KÜRDLER ÇOK BÜYÜK BİR ULUSTUR Kürdistan coğrafyası tarihi çok eski olduğu gibi, Kürd Ulusu'nun da tarihi öyle kadim ve eskidir. Hemen hemen hiç istisnasız bütün İLK dinler, hatta din kültürü ilk olarak tarihî Kürdistan coğrafyasında doğmuştur. Çünkü tarihi Kürdistan coğrafyası, insanlığın insan olmaya İLK adım attığı en ilk kutsal ve kadim mekandır. İnsan düşünmeye bu cennet mekanda başlayabilmiştir ancak. Hıristiyan kürdlerin tamamen tasfiye edilmeden önce, kendini bir kısım müslümanların merhametsiz ve şiddetli tasfiye saldırılarından korumak için, diğer eski bir kavim olan süryani kavmiyle birleşmeye gitmiştir muhtemelen. Süryanilerin arasında kürdçe konuşan işte bu hıristiyan kürdlerdir. Bunların dini metinlerinin kürdçe yazılmış ilahi kısmına GERŞÛNÎ denir. Araştırmacı M. Dehqan daha önce bu gerşûni ilahileri Serbesti'de bize tanıtmıştı. Resimde arami alfabesiyle yazılmış bir Gerşûnî metni görülmektedir. Ayrıca Ramazan E. adlı bir kürd araştırmacısının da bu konuda şimdiye kadar kitap halinde hala yayınlanmamış olan bir derlemesi vardır. ___________________________________ SACHAU 204: A KURDISH GARSHUNI POEM - M. Dehqan: Independent researcher, Karadj Abstract. Contacts between Kurdish culture and that of the Syriac — whatever we take “Syriac” to mean in this context — have a long and tricky history which for many fields is still far from sufficiently studied. All researchers, however, do agree that these contacts caused a more important Kurdo-Syriac field in which a considerable number of manuscripts dating from about the 18th century onwards are written in Syriac characters adopted to suit the Kurdish language. This Kurdish language written in Syriac characters is called Kurdish Garshuni and the following brief note presents a hitherto overlooked manuscript of such a Garshuni material. Key words: Kurdish, Garshuni, Syriac, poetry, Kurdistan The MS Sachau 204 is of considerable interest, first because the matter which it contains is Kurdish, and this language is rarely found written on this material; secondly because the script is Syriac, which is more usually found applied to the Arabic language. The existence of such Garshuni texts has been known since the 19th century, when the well-known Sachau mentioned Kurdish occurrence in some Garshuni manuscripts in the Berlin Library [1]. In 1970 K. Fuad published a catalogue of Kurdish manuscripts kept at Berlin Library, including the Garshuni ones, which is the standard catalogue up to now. In his catalogue, the author essentially presented the normal Kurdish manuscripts written in Arabic script as his basic concern. Much less attention has, however, been paid to the Kurdish Garshuni manuscripts. It is even possible to say that the Kurdish Garshuni section of the catalogue is based on the Sachau's catalogue [2]. The unique MS Sachau 204 consists of 6 folios and is written on yellowish paper in a somewhat cursive Estrangela script with the usual diacritical points. There are 14 to 15 lines per folio; with the dimensions 15.0×10.0 cm and the text area 12.0×7.5 cm. While the text is written in black ink, some diacritical points and punctuations are in red ink. Not only the completeness of the manuscript is unidentified but the date and place of producing of the manuscript are also unknown. It is possible that the depository of the manuscript was connected to northern Iraqi areas as most of the Kurdish Garshuni manuscripts were brought from there and presented to Berlin Library. The emergence of the manuscript from Iraqi areas may also be explained by the fact that E. Sachau, in his pursuit of Syriac manuscripts, essentially depended on the help of Jeremias Shāmīr, a deserter and dealer in manu- scripts himself from the Monastery of Alqōsh, 40 km north of Mosul in Iraq. It is, however, possible to assume that Iraqi depositories of the Kurdish Garshuni manuscripts kept at Berlin Library are not always accurate, and new places should be established for some of them. The very brief information contained in Fuad's catalogue correctly clears that Sachau 204 is a manuscript from ╥ur ‘Abdin in the eastern part of Mārdīn province in Turkey [3]. Another evidence making obvious the more western depository of the manuscript is the script. The MS Sachau 204 is written in Serto (West Syriac) with the vowels which are less often seen with the Estrangela script. The script employed by the author of MS Sachau 204 may provide a clue to the obscure origin of the present manuscript