Characteristics of Some Turkic Garshuni Texts Preserved in an 18th Century Chaldean Prayer Book

Abstract

This article presents the Turkic Garshuni prayers found in the 18th century Chaldean manuscript Uppsala O Hebr. 47. Out of a total of eight prayers, five have previously been described in the scholarly literature and three are here presented for the first time. The previously described prayers are compared to other (manuscript) witnesses with respect to orthography and textual tradition, and the new prayers are also briefly introduced. Then the orthography used for writing Turkic Garshuni in Uppsala O Hebr. 47 is discussed in more general terms. It is suggested that two different orthographic traditions are represented in the manuscript: one where ʿayn is used as a mater lectionis and ḥēṯ is used as a homophone of kāf with rukkāḵā, and one in which these features are absent. Different ways of writing /ŋ/ are also commented on.