly in Hungary, sought effective communication with the

as early as the mid-11th century. As Italian

city-states A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world since the dawn of history, including cities such as ...

, such as

Genoa Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria and the List of cities in Italy, sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of t ...

, began to establish trade posts and colonies along the

coastline, the need for tools to learn the Kipchak language sharply increased. The earliest parts of the Codex are believed to have originated in the 12th or 13th century. Substantial additions were likely made over time. The copy preserved in

is dated 11 July 1303 on fol. 1rhttps://archive.org/details/codexcumanicusbi00kuunuoft/page/n147/mode/2up "MCCCIII die XI Iuly" (see Drimba, p. 35 and Schmieder in Schmieder/Schreiner, p. XIII). The Codex consists of a number of independent works combined into one.

Riddles

The "Cuman Riddles" (CC, 119–120; 143–148) are a crucial source for the study of early Turkic folklore. Andreas Tietze referred to them as "the earliest variants of riddle types that constitute a common heritage of the

nations." Among the riddles in the Codex are the following excerpts: * :"The white

yurt A yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger ( Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered and insulated with skins or felt and traditionally used as a dwelling by several distinct nomadic groups in the steppes and mountains of Central Asia ...

has no mouth (opening). That is the egg." * :"my bluish kid at the tethering rope grows fat, The melon." * :"Where I sit is a hilly place. Where I tread is a copper bowl. The stirrup."

Example

The Codex's Pater Noster reads:

Codex Cumanicus sources

* Güner, Galip (2016), Kuman Bilmeceleri Üzerine Notlar (Notes on the Cuman Riddles), Kesit Press, İstanbul. 168 pp. * Argunşah, Mustafa; Güner, Galip, Codex Cumanicus, Kesit Yayınları, İstanbul, 2015, 1080 pp. (https://www.academia.edu/16819097/Codex_Cumanicus)
Dr. Peter B. Golden on the Codex

Italian Part of “Codex Cumanicus”, pp. 1 - 55. (38,119 Mb)

German Part of “Codex Cumanicus”, pp. 56 - 83. (5,294 Mb)
* Schmieder, Felicitas et Schreiner, Peter (eds.), Il Codice Cumanico e il suo mondo. Atti del Colloquio Internazionale, Venezia, 6-7 dicembre 2002. Roma, Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2005, XXXI-350 p., ill. (Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, Ricerche, 2). * Drimba, Vladimir, Codex Comanicus. Édition diplomatique avec fac-similés, Bucarest 2000. * Davud Monshizadeh, Das Persische im Codex Cumanicus, Uppsala: Studia Indoeuropaea Upsaliensia, 1969.

References

External links

Codex Cumanicus on-line
* Full text of the Codex Cumanicus in Latin * Golden, Peter B.
Codex Cumanicus
. Provides an in depth overview of the book's content. * Article in Encyclopædia Iranica: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/codex-cumanicus *Complete copy of Ligeti's Prolegomena and Kuun's Latin edition and commentary (as published in Budapest, 1981): https://library.hungaricana.hu/hu/view/MTAKonyvtarKiadvanyai_BORB_01/?pg=0&layout=s *Ligeti's Prolegomena
https://www.jstor.org/stable/23682271
{{Authority control 14th-century books 14th-century Christian texts Cumans Riddles Manuscripts Cuman language