A Contribution to the Research Into Grammatical Terminology of the Fojnica Franciscan Turkish Grammar Book

Abstract

The paper has tried, on the basis of general orthographic features of the grammatical terminology used in the anonymous and undated Turkish grammar book / Slovnica kept in the Frantiscan Monastery at Fojnica, and by comparison of the terminology with the terminology of other grammar works used in Bosnia in the 19th century, to determine which grammatical tradition the mentioned grammar book belongs to and the time it may have been written. The tables and comparison of the terminology in Slovnica with the same or similar terminology in other works point to a particular terminology of the so-called South-Slavic grammatical tradition, which was developing independently of the Ottoman educational system in Bosnia in the period. The analysis presented in the paper confirms that in Bosnia in the I9'h century the grammatical terminology to describe the Turkish language developed vvithin different grammatical traditions. Slovnica is one of the rare Bosnia- Herzegovina grammar books of Turkish from the 19th century using exclusively local grammar terminology. The results of the analysis in the paper indicate that the text of the mentioned Turkish grammar book was vvritten most probably in the period betvveen 1848 and 1880, at the time when Bosnia vvas stili within the borders of the Ottoman Empire.