Elsine-i S̱elās̱e: Dictionaries of the Arabo-Persian World showcases a sampling of material from Princeton University Library’s Department of Special Collections that reflect the vibrant linguistic ecology of the Ottoman Empire. Featured items include Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and Arabic dictionaries, glossaries, and language workbooks. These materials speak to the importance of language learning and translation as a part of the flow and diffusion of knowledge across the Ottoman Empire and the Arabo-Persian world at large.

Known in Ottoman Turkish as Elsine-i S̱elās̱e, the three languages of Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and Arabic for centuries constituted a single entity, representing a culture sphere defined by multilingualism and mobility across Ottoman territory and neighboring empires. The term Elsine-i S̱elās̱e itself is an amalgamation of Arabic words with the Persian ezāfe, a connecting grammatical particle denoting a construct or ownership.

Arabic has long played an indispensable role in the history of languages in West Asia as the sacred language of the Qur’an, which itself was considered key to establishing grammatical and linguistic norms in Arabic. Excerpts from the Qur’an were considered essential texts for students seeking to acquire an adequate understanding of the language. There are a considerable number of Persian loanwords in Arabic and an enormous number of Arabic loanwords in Persian. The Turco-Persian Seljuks adopted Persian as their literary language while retaining Arabic as the language of religion, and used what later became known as Ottoman Turkish as the official language of the state. The linguistic influence of Arabic and Persian in Ottoman Turkish were so strong that in some cases, only the morphology and structure of a text remained Turkish while the lexical material was almost completely taken from Arabic and Persian.

The close political, cultural, and scholarly ties that the Ottomans had with broader geographies constituted a world interconnected with Persian and Arabic literacy. Persian and Arabic were increasingly integrated into Ottoman Turkish in the process of making an imperial language and subsequently new imperial identities. Dictionaries, glossaries, works of philology, and exercise books such as those presented in this exhibit are important representations of knowledge transmission and the relationship between translation and imperial identity formation. Princeton University Library’s impressive collection of Ottoman Turkish, Persian, and Arabic language learning materials help shed light on this important topic. Patrons are encouraged to reach out and visit the Department of Special Collections to access these materials to further investigate this rich area of study.

Please see the “About” page for acknowledgements and a bibliography of works related to this topic.