THE CHARACTERISTICAL SPELLING AND PHONETIC FEATURES OF THE NEWLY DISCOVERED “BOOK OF DEDE KORKUT” MANUSCRIPT

Abstract

The epos “Book of Dede Korkut” is a rich and valuable treasure created by the Turkic World, especially the Oghuz
Turks who created it. This treasure is one of the great sources of Turkish and our native language, too. The study of the
epos “Kitabi-Dada Gorgud”, which conveys to us the semi-legendary, semi-real historical past of the Oghuzs in poetic
language: research on manuscripts, language, history of writing continues today. A significant event for the Turkish
world and Turkology in 2019 was taken place: a new manuscript of the main book of the Oghuzs’ “Dada Korkut” was
discovered. In a short time the text of the manuscript was published by various scholars. The language of the manuscript
is distinguished by its originality: fluidity, rhythm and harmony, lyricism and high poetic features.
The article considers the spelling and phonetic features of the newly discovered manuscript of the “Book of Dede
Korkut” epos. The spelling features of the epos were analyzed in comparison with other manuscripts, and the original
texts published were compared with the published texts. During the research, lexical features were considered in the
background of phonetic features, and similarities and differences between the manuscripts were analyzed.
The observations on the spelling and phonetic features of the manuscript of the newly discovered version of “Dede
Korkut” show that, despite of its small size, the manuscript reflects the phonetic landscape of the period. The newly
discovered manuscript is important in terms of a comprehensive study of the historical phonetics and spelling of our
language