437 



TURKISH LANGUAGES AND LITERATURE. 



TURNBULL'S BLUE. 



438 



One of them translated it into French, from which language it was re 

 translated into English, under the title ' The Genealogical History o: 

 the Tatars.' which forms the first volume of A General History o 

 the Turks, Moguls, and Tatars,' 2 vols. 8vo., London, 1 730. The text 

 of 'Abu-1-ghazi has been edited by Frahn. (Kazan, 1825.) 



3. Kiptshak dialects, in the eastern part of European Russia anc 

 Western Siberia. The purest among these dialects is that of Kazan 

 in which several books have lately been printed. Some of these are 

 much mixed with Finnish words. 



4. Kirghiz, the language of the Kara 1 Kirghiz, and the Kirghiz 

 K;uVik, who live a nomadic life between the Ural and the Chinese 

 frontier. 



5. Caucaso-Danubian, in several subordinate dialects spoken by the 

 Noghals, the Kazi-Kumiiks, and other Turkish tribes in southern 

 Russia. 



6. Turkoman. 



7. Austro-Siberian dialects. They are very numerous, and more or 

 less mixed with Mongol or Samoyede words. They are spoken by the 

 Turkish tribes that live in the middle, eastern, and southern parts oi 

 Siberia. 



8. Chuwash, spoken by the Chuwasb.es, who live between the Sura 

 and the Wolga, and in some adjacent countries of eastern Russia. The 

 Chuwash differs considerably from the Kiptshak dialects io the neigh- 

 bouring countries, and it contains a great number of Finnish words. 

 (Schott, ' De Lingua Tschuwaschorum Dissertatio.') 



9. Osmanli, or Turkish, commonly called so. This dialect, which is 

 spoken by the Turkish conquerors of the Byzantine empire, must be 

 considered as a compound of the ancient Seljukian language and that 

 of the tribe of the Kayi, from which the Osmanlis are descended. It 

 is the richest and most polished of all the Turkish dialects ; and its 

 regularity, precision, and elegance are such, that Jaubert says, if any 

 academy were commissioned to make a language, it would not form 

 one more perfect than the Turkish. Another principal feature of this 

 language is its dignity, with regard to which Sir William Jones says, 

 " The Turkish language has an admirable dignity. The Persian is fit 

 for joyous and amatory subjects, the Arabic for poetry and eloquence, 

 but the Turkish for moral subjects. Turkish is now the the diplomatic 

 and official language not only of Turkey, but Egypt, Tunis, and Tripoli, 

 and formerly of Algiers. The Osmanlis having received their civilisa- 

 tion from the Arabs and the Persians, and the Kordn (which among 

 the Mohammedans is never translated from the Arabic into any other 

 language) being still the source of theology and legislation, a great 

 many Persian and Arabic words have gradually found their way into 

 the Turkish language. However the groundwork is Turkish, and the 

 Turks pronounce the Arabic words in a much softer way than the Arabs, 

 a difference which is principally remarkable in the pronunciation of 

 the gutturals and the long vowels. 



The Turkish alphabet is composed of thirty-three letters, twenty- 

 eight of which are taken from the Arabic alphabet: four (pa, chin, 

 ya, and yhief) from the Persian ; and one, the " Saghir nun " (R) is 

 exclusively Turkish. These letters are written from right to left. 

 Turkish is also, and very frequently, written with Armenian characters, 

 especially by the merchants. There is no article, but the demonstra- 

 tive pronoun " bu " (" that " or " this "), and the cardinal number 

 " bir " (" one ") sometimes take its place. There is no gender. The 

 declension of the nouns is easy : the plural is formed by annexing 

 " ler " or " lar " to the word, and there are six cases as in Latin. The 

 adjectives have neither declension nor gender. The declension of the 

 pronouns is analogous to that of the nouns, but not always exactly the 

 same. There are eight kinU of verbs, namely, auxiliary, active, 

 passive, negative, impotential, causative, reciprocal, and personal. The 

 infinitive of all regular verbs is formed by means of the syllables 

 " mek " or " mak ; " they become passive by taking the syllable " il " 

 before " mek " or " mak." The verbs have six moods indicative, 

 imperative, optative, suppositive, conjunctive, and infinitive ; and there 

 are five tenses present, imperfect, preterimperfect, preterperfect, and 

 future. The different kinds of verbs are formed as follows : sewmek, to 

 love ; tenmemek, not to love ; tetcehmemek, not to be able to love ; 

