Melheme-i Cedid (Text-index dictionary)

Since the dawn of humanity, nearly every culture has harbored a desire to predict the future and reduce uncertainty, driven by the curiosity within us. This desire, nurtured by curiosity, initially focused on deriving outcomes from routine yet often intimidating or astonishing events occurring in our physical environment during ancient times. However, each culture interpreted the same physical natural events differently, leading to different conclusions about the future and social life based on observed natural phenomena. As a result, astronomy and astrology did not receive recognition as sciences for a long time because early cultures did not share a common understanding when it came to interpreting nature. Throughout what we can refer to as long ages, humans have strived to survive by categorizing events in their surroundings as either beneficial or harmful, thus avoiding the harmful ones. Over time, this endeavor led them to systematically organize their observations into a cause-and-effect relationship, driven by the belief that the same causes would yield the same results, resulting in forming general judgments from specific signs and indicators. This is because the natural occurrences in the world, including both natural and social events, provide us with signs and clues that assist in interpreting certain information about the future. Following these clues and venturing into the unknown, individuals driven by the impulse to predict their own fate or the future emerged within almost every society. These individuals not only elevated themselves to extraordinary, sacred, and even mystical and superior human positions but also provided peculiar pleasures to those driven by the desire to understand the unknown. In virtually every society, individuals of this kind surfaced, and over time, they were placed in privileged positions. They were regarded as the ones who knew and conveyed the messages sent from the heavens, the moon, the sun, the stars, and, thus, from a superior entity or creator. In this study, we aim to convey how the Turks utilized astronomy and astrology by examining the signs and indicators they collected from the movements of stars, the positions of celestial bodies, and the patterns of natural events. They employed these to name individual character traits and to predict political and social events. It is crucial not to overlook that the Turks, driven by the desire to predict their own destiny or the future, contributed to the development of the Turkish language's vocabulary by creating new concepts for objects and situations based on their experiences. In this context, the translation of the text seeks to reveal the vocabulary related to astronomy and astrology, thereby contributing to the historical lexicon of the Turkish language. With the index created, the goal is to provide support to researchers working in social fields such as the Turkish language, history, and geography, with the aim of making a meaningful contribution to both the Turkish language and social disciplines like history and geography. Keywords: Astrology, Melheme-i Cedid, Astronomy, Turks.