An examination on the language of central and general laws in the Period of Fatih

The judgment of the sultan that includes the legal articles on a particular subject is generally called "qanunnāma" (i.e. the legal code) in Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman legal codes are essentially rich sources not only for the Ottoman history and the legal system but also for the Turkish language. Assuming that the works as well as the literary works written for various purposes should be searched and examined in order to determine the historical vocabulary of Turkish, we dealt with the texts of the legal codes in this study. The reign of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror constitutes a turning point in the development of the Ottoman legal system. Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror is the first Muslim ruler who published the compiled laws as a lawman. Therefore, we examined the central and public laws especially during the reign of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror. We tried to determine the phonetic and morphological features and vocabulary through the texts analysed. Considering the investigation of the legal codes on which no linguistic analyses were carried out, how the language was communicated within such texts, the amount of vocabulary and the era in which the work was produced, the primary purpose of the current study is to indicate the differences in view of writing style, phonetics and form. Moreover, the vocabulary contained within these texts are aimed to be processed for contributing to the vocabulary of Turkish throughout history. Key Words: Old Oguz Tukish, Law, Phonetics, Morphology, Vocabulary.