 Kwilmtk, to be loved ; iewilmemck, not to be loved ; ieirilthmtmek, not 

 to be able to be loved ; tewdiirmek, to make love ; truildilrmek, to 

 make that somebody is loved ; lewuhrnek, to love each other ; iminuuk, 

 to love oneself, Ac. There is a considerable number of irregular verbs. 

 The Turkish construction resembles that of the Latin language, and 

 generally a sentence cannot be perfectly understood till the reader 

 comes to the last word. The Turks form new words by means of 

 composition with as much epse as the Greek, the German, and the 

 Persian ; in this respect the Turkish language diners radically from 

 the Arabic. 



The Turkish literature is of ancient origin. During the reigns of 

 Osman and his successors, a great number of Arabic, Persian, Greek, 

 >>nd Latin works were translated into Turkish. Mohammed II. 

 ordered a translation of Plutarch ; Soliman I. had the ' Commentaries ' 

 -;ir translated ; and Aristotle and Euclid were translated in the 

 commencement of Turkish history. Mustafa III. made a translation 

 of the ' Principe ' of Machiavelii, and of the ' Anti-Machiavel ' of 

 Frederic II., King of Prussia. Some of the works of Boerhaave, 

 Syili^nham, Bonnycastle, Vauban, Lalande, Cassini, and, in later times, 

 a great number of English, German, and French works on history, 



geography, medicine, chemistry, mathematics, and the military sciences, 

 have likewise been translated into Turkish. The original literature of 

 the Turks is valuable, though less so than the Arabic. Jem. the brother, 

 and Selim and Korkud, the sons of Bayazid II. ; Soliman II., Ahmed 

 III., and Mustafa III., were distinguished poets, and their works have 

 come down to us. The oldest Turkish poet of renown is 'Ashik-Pasha, 

 who lived during the reign of Osman and Urkhan. The reign of 

 Bayazid II. was distinguished by the following poets : Nejdti, who 

 was considered the first lyric poet of his time, and who translated 

 several Arabic works into Turkish ; Mesihi, whose ' Ode on the 

 Spring,' translated by Sir W. Jones and by Baron Hammer, is known 

 as one of the finest specimens of poetry ; A'fitabi, Muniri, Prince 

 Korkud, and the female poet Mihri, a native of Amasia. Baki is the 

 greatest Turkish poet. He was three times high judge of Rum-ili, 

 and died in A.H. 1008 (AD. ItiOO); his ' Diwan,' or 'Collection of 

 Poems,' has been translated by Von Hammer, under the title ' Baki's 

 des grossten Tiirkischen Lyrikers Diwan,' Vienna, 1825. Nabi Efendi, 

 Seyed Refet, and Rdghib-Pasha, were renowned in the past century. 

 Riighib- Pasha, grand-vizir under Osman III., was equally renowned as 

 an historian and a poet, and his countrymen used to call him "the 

 Sultan of the poets of Rum." The number of historians is very great, 

 and several of them are highly esteemed for their impartiality, judg- 

 ment, and the concise beauty of their style. Such are 'Ali, the con- 

 temporary of Baki, whose work, ' Kunhol-Akhbftr ' (Mines of History), 

 finished in A.H. 1006 (A.D. 1597), is one of the best sources concerning 

 the earlier and middle periods of Turkish history ; the author speaks 

 with great impartiality about the Christians. Solak-ziide has written 

 ' Tarikhi 'Ali Osman li Solak-zdde,' a short, but very exact history of 

 the Osmanlig) which finishes with the year A.H. 1054 (AD 1644). 

