Long before the Victorian fascination with floral dictionaries, Ottoman Turkey had a way to turn ordinary objects into secret poetry.
The Sélam Code
In the fourteenth century, the Turkish tradition called sélam—known in Europe as Turkish love letters—used a mixture of objects wrapped in a handkerchief. Flowers, locks of hair, and pearls could all become parts of the message.
The receiver did not read words directly. Instead, each object suggested a word that rhymed with the object’s name. By interpreting every item in sequence, the receiver assembled a complete verse. A handkerchief could therefore conceal not merely a gift, but a miniature poem.
From Constantinople to Europe
The Ottoman court in Constantinople developed an intense interest in tulips during the first half of the eighteenth century. According to Jayne Alcock, this courtly fascination helped inspire the renewed Victorian-era interest in the language of flowers.
Mary Wortley Montagu, an Englishwoman and poet, encountered the tradition during travels to Constantinople and brought it to England in 1718. Aubry de La Mottraye introduced it to the Swedish court in 1727. Over time, poetic object-messages became associated particularly with flowers, and symbolic meanings were organized into printed lists.
Joseph Hammer-Purgstall’s 1809 Dictionnaire du language des fleurs appears to have been the first published list linking flowers with definitions. Louise Cortambert’s 1819 Le langage des Fleurs became an early dictionary devoted to the subject.
The path from Ottoman handkerchiefs to Victorian tussie-mussies shows how communication systems travel. A practice rooted in courtly poetry became a fashionable European code—and eventually a cultural shorthand still recognizable today.
