Codex cumanicus
The Codex Cumanicus was a linguistic manual of the Middle Ages, designed to help Catholic missionaries toocommunicate with the Cumans/Polovtsy. It is currently housed in the Library of St. Mark, in Venice (Cod. Mar. Lat. DXLIX).
The first (fol. 1r-55v) is a practical handbook of the Kipchak tongue, containing glossaries of words in vulgar Italo-Latin and translations into Persian and Kipchak.
The second part (fol. 56r-82v) is a collection of various religious texts (including a translation of the Lord’s Prayer) and riddles in Kipchak, translated into Latin and Eastern Middle High German. This part of the Codex is referred to as the "German" or "Missionary's Book" and is believed to have been compiled by German Franciscans.
Classical Turkic literature
In 9-12 centuries with the development of oral folk literature and written literature forming the first concept of the imagery, artistic, educational value of art expression. Dictionary Diwaniyah lugat al-Turk, Mahmud Kashgar – vivid evidence of the cultural level of the Turkic peoples in the 11 century. Despite the linguistic character, the dictionary is considered a literary-historical and ethnographic collection. It also has several hundred lines of poetry, dozens of proverbs, sayings, wise aphorisms.
Kazakh folklore
Was formed within centuries on the local (aboriginal) traditions and under strong influences of neighboring and migrating peoples and consists of several genres. The basis – reflection of the natural-climatic conditions (steppe zones, dependence on cosmic phenomena and natural changes) in the economic and social lifestyle (cattle breeding, migration, tribal structure). The first professional collection of Kazakh folklore was initiated by C.Vlikhanov and V.Radlov. They developed the methodology of folklore samples recording with exact texts fixation and short passport data to them. The Russian Oriental and Geographical societies’ expedition members contributed greatly to folklore collecting. G.Potanin (1835-1920) published many Kazakh legends, tales, songs, proverbs, and samples of ritual/ceremonial poetry, epics, etc. In his work “Oriental motives in the medieval European epic” (1899) he stressed that many plots from Kazakh folklore migrated to Europe in various ways.
V.V.Radlov (1837-1918) made the first classification of Kazakh folklore: didactic, epic and lyrical genres.
A.A.Divayev collected and published the samples of Kazakh epics “Alpamys-batyr”, “Qoblandy”, “Qambar”, fairy tales, songs, etc.
After 1917 a big work on collecting, editing, research and publication was made by S.Seifullin, M.Auezov, I.Jansygyrov, B.Mailin, A.Zatayevich.
S.Seifullin classified Kazakh folklore as fairy tales, routine ceremonial poetry, religious sagas, songs, proverbs and sayings, philosophical-didactic aphorisms of biis (judges), verses for recitation (taqpaq), etc. He traces the origin of Kazakh folklore back to the medieval times (era of biis- judges and heroic epics) relevant to Nogay Horde times (end of XIV - mid XVI centuries) preceding the creation of Kazakh khanate.
M.Auezov, A.Margulan pointed to the close connection between folklore and literature in XVIII-XIX centuries. M.Auezov classified folklore as: small genres, heroic, routine poems, historical songs, aityses.
N.S.Smirnova suggested the periodization of Kazakh folklore: a) Kazakh ethnicity formation (common Turkic motives and traditions, zhyrau poetry); b) poetry of XVI-XVIII centuries (emergence of aqyns, historical songs and heroic epics about batyrs and heroes of the anti-Jungar struggle; aitys, lyrical songs separated from ritualistic poetry; c) oral poetry of XIX-XX centuries (growth of social and political motives); d) soviet times folklore.