Cuman or Kuman (also called Kipchak, Qypchaq or Polovtsian, self referred to as Tatar (tatar til) in Codex Cumanicus)[3] was a West KipchakTurkic language spoken by the Cumans (Polovtsy, Folban, Vallany, Kun) and Kipchaks; the language was similar to today's various languages of the West Kipchak branch. Cuman is documented in medieval works, including the Codex Cumanicus, and in early modern manuscripts, like the notebook of Benedictine monk Johannes ex Grafing.[4] It was a literary language in Central and Eastern Europe that left a rich literary inheritance. The language became the main language (lingua franca) of the Golden Horde.[5]
^Melnyk, Mykola (2022). Byzantium and the Pechenegs. István Varró, a member of the Jász-Cuman mission to the empress of Austria Maria Theresa and the known last speaker of the Cuman language, died in 1770.
^Florin Curta (2007). The Other Europe in the Middle Ages: Avars, Bulgars, Khazars and Cumans. p. 406.
^Knauer, Georg Nicholaus (2010). "The Earliest Vocabulary of Romani Words (c. 1515) in the Collectanea of Johannes ex Grafing, a student of Johannes Reuchlin and Conrad Celtis". Romani Studies. 20 (1): 1–15. doi:10.3828/rs.2010.1. S2CID170292032.
