Calgary engineer believes he's cracked the mysterious Voynich Manuscript

[Ahmet Ardıç]

Hi Ahmet, nice to see you here and thanks for answering questions. What is your translation of the vord daiin? 

Hi Pepper,

You asked an explanation about a short word with using a short sentence. However, the answer is not short. Because this word is used in many different meanings as both a word suffix and an independent word. For this reason, this word is used very often in VMS and this is a very normal situation.

We can write this word in Latin abc in the form SAĞN / ŞAĞN / SEĞN, SAM / ŞAM / SEM / ŞEM, ŞAIIN / SAIIN / ŞEĞN / ŞEİİN according to ATA alphabet transcription. 

I am not saying that the author was referring to all of these words by writing with this single word. There's absolutely nothing like that. Only this word has a Turkish equivalent of all different transcription combinations and some of their meanings are also common. Because the word root is the same. So, that as the word is read in context, the human brain (for a native speaker) automatically derives all variations, and selects the appropriate one for the context. An example of the brain automatically selecting the appropriate concept to the context in English would be the presentation of the word “fly.” Depending on the context in which it is being read, the brain will draw a distinction between “fly” the verb and “fly” the noun. A similar situation exists in Turkish, albeit with more options. If this is confusing, you can read the explanation below and see that all of them in Turkish.

I hope you will understand my English in first read.

The spelling of this word as SAIIN and as like SAĞN are so close to each other with in phonetic-value that they cannot be perceived as different words. The root of this word is the SA- ('SAĞ-' in some dialects), and it has the suffix '-ĞN'.

The suffix “-ĞN” (“-AĞN”/“-ĞIN”/ “-GİN”) is the phonetic equivalent of “-AĞIN / -EĞİN” due to the Turkish vowel harmony rule, for when the last letter of a root is a consonant, a vowel may be placed as a conjunction between the root and the suffix. These suffixes indicate prospect attainability, potentially achieving something, to be able to potentially attain/reach something, and expecting forthcoming form of something (-able). Sir Gerard Clauson in his book "Studies in Turkic and Mongolic Linguistics" (page 154) explained the suffixes “ĞIN”, and “GİN” as: ["-ğın/-gin function uncertain; e.g. kev- "to masticate" > kevgin "indigestible"; rare and unproductive and probably very old."]. In addition, Sir Gerard Clauson explained in his book "An etymological dictionary of pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish" (Clauson) that: ["-ğ the commonest Deverbal Suffix; forms a wide range of Deverbal Nouns and Noun/Adjectives, Nomen actiones, etc".]

You can see this word in some Turkish dictionaries (with certain meanings) in the form SAĞIN. But you can often see this word in dictionaries with the word-suffix '-mek / -mak'. So you can see this word in the dictionaries as like SAĞINMAK and SAĞMAK too.

The suffixes “-mek/-mak”: these are suffixes of Turkish infinitive. They turn the root word into a verb as well as also a concrete noun.(Clauson, Eyuboğlu, Guise)

SAĞINMAK: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
SAĞMAK: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
(See Turkish equivalents in the dictionary in google word translator.)

In addition, the various meaning of the word SAĞIN itself is shown in some dictionaries.
SAĞIN: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

You could say that essentially, the letter A and E correspond to ATA Transcription with a single typeface. So we can read this word as SEĞİN.
However, the word SEĞİN is a Turkish word too.
SEĞİN: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

If you read the word in SEM format, it also has Turkish meanings.
SEM: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

If we talk about reading this word as SAM, we can say the following. This word is both a word-suffix and a word that has its own meaning.

The word SAM: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The suffixe -SAM: The suffix “-SAM” indicates actions taken in first person. This suffix is directly described as “I/me” and is related to the suffixes “-SAM”, “-SIM”, “-SİM” or “-SEM” which all describe action’s owner to be “I, me, myself” (first person) (Guise).

In Turkish, some word-suffixes can be written separated from the main word/root since ancient times.

