Özet
A Verse Dictionary Arabic-Persian-Turkish: Tuhfe-i Vafi
Poets and writers who have written in the classical Turkish literature tradition have produced works in a wide range of contents and genres. Verse dictionaries that are one of the genres in this wide spectrum, are works in which a word in a language or languages is given in verse. The tradition of writing verse dictionary in our literature started in the fifteenth century and continued until the twentieth century. These works have been written in order to facilitate language teaching by using the musicality of the poem and the rhythmic fluidity of the meter and provide the permanence of the learned words in memory. There are some grammar, bahir and meter information in this kind of works written mostly for children studying in primary schools. Verse dictionaries which are very popular in our literature, are written in Arabic-Turkish, Persian-Turkish and Arabic-Persian-Turkish as well as Bosnian, Greek, Armenian and French verse dictionaries are also written.
One of the dictionaries in verse is Tuhfe-i Vâfî that was written by Osman Vâfî Efendi in three languages as Arabic-Persian-Turkish in 1288/1871-72. The work consists of 332 couplets involving a 19 couplet introduction section written in the mesnevi verse, a dictionary section of 41 verses with couplet numbers ranging from 4 to 12 and a seven-couplet hatime titled “Târîh-i berây-ı ihtitâm” where the copyright history of the work is reported. In the work there are approximately 2120 words or phrases with repetitions including 630 Turkish, 710 Persian, 780 Arabic.
In this study by focusing on the shape and content features, the transcriptional text of some of the scarce works of Tuhfe-i Vâfî is given which is a verse dictionary in Arabic-Persian-Turkish language written in the 19th century.
Anahtar Kelimeler
Classical Turkish Literature, Verse Dictionary, Osman Vafi, Tuhfe-i Vafi.