Cumanic

Cumanic refers to the language spoken by the Cumans, a nomadic Turkic people who inhabited a large territory in Eastern Europe, particularly in the Pontic Steppe, from the 11th to the 13th centuries. The Cuman language belonged to the Kipchak branch of the Turkic language family. It is considered an ancestor of several modern Turkic languages, including Tatar and Karachay-Balkar.

Our knowledge of Cumanic is primarily derived from a limited number of surviving texts, most notably the Codex Cumanicus. This manuscript, compiled in the 14th century, contains various linguistic materials, including a glossary, a rhyming dictionary, and religious texts. It provides valuable insights into the grammar, vocabulary, and phonology of the Cuman language. The Codex Cumanicus was used by missionaries and merchants traveling through Cuman territory.

The influence of Cumanic extended to the languages of neighboring peoples. It left a significant lexical impact on languages such as Hungarian, Romanian, and Ukrainian, with many loanwords entering these languages from Cumanic. The Cuman confederation eventually fragmented due to the Mongol invasions in the 13th century, leading to the dispersal of the Cuman people and the gradual assimilation of their language into other Turkic and Slavic tongues. Despite its eventual disappearance as a distinct spoken language, Cumanic remains an important subject of study for historical linguistics and for understanding the cultural interactions in medieval Eastern Europe.