Or 404

This volume contains a collection of five different works, most of them relating to linguistics and language usage:

ff 6v-27v : Favāᵓid-i Turkī, grammar of Turkic dialects explained in Persian and composed by Ashur Beg. The author enumerates the following dialects: Turani, Uzbeki, Irani, Qizilbashi, Rumi, Qashgari and Nogay. He deal principally with the first two, which he considers to be the standard languages, but occasionally points out the individual characteristics of the others and gives some colloquial forms (i.e. kilip tula for kilip turlar);

ff 28v-68v : Familiar dialogues in Chagatai, with a Persian translation, compiled apparently by the same author as text 1 for his pupil, Mir Muhsin Khan;

ff 69r-79v : A fragment of a masnavi in Chagatai, the hero of which is a king called Hūmān bin Qayfūr. It consists of two sections, the first of which is under a rubric that translates as “How Hūmān bin Qayfūr of Yunan did battle with Tūmān bin Hermes, of Dagestan, on the first day, and how both kings displayed prowess and bravery on the battlefield; also the doughty feats of Felīqūn and Sām, and the number of the slain.” The second section, commencing on f 72v, describes the distribution of robes of honour and presents by Hūmān on the second day, and the resumption of the fight on the third. The poet''s name, Gharibī, occurs in the last lines of the text;

ff 80v-92v : Zubdat al-asmāᵓ al-turkiyah, A Chagatai and Persian vocabulary divided into nine fusul, in which the words are classed as subjects;

ff 93v-110v : Niṣāb quṭubiyah, a versified Chagatai-Persian vocabulary by Kelimet-ullah, son of Khwājah Raḥmat-Allāh bin Khwājah Niᶜmat-Allāh, with a prose preface. The author composed it at the request of a royal prince, Mirza Quṭb al-Dīn, and included in it the words which he had heard from Turkic speakers or found in books. It consists of nine qiṭᶜāt of different measure, comprising 274 bayt. The Turkic and Persian words are respectively marked with ta’ and fa’ over them.

This manuscript was copied in Puth (Sind) and is dated both 17 Muharrem 1253 AH (23 April 1837 CE) and 6 Rabi'' al-awwal 1253 AH (1837 CE).