Likewise, the pronunciation of word SEM also has Turkish meanings. For example, we know that this word is used in the meaning of 'medicine' in Old Turkish. But the word SEM also has other meanings too. 
SEM: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

The pronunciation of this word as ŞAM and as like ŞEM has some meanings in Turkish.
ŞAM: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
ŞEM: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

If we talk about the spelling of the word ŞAĞIN;
Today, this word is written and read in the Anatolian dialects in the form of UŞAĞIN. In other words, the word has a U sound on the front side. We know that some dialects in Azerbaijan are still used in the form of ŞAĞIN in the same meaning.

In this spelling, the root word is the word UŞAK. But when it was take the word suffix -ĞIN, the K sound was lost in pronunciation and the word became as USAĞIN.
UŞAK: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

If we read the word as ŞEĞN, this lives in our language in the form of ŞEYİN. The root of this word is ŞEY. It usually appears in the root form in dictionaries.
ŞEY: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
ŞEYİN: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

As you can see, we have shown all the different readings of this word read in VMS according to ATA transcription. Moreover, we shared all related Turkish dictionary pages.

You may have noticed that this word is repeated in almost every page, with multiple numbers in VMS. Moreover, just like in modern Turkish, this word appears in VMS as both an independent word and as a word suffix. So, in this point, the overlap between Turkish and VMS is very clear. All I can tell you is that the word is not used in the same meaning, or in the same function with all of these repetitions in VMS.

So that's why there are many repetitions.

In the runic alphabet inscriptions from the Old Turkish Period, cases where two or more sounds were met with a single alphabet sign were recorded. So this is not just for VMS-specific too.

However, this type of alphabet has helped the author to encode confidential information. We talked about how this coding is done in our second youtube video in English.   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

May be it is very difficult to understand this situation for a person who thinks English (or any other PIE rooted language) in his/her brain, but an example, even if a word has 10 readings and 100 different meanings, someone who knows Turkish will understand the meaning of the word when they read a sentence. In addition, Turkish speaking person will always understand whether it was used as a word-suffixe or as a separate word too.

So, This is suffix and word. Different readings of the word mostly from same root and a native speaker brain automatically selecting the appropriate concept or meaning form the meaning content. 

The author could write this word in a more separable form by using with simple alphabet characters only, if she/he were wanted to that.

If the author were wanted to that, she/he was not match some single sign in the alphabet with 2 sounds. So this type of writing is not very normal. However, the aim of the author was to create a coded MS which should have been not easy to read. The author was coding and developed a complex alphabet to make this MS difficult to read.

In other words, this alphabet is the situation specific alphabet to created only for VMS, which has been created with consisting of both the syllabic alphabet, the simple alphabet and the tamga-scripts and the numbers. For this reason, now we are reading a simple word in very different ways.

The interesting thing is that even when we take the meanings of different words, the meaning integrity of the sentences is often not broken in meaning. I think this is a situation that created by the intelligence of the author, but it cannot be a coincidence. It is probably not possible to simulate this situation in a language other than Turkish.

Best regards,

Ahmet Ardıç
ATA Team Alberta

Hello Ahmet,

I believe that in your answer you are attempting to provide us with ample explanations to why this particular separate glyph sequence is found very frequently in the VMS (in fact it is the most frequent qlyph sequence), if I'm not being too much mistaken? However, you didn't really answer the question asked. In your links that you have provided no actual translations of the words can be found since everything is written in Turkish, so you have to have knowledge of Turkish to understand the web-pages. Therefore I would here like to re-formulate the original question:

What would be your translation of the - or one of the - most commonly found example(s) of this word/word-suffix in Turkish/Old Turkish languages, into English? 

I am not relying on Google translate, I would like an answer from someone who speaks Turkish. Thank you.

Hi,

I hope, my annotation here will explain the subject more clearly. 
Thank you for requesting additional information.


First of all, I must say that the word suffix -SAM / -SEM is used frequently in Turkish. Reading this word suffix SAM or SEM does not change the meaning. So this two (SAM and SEM) are the same thing. The intended use of this word-suffix is different and the frequency of use may vary according to dialects. For example, in Anatolian Turkish, the function of the suffix -im is expressed in the Pomak-Turkish language (pomak) as -SAM (first person indicate suffix -im).

