«Тахиййат»: Сборник статей в честь Н. Н. Дьякова

Piri Reis’s Greek and Arabic Influences in his Сhart and Map Drawing for the Ottoman Empire m 169 n confusing ancient Greek mythology about Crete with the Arab occupation of the island. The use of jargon is indicative for the investigation of the Greek and Ara- bic linguistic influences in the cartographic work of Piri Reis in combination with his maritime background. According to Slot, “there was much similarity in the technical knowledge of the Ottoman sailors and the Western sailors, they stood on the same level, they even could communicate in what was called Lingua Franca, a kind of Mediterranean sailors Esperanto…” 1 Refer- ring to the charting of the maps we must indicate that the term “cartography”, as it is used in the English language, comes from the Greek language and it is a derivative from the term “χάρτης” (map) 2 . In the Ottoman language of administration, literature and science, the term “cartography” comes from words of Arabic origin: “levh” — “harita” — “resm” 3 . Given that the ma- jority terms of the Ottoman language are of Arabic and Persian origin, we can presume that Piri Reis, even though he did not speak the Arabic, used all necessary Arabic terms for navigation and cartography. Only with such knowledge could he proceed to the drowning maps and recording geographic locations. For example, the title of Piri Reis’ book “Bahriye” is Arabic and it means “that has to do with the sea”. It comes from the root “bahr” which in Arabic means “sea”. In the Ottoman language the term means the Ottoman navy 4 . Moreover, because of the fact that many terms of the nautical jargon have Greek origin, Piri Reis was familiar with the Greek language irrespectively of being of Greek origin or not. We can mention here the Ottoman terms fener which comes from the Greek term “φανός” (lamp) and irgalya which comes from the Greek “εργαλεία” (tools) 5 . At all events, most researchers, such as Ahmet Turker, Afetinan and Ibrahim Hakkı Konyali, claim that Piri Reis spoke Arabic and Greek and at least one more language of Latin origin, like Italian, Spanish or Portuguese 6 . It should be noted that in the west nautical jargon the 1 Slot B.J. Piri Reis’s Kitab-ı-Bahriye // Hadeeth al-Dar. Kuwait: Dar al-Athar al-Islami- yyah, 2008. Vol.25, p. 28–29. 2 Stavropoulos N. Oxford Greek-English Learner’s Dictionary. Oxford University Press, 10 th Impr. Hong-Kong, 1998. P. 967. 3 Kanar M. Osmanlı Türkçesi Sözlüğü. İstanbul: Derın, 2003. P. 794, 1226. 4 Devellioğlu F. Osmanlıca–Türkçe Ansiklopedisi Lugat. 14 th ed. Ankara: Aydın, 1997. P. 65. 5 “ Proias ”: Σύγχρονον Ορθογραφικόν Ερμηνευτικόν Λεξικόν της ελληνικής γλώσσης. Vol. 2, p. 1033; vol. 3, p. 2520. 6 Turker A. Piri Reis’in Hayatı // Uluşlararası Piri Reis sempozyumu tebliğer kitabı, 27–29 September 2004, İstanbul, Deniz Kuvvetleri Komutanliği Seyir, Hidrografi ve Oşinografi Dairesi Başkanlığı. İstanbul, 2004, p. 1–11; Afetinan A. Op. cit, p. 17; Ibrahim H. K. XVI Denizci Bir Bilimadamı Yaşamı ve Yapıtlarıyla Piri Reis. İstanbul (no date), p. 202.