PRINCE— TATAR MATERIAL IN OLD RUSSIAN. 



77 



plainly associated with Slavonic polje, " field " ; hence " desert," but 

 polje is a soft noun and would have produced the derivative poljevec 

 and never polovec. 



A brief examination of the material found in the " Interpreter " 

 mentioned above and a comparison with the Cumanian of the Codex 

 and with modern Osmanli will satisfy the most cursory reader as 

 to the true Turkic character of the Cumanian-Polovtsy language. 



The grammatical structure of the Cumanian was also strikingly 

 similar to that of Sart and Osmanli, as may be noted from the fol- 

 lowing few examples of the pronouns, nouns and tenses of the verb: 



^° In the " Interpreter," the first vowel is the 39th letter of the OS. 

 alpliabet, often wrongly transcribed ja in Russian. Its real value was a 

 nasal e, as in eng (= Polish nasal e), but the vowel frequently corresponds 

 to Russian ja. 



For a similar comparison between Cumanian and Tatar, see the work 

 cited above note 8, and note the incorrect vocalization in tjagri, op. cit., p. 

 igi. This universal Turkish word is very probably connected with the 

 ancient Sumerian dingir "God" (soft form dimmer); cf. Prince, Materials 

 for a Sumerian Lexicon, p. viii, Leipzig, 1909. 



1^ Scribal error for iuldus = juldus. 



12 Written aan; evidently scribal error for aai. 



^^Isi^=ysy, with obscure vowel y; not is (Radloff, op. cit., p. 120). 

 Rndloff's readings of the Codex are not always trustworthy. 



