Karaite-tartar (or Crimean Tartar) Version of the Scriptures

Karaite-Tartar (or Crimean Tartar) Version Of The Scriptures The Karaite-Tartar is vernacular among the Karaite Jews of the Crimea. As to this division among the Jews, SEE KARAITES. They have long been in possession of a Tartar version of the Old Test. When and by whom it was made is unknown. When Dr. Pinkerton was travelling in the Crimea he purchased a complete copy of this version. The two books of Chronicles do not appear to have been inserted in this version. but it comprises the other books of the Old Test. The translation is such, that although the words are mostly of Tartar origin, yet it would not be intelligible to any Tartar nation. The words are ranged in exact order of the Hebrew, and the style, construction, grammatical observances, and idioms are all conformable to the Shemitic type. This version is, in fact, so truly Hebrew in its character, that to the Turks and Tartars it is a sealed book. See Bible of Every Land, page 350.

In point of practical utility it is deficient, and for this reason the British and Foreign Bible Society only published a small edition of the book of Genesis in 1819, at the mission press of Astrakhan. A subsequent edition of the entire Old Test. was published by the Jews of South Russia. The imperial library at St. Petersburg is now in possession of some codices which were lately procured, and are described by Strack in the Catalog der Hebr. Bibelhandschriften der kaiserlichen offentlichen Bibliothek in St. Petersburg (Leipsic, 1875), page 167 sq., which be conjointly published with A. Harkavy. On page 169 we find the first three verses of the book of Leviticus, of which we subjoin the first, together with the Hebrew: Hebrew. { מועד לאמר ויקרא אלאּמשה וידבר יהוה אליו מאהלHebrew. { דסוזלדי יוֹי אגר דמא ויקרא דבקירדי משה גֹא אהל מועד דןIt must be observed that the first word does not belong to the translation, but it is the first word of the Hebrew text, which is always placed at the beginning of each verse. Dr. H. Dalton, in his Das Gebet des Herrn in den Sprachen Russlands (St. Petersburg, 1870), gives the Lord's Prayer in the Karaite-Tartar which was prepared by the late A. Firkowitsch (q.v.). (B.P.)