[In this source, you can see this: "arno sam (dobre sım): iyiyim" in Pomakça <https://pomakcasozluk.wordpress.com/pomakca-turkce/>]

However, I must say that I have not encountered an article that compared the frequency with which the word suffix SAM / SEM is used in Turkish with different languages. If I have time, maybe I can write such an article. However, I will give an example of some literary or linguistic texts here and you will perceive the frequency of use of this syllable visually.

Below I share a link to an academic article published in a university in Turkey. The article itself examines some examples of texts from Turkish but Çuvaş-Turkish language dialects in terms of grammar. This article quoted a one-page Turkish-ÇUVAŞ dialect written text. This article also partially examined the word-suffix -SAM. In the quoted Chuvash text, the frequency of occurrence of this word suffix is seen.

In this source article, she did not count and specify how many times this SAM syllable occurs as a word-ending sound in every 100 words. However, looking at the copied text in the 1-page Chuvash dialect, this quote will give you an idea of how much the SAM syllable is repeated at the end of words. And we can count ourselves in how many words this structure was seen. Let's see how many times the SAM last-syllable appears in the text on a single page. In this text below, I marked the last syllables of SEM/SAM in bold so that we can count clearly in page 43 in this published academic article. In addition, from this page 26 of this article, she also states that the word suffix SAM is used in 'second person and plural conjugation' and gives some examples.

In addition, The author of the article wrote that this word suffix (-SEM /-SAM) of the Chuvash Turks is also used to make nouns plural. The author of the article that reports on page 43 of this article that, uniqueness names in Chuvash dialect do not take a morpheme to show the number suffix, whereas nouns in the plurality category take the morpheme + sem (Unity names do not take a morpheme to indicate the number field, whereas names in the plural category take the morpheme + sem / This particular quote that in as; "Teklik isimler sayı ulamını gösterecek bir biçimbirim almazken, çokluk kategorisindeki isimler +sem biçimbirimine alır."). 

For example, this situation is not found in Anatolian Turkish. For this reason, we need to know which dialect the VMS author uses. May be the VMS author was using some form of the ÇUVAŞ dialect.

 [Source; Doç. Dr. Funda KARA form T.C. Atatürk University Socıal Sciences Department Of Turkish Language And Literature (2013)  < You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  >]

The quoted text is in the Chuvash-dialect (in the Cyrillic text) from an article by M. Pavlov's source is cited [Indicated Source in this article: M. M. Pavlova, Hănăhtaru puhhisem, Şupaşkar 2009, Ṩěně văhăt, s.17]:

Let's look at the quote now: (Note: -CEM in Cyrillic-alphabet = -SEM in the Latin-alphabet)
 
КАЙӐКСЕМ

Кайӑксем - юрӑ та вӗҫев!

Кайӑк сасси - пирӗн вӑрмансем, ҫеҫен хирсем, тусемпе пушхирсен сасси.

Кайӑксем - сывлӑш ачисем, сывлӑшри океана пӑхӑнтаракансем. Вӗсем,
пӗлӗтрен те, тусенчен те ҫӳлерех вӗҫсе хӑпараҫҫӗ.

Кайӑксем - асамат кӗперӗн ачисем. Вӗсен тӗкӗсене тем тӗрлӗ сӑрӑпа та
сӑрласа пӗтернӗ.

Кайӑксем - савӑнӑҫ хыпарҫисем. Вӗсем кашни ҫулах ҫунат ҫинче пирӗн
пата ҫуркуннене илсе килеҫҫӗ.

Кайӑксем - пире пулӑшаӑкансем, вӑрмансемпе хирсен, пахчасемпе садсене
упракансем. Кайӑксем - вӑрттӑнлӑхпа илем. Кайӑксем - пирӗн ачалӑх тусӗсем.

Кайӑксем ҫинчен чаплӑ сӑвӑсемпе юрӑсем, юмӑхсем хывнӑ. Кайӑксӑр эпир
пурӑнайман та пулӑттӑмӑр. Кайӑксӑр ҫӗр мӗнле пуласси ҫинчен шухӑшлама та
хӑрушӑ!

Авӑ камсем вӗсем, кайӑксем!
 
So, There are about 100 words here and 24 of them ends with this (-SEM/-SAM) syllable / sound.

However, we cannot generalize neither this nor the VMS texts for the Turkish language about this SAM syllable issue. This will vary according to the dialects. It also varies according to the content of the subject posted.

