Codex Cumanicus

A page from the manuscript, with a drawing of a parrot

The Codex Cumanicus is a linguistic manual of the Middle Ages, designed to help Catholic missionaries communicate with the Cumans, a nomadic Turkic people. It is currently housed in the Library of St. Mark in Venice (BNM ms Lat. Z. 549 (=1597)).

The codex was created in Crimea in 14th century and is considered one of the oldest attestations of several Turkic languages including Crimean Tatar, Tatar, Kyrgyz and Kazakh, which is of great importance for the history of Kipchak and Turkic languages overall — as directly related to the Kipchaks (Polovtsy, Kumans).

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