Acknowledgements
This work would have been impossible from the very beginning if not because of the guidance of Jerzy Tulisow (Warszaw) and M. Stachowski (Kraków), who first directed my attention to this document and encouraged me to prepare for publication this fascinating item from both a linguistic and philological viewpoint.
I would like to express my most sincere acknowledgment to M. Stachowski and one anonymous reviewer for having shared with me their expertise in the Yakut (Sakha) language. Their help has been instrumental in order to appropriately identify and interpret the Yakut data in SD.
Workers in the Archive of the Polish Academy of Sciences helped me to find my way through the immense Kotwicz collection. I would like to mention, in particular, Dr. Rita Majkowska, the Archive’s Director, for granting me access to these materials as well as for making possible the publication of the facsimile, and Ewa Dziurzyńska, who assisted me in all possible matters, from very complicated scholarly questions to purely administrative issues. All of them helped me in good spirits, thereby creating the best working atmosphere for which I am heartily thankful.
Likewise, I would like to mention my colleagues from Kraków, T. Majtczak, M. Németh, K. Stachowski, and M. Urban, who advised me on various aspects of this work, including formal considerations of which I have little understanding.
Last but not least, the final draft of this book was written at the Department of Antiquity and Middle Ages Studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) thanks to a Juan de la Cierva postdoctoral Fellowship funded by Spain’s Ministry of Science and Innovation (Ref. IJCI-2014-19343). I am thankful to all these institutions for their financial support and kind assistance.