The trilingual prayer copied by Avraham Firkowicz: The first Hebrew, Judeo-Slavic, and Crimean Judeo-Turkic trilingual text

Alexander I. Grishchenko, Dan Shapira

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This article presents a unique trilingual (Hebrew, Turkic, and Slavic) religious literary work from the personal archive of Avraham Firkowicz (National Library of Russia, St. Petersburg). The text, containing 129 lines (verses) in Hebrew characters, is written in Firkowicz's own hand. Its author has not been reliably identified, but it is assumed that he could be a Karaite Jew from Łuck / Lutsk (Wolhynia, present-day Ukraine) with a good speaking-level knowledge of Slavic and Turkish (e.g., Joseph-Solomon Lutski or Mordechai Sultanski). The language of the Turkic version is a variety of Crimean Judeo-Turkic with many Turkish (Oğuz) features; the language of the Slavic version is based on standard Russian of the early 19th century with Church Slavonic, Ukrainian, and Polish elements.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1-50
Number of pages50
JournalJournal of Jewish Languages
Volume30
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Jan 2021

Keywords

  • Avraham Firkowicz / Firkovich
  • Crimean Turkish
  • Jewish-Christian relations
  • Judeo-Slavic
  • Judeo-Turkic
  • Karaites
  • Language of status
  • Language transfer

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Cultural Studies
  • Language and Linguistics
  • History
  • Linguistics and Language

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