To give an example, let's say a teacher wrote a text telling students   that something like what they should and should not do in a study day. Suppose the teacher wrote in the same text as an example of what he/she did on his/her study day. In this case, most sentences will contain conditional suffixes + first and second person singular suffixes. In addition, imagine that you are using this syllable not only as a word suffix but also as a word too. In this case, he/she will need to use this first person singular word suffixes in almost every sentence in the text. At the same time, the VMS author was using this as a word besides being a word suffix. Which word can be read as like SAM, SEM, ŞEM, ŞAM, SAĞN (saıın/sağn/sağın) based on ATA transcription.

Words:
SAM (straw, grass/sap saman, ot): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
SEM (medicine/ilaç): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
ŞAM (candle, wax, solid-parafin/mum): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
ŞEM (candle, wax, beeswax, silver/mum, bal mumu, gümüş): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
SAĞIN (milking, lactating, milch, complete/sağmal, süt veren, sağım. tam): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
or
SAĞIM: (milking/sağım): You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
 
Or suppose that texts are telling an event in the past or a story in the present time. So let's tell a story that doesn't need to use the first and second person singular conditional suffixes like this. In this case, you cannot see this word suffix in that kind of texts. It is precisely for this reason that we cannot generalize as if we see X% of 'SAM' syllables at the end of words in that kind of Turkish text.

I can say that the Turkish language dialects and VMS texts overlap with each other. But I am sure that no other language in the world can match that much. 

In today's Turkish, we are mostly using this suffix (SAM / SEM) to make wish and request modes or to establish conditional structures.

We can see this structure in the Harezmi dialect too. In Harezmi Turkish dialect, we see the conditional mode -SEM / -SAM. In an article written by Prof. Dr. Aysu Ata, She gave some examples of words and sentences in Harezmi dialect.

E.g;
t. şahıs erse men / ersem düşmÀnnı erse men (HŞ 4381), baàda ersem (HŞ 441) bar ersem (KE 144r16)

[You can see more example in this source: Harezm Turkish Morphology, Prof. Dr. Aysu Ata,<https://www.turkcenindirilisi.com/turkce/harezm-turkcesi-sekil-bilgisi-ozellikleri-prof-dr-aysu-h95640.html>]

In researcher Gürer Gülsevin's presentation in 1999, she was informing about "optative varieties" in Old (Anatolian) Turkish. In her statement she was share some examples from Old Turkish.

Some of these are those:
2nd person singularity of optative varieties -sen
gele sen bunda saηa neη garazum yok işidür sen / kala sen anda yavuzdur yalıηuz kanda kalur sen (Mev.1,1) ...

1st person singularity of optative varieties -sam
senüηle meşveret kılsam gerekdür / bu derde çâreler bulsam gerekdür (Işk.3565)

2nd person singularity of optative varieties -sAη
bir kaç haslet birle ârâste olsaη gerek (Mrzb.64b.14)
 
In other words, it is clearly known that this word suffix exists in Old Turkish and there are many academic sources that provide this information. So, some people used to write this word suffix by combining it with the root word. However, it was also possible to write them separately. In this example, both are seen being together, as like VMS texts.

[Source: TDK-Fransız Anadolu Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, Osmanlı Türkçesi Öncesi : Eski Türkiye Türkçesi Toplantısı, İstanbul Aralık 1999, by Gürer Gülsevin,<http://www.turkoloji.cu.edu.tr/ESKI%20TURK%20DILI/gulsevin_01.pdf>]
 
Included in the poetic form of 'koşuk', we often see the '- sam' request suffix.

E.g;  Säbzvân Ķoşıķläri 
145
Säbzvân m yoķ ekän sazäyläsäm
ķanatim yoķ ekän pärvâz äyläsäm
ķani meni yäħşi fe’lli yârginäm
taŋġdä barib aldigä zâr äläsäm
...
367
çärħ igirsäm çärħginäm äylänädi
uygä kirsäm saçginäm tolġanädi
ķoy suyib toylär birib algän yârim
kündiz ötib keçäsi ħuylänädi
368
käşki men uçär çibin bolsäm edi
ķayrilib ķabaġ gä ķonsäm edi
şunçäki rumal alib kiş kişläsä
öldirsä diydälärdän toysäm edi
527
ķari çaldi yer deb tutsäm ne morad
u ölsä men bivä ķalsäm ne morad
undän körä ŧaķa ötsäm yaħşiraķ
u minän men ŧila taķsäm yaħşiraķ
 
... etc ...
 
