“Easy Sentences” in Seraya Shapshal’s “Wypisy tureckie” (“Turkish Chrestomathy”)

The teaching of the Turkish language in Poland posed many problems for teachers as there were no appropriate materials which could be used during lessons. Seraya Shapshal’s “Wypisy tureckie” (“Turkish Chrestomathy”) was the first comprehensive textbook that helped students learn Turkish. “Wypisy” consists of texts dealing with a variety of topics as well as a Turkish–Polish dictionary. This book is a good example of the difficulties a teacher or writer faces when preparing suitable materials. “Wypisy” was written in 1931–1932 and published in Vilnius; it is 140 pages in length, 83 pages of which are given over to the Turkish–Polish dictionary. The entire book was handwritten, which is probably the main reason why it contains many typos, i.e. the Turkish characters are written in the wrong way. In this paper only the first chapter is analysed, namely “Kolay Cumleler” (“Easy sentences”). The analysis focuses on grammatical (phonology, morphology, syntax) and lexical issues presented to the students in the initial phase of their Turkish language instruction