Abstract:

During the period when the Uyghur alphabet was used for the spelling of the Turkic language, the Arabic alphabet was also used in parallel with this alphabet. The works were written with one or both of these alphabets. The application of the Arabic alphabet to many different languages has necessitated the reformation of this alphabet for the relevant languages. Various reforms have been made in the writing of the Turkic language. In this study, the special spelling of the /ŋ/ sound in “Tarih-i Yakub Paşa” (Tārīḫ-i Ya‘ḳūb Paşa), one of the works of Ottoman area, was examined. The work “Tarih-i Yakub Paşa” is about Yakub Pasha's long campaign in the territories of the Balkan and his victory in the Battle of Krbava. During this war, Yakub Pasha served as the sanjak-bey of Bosnia. In the “Tarih-i Yakub Paşa”, examples where the letters nun and kef were used together for the /ŋ/ sound were classified and examined. It has been determined that in the spelling of the Turkic word “tanrı” (god) in the work “Tarih-i Yakub Paşa”, letters nun and kāf are used for the /ŋ/ sound. This sound is shown as the transcription sign “n͡g” and is used as the equivalent of a single sound. This feature, known as the characteristic of the Old Uyghur orthography, was also reflected as an orthographic effect in Turkish texts written in the Arabic alphabet in west of Caspian Sea. In the work, in addition to the use of nun-kāf as the old spelling style, the use of kāf was also encountered. In this study within these situations, relevant examples of work “Tarih-i Yakub Paşa” was examined.

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