[You can see more example in this source: 'Säbzvân Ķoşıķläri', Ankara Unıversıty Socıal Scıences Instıtute Contemporary Turkısh Languages And Lıteratures Department, Yüksek Lisans Tezi. Yazar: Asaludin Nazamudin, Yıl: 2012 <https://dspace.ankara.edu.tr/xmlui/bitstream/handle/20.500.12575/30316/asaludin_nazamundin_tez.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y>]

Let me give you some scientific and linguistic information about Turkish lexical structure in order to fully understand this issue.
First of all, we can read this word suffix -SAM and -SEM with using ATA alphabet transcription. Because that, the author expressed the sounds ‘A’ and ‘E’ with the same letter sign. Moreover, this is not only valid for VMS. There is a similar situation in some other old inscriptions written with the runic alphabet in Turkish too. This situation seems to give us a wider range of motion for anagrams. But this perception at first sight is a completely wrong estimate. Because that, there is no difference between writing this word-suffix as SAM or SEM in Turkish. There is a structure called vowel-harmony in Turkish. This structure does not allow the reader who knows the Turkish language to read SEM where they need to read SAM.

So why is that?

In Turkish a vowel usually follows a consonant and a consonant follows a vowel. However, in most old Turkic languages, two vowels in a word could follow each other. In modern Anatolian Turkish, generally the second vowel in a structure can be dropped while only the first vowel maintains its function, as this is called vowel apocopation (vowel loss). Furthermore, the Turkish Vowel Harmony Rule governs these structural amendments, and all alterations are based on the dialectic differences (Clauson, Guise). In addition to this, in rare cases throughout the VM, if there are three vowels side by side, usually the last two vowels can be dropped. 

The Turkish Vowel Harmony Rule refers to an echoing phonetic value of the previous vowel in a word. In other words, the vowels of suffixes must mirror the final vowel of the word being suffixed in a same phonetic value. Most suffixes must follow the rule of vowel harmony (Clauson, Guise). Within the Vowel Harmony Rule, there are two sets of vowels. The first set consists of the letters “A, I, O, U”; the second set consists of the letters “E, İ, Ö, Ü”. These vowels only appear in words as either one of these sets, for within one word, a vowel such as “O” cannot be seen with any other vowels outside “A, I, O, U”. 

Similarly, the same rule allows the phonetic listing of combined letters (syllabic characters) in the Voynich Manuscript. Since most combined letters appear as two consonants, the vowel that is placed initially is not limited to any vowel harmony set – unless the combined letter is not the root of the word. The initial vowel in the root governs which vowel set is employed in added affixiation.

[For more information please see this source about the Turkish. Vowel Harmony <http://www.gravityturkish.com/manisa/vh1.htm>]

Do this SAM / SAIIN spelling in VMS have other meanings as a word-suffix? Let's explain this detail more broadly. This word-suffix in VMS was used to perform the following functions.

 

In VMS, That suffix that is added to the root is “-SAIIN”/ “-SAĞN” and/or “-SAM”, which are either suffixes that indicate the action’s owner as in you (second person) or me (first person). Technically, the suffix that was written by the author was directly and only “-SAIN”, yet it is important to understand that the “-IN” (and its phonetic and connotation equivalent “-IIN”) part of the suffix could both be pronounced as |em| (“-M”), or |en| (“-N”) during the time period in which the manuscript was written in. It makes essentially no difference as to the definition of the term, and only effects the description of the action’s owner. However, it is important to identify and explain both possibilities – despite the fact one is more relevant than the other – as both technically remain a possibility. In addition, the presence of “-SA-” (Clauson) as a portion of the suffix acts as an indicator that is the equivalent of the English term "IF" (Guise). In addition, “-sa-” suffix known as; "Forms Desiderative Denominal Verbs (No-men Actions (to wish))" (Clauson), and it is also important to keep in mind that the suffix “-SAN” can also sand as a root “SAN” which is defined as “(to): count, deem, think, suppose, and conjecture” etc (Eyuboğlu). Furthermore, based on some Azerbaijani dialects, an additional usage of the suffix “-SAIN” or “-SEİN” would be applicable to the time period in which the manuscript was written. In Turkish the suffix “SAIN” has comparable usages such as “-benzer”, “-gibi”, “-ya uygun”, “-ya müsait”, “-ya elverişli”. In English the translation would be “suitable to make something”, “convenient to make something”, “similar to something”, “such as”, “similarly”, and “like”.

