Codex Cumanicus

The Codex Cumanicus was a linguistic manual of the Middle Ages, designed to help Catholic missionaries communicate with the Cumans, a nomadic Turkic people. It is currently housed in the Library of St. Mark, in Venice (Cod. Mar. Lat. DXLIX).

The Codex likely developed over time. Mercantile, political, and religious leaders, particularly in Hungary, sought effective communication with the Cumans as early as the mid-11th century. As Italian city-states, such as Genoa, began to establish trade posts and colonies along the Black Sea coastline, the need for tools to learn the Kipchak language sharply increased.

The earliest parts of the Codex are believed to have originated in the 12th or 13th century. Substantial additions were likely made over time. The copy preserved in Venice is dated 11 July 1330 on fol. 1r (see Drimba, p. 35 and Schmieder in Schmieder/Schreiner, p. XIII). The Codex consists of a number of independent works combined into one.

Historians generally divide it into two distinct and independent parts. The first folio, 1r-55v, is a practical handbook of the Kipchak tongue, containing a glossary of words in vulgar Italo-Latin and translations into Persian and Kipchak. This section has been styled the "Italian Part" or the "Interpreter's Book" of the Codex. Whether the Persian parts came through Kipchak intermediaries or whether Persian was a lingua franca for Mediterranean trade well known in Western Europe is a matter hotly debated by scholars.

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