A Turkish-Khotanese Vocabulary

Abstract

Among the unexpected discoveries from the treasure of Central Asian manusćripts found in Tun-huang is a manuscript now belonging to the Fonds Pelliot in the Bibliothèque Nationale, numbered P 2892. This manuscript contains 184 lines of text in the cursive Brahmi script usual in Khotanese manuscripts. In lines 1–165 (mid-line) is written an excerpt in Khotanese from the medical text Siddhasāra corresponding to 5 v 4—14 v 4 of the Siddhāsara published in facsimile in Codices Khotanenses (1938), of which a transliterated text has been in print since December, 1941, in Khotanese Texts I. From the middle of line 165, after an elaborate mark of punctuation, there follow 19 lines of text in a Turkish dialect. It contains a vocabulary of ninety-seven Turkish words concerned with archery and parts of the body. Some of the words are glossed in Khotanese, and for some of these words the Turkish supplies the meaning. The date of the vocabulary may be the ninth or tenth century A.D. It would appear to be written down by a Khotanese scribe who wanted to learn Turkish.