            The suffix “-SAIN” (in Azerbaijani-Turkic it is |-SAĞIN| but in Anatolian Turkish it is |-SAĞI|, or |-SAĞI-| which equivalent of today's Turkish suffixes "-ımsı", "-sı", and "-ımtırak". Which in English “such as”, “similarly”, “like” and it also indicates actions for second person (Aksoy) and suffix “-SAN” indicates actions taken in second person. The suffix “-SAIN”/ “-SAN” is based on the word “SEN”, which can stand as a suffix or a root and is defined (in English) as “you” regardless of its role. The suffixes “-SAN”, “-SEN”, “-SAIN”, “-SEİN”, “-SUN”, and “-SÜN” all are derived from the word “SEN” and all define as “you” as they indicate an action’s owner in second person. The middle letters have changed due to different Turkic dialects forming throughout different geographic locations, yet despite all changes, the definitions are shared and supported by the Turkish Vowel and Consonant Harmony Rules. 

            The conditional suffix “-SAM” indicates actions taken in first person. This suffix is directly described as “I/me” and is related to the suffixes “-SAM”, “-SIM”, “-SİM” or “-SEM” which all describe action’s owner to be “I, me, myself” (first person) (Guise).

            The suffix “-ĞN” (“-AĞN”/“-ĞIN”/ “-GİN”) is the phonetic equivalent of “-AĞIN / -EĞİN” due to the Turkish vowel harmony rule, for when the last letter of a root is a consonant, a vowel may be placed as a conjunction between the root and the suffix. These suffixes indicate prospect attainability, potentially achieving something, to be able to potentially attain/reach something, and expecting forthcoming form of something (-able). Sir Gerard Clauson in his book "Studies in Turkic and Mongolic Linguistics" (page 154) explained the suffixes “-ĞIN”, and “GİN” as: ["-ğın/-gin function uncertain; e.g. kev- "to masticate" > kevgin "indigestible"; rare and unproductive and probably very old."]. In addition, Sir Gerard Clauson explained in his book "An etymological dictionary of pre-Thirteenth-Century Turkish" (Clauson) that: 

["-ğ the commonest Deverbal Suffix; forms a wide range of Deverbal Nouns and Noun/Adjectives, Nomen actiones, etc".]

Here is the most important part (the key for compare different texts in different languages) to see that if VMS text are match or not match with Turkish!!!

 Furthermore, the text that appeared in VM is following many Turkish phonetic and morphological structures. Although, there are too many such concepts to list here a few examples we can provide include facts such as, both VM and Turkish structure does not have any words that end with “/b/, /c/, /d/, /g/”. Likewise, they also do not have any words that start with “/f/, /h/, /j/, /l/, /m/, /n/, /p/, /r/, /v/, /z/, /ş/”. There is some exception to this rule. There might be word being taken from other languages such as Arabic, Persian, etc. Additionally, we must account for the fact that certain first letters may be dropped, as well as letters can be changed to replace others as dialects expanded and evolved. For example, the word “bar” became “var”; “/b/” can also become “/m/”, “/s/| becomes “ş” etc. Another example that has no exceptions is the use of the letter “/ğ/”, as there are no word that start with it. All of this is reflected in the VM.

These features of Turkish overlap precisely with VMS texts throughout 240 pages (excluding maybe a few words which borrowed from other languages such as Persian and Arabic into Turkish). There is not even a second language in the world that can come close to this match.

If there is a situation where a linguist can deny these overlaps, it can be openly questioned whether that person understands linguistics. The situation is that clear.

It was a lengthy explanation in bad English. Thank you for reading with patience.

Best regards,

Ahmet Ardıç
ATAT Team Alberta