[quote="Ruby Novacna" pid='60507' dateline='1720906698']
[quote='Ahmet Ardıç' pid='60506' dateline='1720900812']
[I only asked for the summary of your 33v translation, not a 29-page article.
I will try to do this using your article and the transcription found on the voynich.nu site
Now all I have to do is find a good free Ottoman dictionary online, which one will you recommend?]
Dear Novacna,
You don't need a good Ottoman dictionary. Because there is no language called Ottoman. The language that people today (and even some linguists ignorantly) call Ottoman
Turkish is a "language" that was common in the Palace and is a mixture of Old
Turkish, Persian, and Arabic, and is widely used in public speaking. What you need are dictionaries that contain the vocabulary in Old
Turkish and its dialects. However, a linguistic study/book in which you can find every word in a single dictionary does not seem possible for
Turkish. Because it is practically never possible to find a key that can open all doors with a single dictionary without using many dictionaries. You can only do this for modern
Turkish. It would be misleading for you to recommend just one online dictionary to you, but I will make some suggestions.
First of all, just trying to decipher the first line of page 33v and the relevant section (or any line or sentence) by reviewing our article would be a good start. At least it can help you understand the method and how we read an Old
Turkish text. For this reason, I must say that I appreciate your effort. Also, thank you for taking such an initiative. If possible, I can say that you can make a more realistic review if you can proceed without deviating/relying on the previous
knowledge you already have in your mind about VM while looking at our article (You are not allowed to view links.
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First of all, I must say that the entire 29-page article contains information that will enable you to read page 33v as well. For this reason, the correct method is to read the whole thing, but if you still want to skip to the last section and look at just one line, reminding you of the following information may help you.
1- My suggestion is that you examine the entire article without rushing. If you do not have time to do this, at least read the article at least once, taking some notes, to learn the details you need to pay attention to during the readings.
2- When you see the / (split) sign in texts, remember that the phonetic forms of the words on both sides of this sign show the possibilities that can correspond to a single word.
3- Try to understand syllabic signs logic first. In syllabic characters, go to our ATA alphabet transcription and find the sound equivalent of these syllabic characters first. For example in some cases, if the author's pen might have written the U sound, which is the second component of the CU sound, to be pronounced like IV, go to our ATA alphabet transcription and find the sound equivalent of this syllabic character, and proceed accordingly for phonetic variants.
4- There is no single dictionary where you can find all the words as they are written. I use many dictionaries but mainly 68 different dictionaries. A significant part of these are dictionaries compiled from colloquial speech. Most of these are paper-printed dictionaries. Sometimes I find words that are not in dictionaries in the articles of linguists (because they talk about different phonetic forms of many words in their articles) on translations of old manuscripts. Dictionaries generally show the phonetic forms of words in the majority dialects, which can be called Main
Turkish or Türkiye
Turkish. However, they do not mention the phonetic forms of the same words in local dialects. However, I can recommend you acquire the 5-volume "Ötüken
Turkish Dictionary" (in paperprint format, ISBN 978-975-437-624-1). It would be helpful if you get this. However, you cannot find this dictionary as a PDF file online. Additionally, the dictionary named "Türk Dilinin Kökeni" (The Dictionary of The Origin of the
Turkish Language) was written by Arif Cengiz Erman (ISBN 978-625-7647-54-0). Apart from these two dictionaries, you can obtain the ones I have marked in the table below from TDK dictionaries. (Some of these are available online as pdf on the TDK page.)
See this >
But you can search for more words on You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.. This page includes the contents of many dictionaries in its database.
However, we have already mentioned our dictionary resources for many words in our article. For this reason, it will be useful to read the article with its footnotes.
5- Do this with the 33v-related paper by reading & and following the ATA alphabet transcription tables on our homepage (You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.). Using tables from other sites.
6- As an agglutinative language, learn how to look up words in
Turkish dictionaries before looking at any dictionary. For example, you should
know that by searching for a word as it is in English, you will not have the same experience as if you found it in the dictionary. Many words are formed only in their root form or with the suffix -mek/-mak or with a single specific word suffix.
For example, you should pay attention to the following:
(To use
Turkish dictionaries effectively, here are some key points to consider)
A. > Root Form: In
Turkish dictionaries, words are typically listed in their root form. This means that nouns are generally listed in their singular, nominative case (e.g., "ev" for "house"), and verbs are presented in their infinitive form (e.g., "yazmak" for "to write").
B. > Suffixes:
Turkish is an agglutinative language, which means that many words can have various suffixes attached to indicate tense, mood, person, number, possession, and more. When looking up a word, you may need to strip it down to its root form if it includes any suffixes. For example, to find the word "yazıyorum" (I am writing), you would search for "yazmak."
C. > Reasons why some words may not be found in dictionaries as they are spoken:
C1. > Colloquial vs. Standard Language: Spoken local
Turkish can include many colloquial or slang expressions that may not be included in standard dictionaries. For this reason, it should not be forgotten that it is necessary to look at the dictionaries of word root meaning contents.
C2. > Dialectal Variations:
Turkish is spoken in various dialects across different regions. Some regional words or pronunciations might not be present in standard dictionaries that focus on the Istanbul dialect (considered standard
Turkish). For VM texts, it is useful to look at the Black Sea, Trakya, and Istanbul Region Dialects dictionaries. I have printouts of these on paper, but if I find them in pdf, I will also share the address links.
C3.> Compound Words and Idioms:
Turkish often employs compound words and idiomatic expressions. These combinations might not be listed in their entirety in dictionaries, as they usually focus on individual root words.
C4. > Phonetic Changes: Pronunciation in informal speech can differ substantially from the standard written form. Such phonetic variations may lead to difficulties in locating words if they are not written as they are pronounced.
C5. > Linguists
know that in ancient languages and dialects, the habit of writing words with the sound form spoken by the writer was common. We
know that in the Middle Ages, states/governments did not publish spelling rules. For this reason, the most important method used by comparative linguistics when comparing words in un
known local dialects with words in any language is to scan words that are close in phonetic value to the reference word. To do this, it will be useful to
know the sound changes between dialects in the language you are examining, at least in their common phonetic transforms.
Conclusively, when using a
Turkish dictionary, it's crucial to consider these factors and often simplify the word to its basic root or search using common, standard spellings. In other words, someone who does not
know Turkish may need to search for or look up the phonetic forms of word roots and word suffix variations separately. Therefore, read the entire article and proceed by looking at the footnotes. If some word suffixes and roots are explained at the beginning of the article, they are not referenced again in the last section explaining the relevant line or sentence. After all, they are not repeated because they were explained in the previous pages.
An additional list of the dictionaries we use most can be seen in the references section below our relevant article.
Thank you for your interest.