 Pechewi is the author of a history of the period from the accession of 

 Soliman I. (II.) to the year A.H. 1032 (A.D. 1622). Hdji Khalfiih, who 

 died in A.H. 1068 (A.D. 1658), is the author of several excellent works 

 on history and geography, which are written partly in Arabic, partly 

 in Turkish. His ' Takwimuk Tewsirikh,' or ' Chronological Tables,' 

 are classical. They were published at Constantinople by the printer 

 Ibrahim, in A.H. 1146 (AD. 1733), and an Italian translation by Rinaldo 

 Carli was published at Venice as early as 1697. Haji Khalfah's 

 Geography of Rum-ili and Bosnia has been translated into German by 

 Von Hammer. From the time of Bayazid II., Turkish history has 

 been written by imperial historiographers, a list of whom is contained 

 in Hammer-PurgstaU's ' Geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches,' vol. viii., 

 p. 591-92. The best of these historians are Edris, or Idris (died in 

 A.U. 930; A.D. 1523); Mustafa Jelal-ziSde (died in A.H. 940 ; A.D. 1533); 

 Sead-ed-din, who became Mufti (died in A.H. 1007; A.D. 1599) ; "Abdi- 

 Pasha Nijdnji (died inA.H. 1102; A.D. 1690); Naima (died in A.H. 1128 ; 

 A.D. 1715), whose history contains the period from A.H. 1000 till 1070 

 (A.D. 1592 till 1659); Rashid continued the history till A.H. 1134 

 [A.D. 1721); 'Asim, the continuator of Rashid, till A.H. 1141 (A.D. 1728); 

 Subhi continued it till A.H. 1156 (A.D. 1743); Izi till A.H. 1163 (A.D! 

 1763); and Wassif till A.H. 1188 (A.D. 1774). The annals of Naima were 

 published at Constantinople in A.H. 1147 (A.D. 1734) ; those of Rashid 

 in A.H. 1153 (A.D. 1740); those of Subhi in A.H. 1198 (A.D. 1784); 

 those of Izi in the same year ; and those of Wassif in A.n. 1188 (A D. 

 1774); and afterwards in A.H. 1243 (A.D. 1827). The Annals of 

 Wassif have been partly translated into French by M. Caussiu de 

 Perceval. 



Among the numerous Turkish biographers, Latifi deserves particular 

 mention. He wrote the lives of about two hundred Turkish poets, 

 one hundred and two of which have been translated into German by 

 Chabert (Zurich, 1800, 8vo). A list of the works published in Turkish, 

 at Constantinople, is contained in Hammer, cited above, vol. vii. 

 i. 583-595 ; and a continuation of it, which goes down to the year 

 A.D. 1830, in vol. viii., p. 518-623. The ' Wiener Jahrbiicher ' contain 

 a list of the Turkish works published since A.D. 1830. 



Turkish literature has been enriched by numerous works on morals, 

 divinity, and philosophy. Their philosophy, which originated from 

 ;he famous school at Bokhara, has a mystical character, and resembles 

 n many points the speculative doctrines of Schelling, especially with 

 regard to pantheism. More than one Turkish sheikh has proclaimed 

 ,he possibility of the identification of the soul with God, and the 

 ntellectual re creation of the world ; a doctrine which has likewise 

 aeen professed by Hegel. 



(Toderini, Letteratura Turcha ; Hammer-Purgstall, Encydopiidische 

 'Jebersicht der Wisienschuften des Orients, and Gacluc/ite der Osmaiiisc/icn 



Dictionary/ of Meninski.) 

 TURMERIC. [COLOURING MATTERS ; CURCUMA LONGA.] 

 TURNBULL'S BLUE, ferricyanide of Jron. Professor Graham's 



account of this variety of Prussian blue is nearly as follows : It is 

 ormed by adding ferricyanide of potassium (red prussiate of potash) 



to a protosalt of iron. It results from the substitution of three equi- 

 alents of iron for three equivalents of potassium. The same blue 

 irecipitate may be obtained by adding to a protosalt of iron a mixture 

 if yellow prussiate of potash, chloride of soda, and hydrochloric acid. 

 The tint of this blue is lighter and more delicate than that of Prussian 



' ilue. It is occasionally used by the calico-printer, who mixes it witii 



