Eastern Turki Grammar. Practical and Theoretical with Vocabulary
G. Raquette
The dialect of Eastern Turkestan as it is spoken nowadays is indeed a language little known, and Shaw's Grammar has up to date been the only book to furnish any real help to students - and they are not a few - who want to learn this dialect. With this work I have tried to meet the demand for a practical book by which to learn the language, and I also hope that there will be some useful information for those, in other parts of the world, who wish to study the languages of central Asia for more or less scientific purposes.
It has been by no means an easy task to find a form suitable for both purposes, but as the ordinary Student is to a great extent dependent on the practical way of presentation, I have chosen this form of lessons with reading and writing exercises. The scientific scholar will naturally find this form rather tedious but will be able to pick out whatever is useful to him.
The reading exercises are, to a great extent, extracts from Eastern Turki books, or folklore stories written down by native mollahs. The transcription and the marking of the accents are as a rule done according to the dialect spoken in the district of Yarkand, for I have found that this dialect is purer than that of Kashgar, which has more or less been influenced by the Western Turki.
I sincerely hope that my grammar, built up as it is on the foundation of a practical knowledge of the language, will be of some use to those who are interested in the subject, and that it will prove to be a contribution of some value to the existing knowledge of the Eastern Turkestan Turki (from the preface). (Originally published 1913 in Berlin).
ISBN 9783862888115. LINCOM Gramatica 207. 182pp. 2017.