Ummi Isa ( Azerbaijani:''Ümmü İsa'') was the author of one of the earliest works written in

Azerbaijani Turkish Azerbaijani ( ; , , ) or Azeri ( ), also referred to as Azerbaijani Turkic or Azerbaijani Turkish (, , ), is a Turkic languages, Turkic language from the Oghuz languages, Oghuz sub-branch. It is spoken primarily by the Azerbaijanis, Azerbaij ...

, the first narrative "

Mehri and Vafa Mehri and Vafa is one of the first works written in Azerbaijani language, written by Ummi Isa. The language of the poem is distinguished by its simplicity and comprehensibility, as it is written in a folkloric, colloquial language. Service to the ...

" in

Turkic literature Turkic literature refers to the literature in any of the Turkic languages: *Azerbaijani literature *Bashkir literature *Kazakh literature *Kyrgyz literature * Tatar literature *Turkish literature * Turkmen literature *Uyghur literature Uyghur or ...

. According to the opinions of some researchers, Ummi Isa is considered the first poet to write in Azerbaijani Turkish.

Life

Although it is known that Ummi Isa lived in the 14th century, precise birth and death years remain unknown. Professor Yaqub Babayev, based on the linguistic features and poetic linguistics of the poems attributed to Ummi Isa, has written that he lived in the 13th-14th centuries. Another literary scholar, Amil Chalabioglu, has also written that Ummi Isa lived in the 14th century. He deduced this from the information provided at the end of one of Isa's works, stating that he lived in the years 1372-1373. On the other hand, Agah Sirri asserts that Isa lived in the 15th century and did not receive a good education based on the feelings expressed in his poems.

Creativity

"The sole surviving work of Isa that has reached our era is the poem '

'. The language of the poem is simple, with very little use of Arabic and Persian languages. The linguistic characteristics of the work suggest that it was written in the colloquial language of that era. In general, Isa's language in this work is simpler compared to Dastani-Ahmad Harami and

Book of Dede Korkut The ''Book of Dede Korkut'' or ''Book of Korkut Ata'' (, ; ; ) is the most famous among the dastans or epic stories of the Oghuz Turks. The stories carry morals and values significant to the social lifestyle of the nomadic Turkic peoples and ...

. But the poem's language has little grammatical difference from modern

. The theme of the poem 'Mehri and Vafa' is a common one in both Iranian and Turkish literatures, originating from Persian literature and discussing the love between two young individuals. In Turkish languages, the first work on this theme was written by Ummi Isa. There are two manuscripts of the work that have reached our era. The poem was published twice by the

Institute of Manuscripts of Azerbaijan Institute of Manuscripts (), named after Muhammad Fuzuli, is a scientific center of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences engaged in scientific-research, archive and library science activities, security, study, translation and publication o ...

ANAS ''Anas'' is a genus of dabbling ducks. It includes the pintails, most teals, and the mallard and its close relatives. It formerly included additional species but following the publication of a molecular phylogenetic study in 2009 the genus was s ...

(in 2001 and 2005). The first edition was in the

Cyrillic script The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic languages, Slavic, Turkic languages, Turkic, Mongolic languages, Mongolic, Uralic languages, Uralic, C ...

, and the second edition was in the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet, also known as the Roman alphabet, is the collection of letters originally used by the Ancient Rome, ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered except several letters splitting—i.e. from , and from � ...

. In the second edition, the original text was also included in the book using the Arabic alphabet. Both manuscripts preserved in the

were written in the 19th century. One of them was compiled in the year 1827 by Muhammad Kamina, while the other, prepared in 1834, was by the renowned scholar, educator, and bibliophile Abdulqani Nukhavi Khalisqarizade. The first manuscript consists of 1490 verses, and the second consists of 1574 verses. In the first edition, the authors regarded the manuscript transferred by Abdulgani Nukhavi Khalisqarizade as reliable.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * {{Refend Azerbaijani poets 14th-century poets