Ottoman humor is covered by various literary genres, such as jocular stories or anecdotes (hikaye, latife), satirical classical poetry (hicviye, hezeliyat), popular theater (the shadow theater karagöz, and orta oyunu), and early twentieth-century satirical press. However, the supreme protagonist of Ottoman humor is the trickster and/or folk philosopher, Nasreddin Hoca, described by Marzolph (1992) as “a point of crystallisation for an otherwise amorphous popular tradition of aphorisms, witticisms, jokes, jests, and anecdotes of various origins.”

From the sixteenth cent…