[FIRST MAP OF JAPAN / FIRST PRINTED EDITION OF ONE OF THE EARLIEST MUSLIM MAPPAMONDOS / FIRST DICTIONARIES OF THE TURKIC LANGUAGES] Divân-i lûgâti’t-Türk [i.e., The compendium of the languages of the Turks]. Edited by Ali Emirî.

In publisher’s original dark green cloth including three volumes in one as issued. Light brown cloth spine on which has no lettering. Housed in a separate modern dark brown full leather box. Large roy. 8vo. (25 x 18 cm). In Arabic and Ottoman script (Old Turkish with Arabic letters). 3 volumes set: (436, 12 p., 319, [1] p., 351 p.), one folded chromolithograph map in the first volume (40 x 28 cm). This sixfold map is folded originally between 28-29 pages of the book. Skillful restoration on the lower right of the front board, contemporary blue free endpapers, and occasional foxing on covers. Otherwise, a very good copy. Extremely rare first printed edition of this first comprehensive Arabic dictionary of Turkic languages edited and published lately by ex-treasurer of Aleppo Ali Emiri (1857-1924), compiled originally in 1072-74 in Baghdad by Mahmud Kashgari, an early scholar in the Islamic world extensively studied the Turkic languages. This extremely rare book was presented to the Abbasid Caliphate, the new Arab allies of the Turks and it was edited and published based on the original manuscript found by Ali Emiri for the first time from the Sahhaflar Çarsisi [i.e., The Antiquarian Booksellers’ Bazaar of Istanbul], includes also a remarkable and first printed edition of the map produced for this book as folded, based on the original manuscript written in 11th century Baghdad. A multiple first: It’s the first and the most compact dictionary of Turkish languages and dialects; it includes the oldest account of the places where Turkish/Turkic and Central Asian tribes and communities live, their beliefs and customs; the book has one of the earliest world maps of the Eastern world, particularly also showing China, Russia with Asian geography, and the oldest known map of Japan (Tekeli). The book is an invaluable source about the Central Asian communities of the period and “entries in Turkic, Karakhanid (Khakani), Uighur, Oghuz, etc. in Arabic script, definitions in Arabic.” (OCLC). Dîwân Lugât al-Turk was intended for use by the Caliphs of Baghdad written in Arabic, which is Lingua Franca of the Middle East, who were controlled by the Seljuk Turks. It has a map that shows a vast geography including countries and regions from Japan to Egypt. This is the first known map of the areas inhabited by Turkic peoples. The compendium documented evidence of Turkic migration into and the expansion of the Turkic tribes and languages of Central Asia, Eastern Europe, and West Asia, mainly between the 6th and 11th centuries. The region of origin of the Turkic people is suggested to be somewhere in Siberia and Mongolia. By the 10th century, most of Central Asia was settled by Turkic tribes such as Tatar, Kipchaks, Turcoman, etc. The Seljuq dynasty settled in Anatolia starting in the 11th century, ultimately resulting in permanent Turkic settlement and presence there. Meanwhile, other Turkic tribes ultimately formed independent nations, such as Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan, and others new enclaves within other nations, such as Chuvashs, Bashkorts, Tatars, the Crimean Tatars, the Uyghurs in China, and the Sakhas in Siberia. Dîwân Lugât al-Turk is written for precisely a common reason. It is the common accumulation and common treasure of the Turkish civilization; it intends to present a common language of culture and communication concerning the differentiations of accent and dialect that arise from distance over space (geography) and time. Likewise, Dîwân Lugât al-Turk opens the conception of Turkish into Arabic, in terms of its worldview, apprehension of life, and cultural riches; it furthermore opens Arabic, the language of education, science, philosophy, and literature, into Turkish. It does so through reproducing Turkish in Arabic; it, so to speak, attunes the two languages to one another via their mutual encounter [.] Nevertheless, Dîwân Lugât al-Turk is not a work that thoroughly reflects the Turkish of the pe.…