On the History, System, and Varieties of Turkish Poetry e-bog

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The orthography of Arabic words, whether em ployed in the Arabic, the Persian, the Turkish, or any other Muslim language, has never admitted or required modification, from the pre-islamic days downwards. The spelling of the Persian has also been unalterably fixed for the last thousand years or so; with the addition that, unlike Arabic words, which permit no modification, the long vowels in Persian vocables may be rejected for the sake of metre, and interchanged to a certain extent for the sake of rhyme. The former privilege is utilized in Persian words by Ottoman poets; the latter is used by Persians only. The spelling of Turkish words by Ottomans, and by their Eastern cousins, has not this absolute fixity; more especially as regards the use of vowel-letters. These, which are not then always long, as they are in Arabic and Persian, are more or less Optional, being sometimes inserted, and some times omitted, even by the same writer; and especially in poetry, for the sake of metre.