A Reflection on Correction, Recording, and Meanings of Some Words in Samak-e Ayyar

Samak-e Ayyar by Faramarz ibn Khodadad Arrajani is a Persian folk tale that Parviz Natel-Khanlari corrected and published based on its only manuscript kept in Bodleian Library, Oxford University. In the manuscript of Samak-e Ayyar, some words, phrases, and verses are mistakenly used, and the names of some of the fictional characters are inadvertently mentioned instead of the names of other characters. Natel-Khanlari corrected many of these slips and errors in his revised text, but others remain. This article seeks to correct these slips. The method employed for correcting erroneous verses is to refer to the poem collections of the narrators of these verses and present the correct forms via a deductive method. In a separate volume entitled The City of Samak, the editor of Samak-e Ayyar has recorded the meanings of many words and expressions that have not been included in dictionaries. The meaning of these words is given in this article concerning dialect dictionaries and the meanings of the phrases. The research results show that the correction of Samak-e Ayyar was done with great care, and its slips and errors are minimized. Retrieving these errors correctly and capturing the meanings of the neglected words helps the reader read this exhilarating story more eloquently and understand the precise and narrow meaning of some of the sentences