and its emergence as a distinct Kurdish Garshuni script. The script is unique among the scripts of Kurdish Garshuni fragments, especially those from Iraqi regions [4], and it is precisely this uniqueness that makes it so difficult to contextualize. In this script n (and z) and š can be confused; k and b can also be confused. It is usually unclear where vowels are placed: ah or ha, eh or he. According to Syriac script, for the letters b, g, d, k, p and t no distinction is made between the hard and soft pronunciation (quššāyā, rukkākā). Here, d, g and t are marked with a red dot above which can be considered as a quššāyā, marking occlusive, non-aspirated pronunciation. Sometimes p is given with three dots below which is very rare in Syriac script. It can be pronounced as p, p’, f, v or w. The letter p with a single dot above can be considered as f. The letter b is strangely given with both two or three dots below which may indicate b, v, w, or even p. When k is marked with quššāyā (a dot above) it is used for k, k’, or perhaps x, while k marked with rukkākā (a dot below) indicates velar fricative pronunciation x, k’, or k. Finally, mention should be made of the language of manuscript. It is written in the Kurmanci dialect of Kurdish and very possibly with a dialect which was common in and around Mārdīn. Everything is in Kurdish. Unlike some of the Kurdish Garshuni manuscripts, which contain some Neo-Aramaic or Turōyō beginning / colophon, this manuscript remains in Kurdish. It is hard to recognize a rhyme pattern for the poetry or divide the text in verse lines. Although the quality of the rhyme gave rise to some criticism, the language of the text enjoys at least a somewhat lyrical shape. The signs and the punctuations of the manuscript (crosses, semicolons and dots) do not help to explain the verse meters of the text. In view of the strong Kurdish oral tradition, however, the style can be sometimes considered as a kind of rhythmic prose (saj‘). My reading of the first and the last lines follows: Incipit (fol. 1r, lines 1—2, fig. 1): dnazik ta serê ma bestin bakbankeh dih şîina lō mirino te nehişt ’em têr sefe bikin live (dinyaê betale) …delicate. You have tied our head… to the pile of mourning [5] you death, you have not allowed us to enjoy enough in this perishable world Excipit (fol. 6r, lines 14—15, fig. 2): (şînîya) bihare û rîhan û gul-çiçeke we-live baybûn û susine (the reenery) of spring, and sweet basil, and rose and flowers and to chamomile and blue fragrant flower. N o t e s 1. Cf. Sachau, 1899: 434—37, 442—444. 2. On Sachau 204 he is almost completely quiet. For details, see Fuad, 1970: 121—126. 3. Ibid.: 124. 4. Cf. Dehqan & Mengozzi, 2014: 62—67. 5. The translation of the first line is somewhat problematic. The transliteration of the line is as follows: dnāzek tā sareh mā basten bakbankehdehšinā. The first word nazik “delicate”, which is a common word in the region, sounds better thank nêzîk “near to”, but an adverb “delicately” should be termed bnāziki as far as I know. I suspect dnāzik belongs to a preceding line, that is, dnāzik ends a sentence. If we had the lines before dnāzik we could investigate them carefully. The following words tā sareh mā basten bakbankehdehšinā could be an independent sentence. The whole thing is of course complicated by the obscure bakbankeh. My translation “pile of mourning”, based on şîn “mourning” sounds good. Then I have the problematic -ā after šīn unless it is the copula for “is”. R e f e r e n c e s Dehqan, M. & Mengozzi, A. (2014), “A Kurdish Garshuni poem by David of Barazne (19th century)”, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies, vol. 17/1, pp. 53—79. Fuad, K. (1970), Kurdische Handschriften. Verzeichnis der orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland 30, Wiesbaden: F. Steiner. Sachau, E. (1899), Handschriften-Verzeichnisse der königlichen Bibliothek zu Berlin. Verzeichniss der syrischen Handschriften, Berlin: A. Asher & Co. A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s * I would like to express my gratitude to Alessandro Mengozzi for his suggestions especially in connection with the transliteration of the text. I l l u s t r a t i o n s Fig. 1. Kurdish Garshuni poem. Paper, 15.0×10.0 cm, 6 folios. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preuβischer Kulturbesitz, call No. Sachau 204, fol. 1r. Courtesy of the Library. Fig. 2. The same MS, fol. 6r.

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