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Turkish Language
The Turkish language is spread over a large geographical
area in Europe and Asia; recent studies show that this language
goes back 5500 years,and perhaps even 8500. At the same
time, it is one of the most widely spoken tongues in the
world - the sixth most widely spoken , to be precise. It
is spoken in the Azeri, the Türkmen, the Tartar, the
Uzbek, the Baskurti, the Nogay, the Kyrgyz, the Kazakh,
the Yakuti, the Cuvas and other dialects. Turkish belongs
to the Altaic branch of the Ural-Altaic family of languages,
and thus is closely related to Mongolian, Manchu-Tungus,
Korean, and perhaps Japanese. Some scholars have maintained
that these resemblances are not fundamental, but rather
the result of borrowings, however comparative Altaistic
studies in recent years demonstrate that the languages we
have listed all go back to a common Ur-Altaic.
Turkish is a very ancient language, with a flawless phonetic,
morphological and syntactic structure, and at the same time
possesses a wealth of vocabulary. The fundamental features
which distinguish the Ural-Altaic languages from the Indo-European
are as follows:
- Vowel harmony, a feature of all Ural-Altaic tongues.
- The absence of gender.
- Agglutination
- Adjectives precede nouns.
- Verbs come at the end of the sentence.
The name of the script
of the language spoken in Turkey proper, the dialect falls
into the southwestern dialects of the Western Turkish language
family and also into the dialects of the Oguz Türkmen
language group. When the Turkish spoken in Turkey is considered
in a historical context, it can be classified according
to three separate periods because of the inherent characteristics
of each of the periods:
- Old Anatolian Turkish (old Ottoman - between the 13th
and the 15th centuries)
- Ottoman Turkish (from the 16th to the 19th century)
- 20th century Turkish
Written Turkish
The oldest written records are found upon stone monuments
in Central Asia, in the Orhon, Yenisey and Talas regions
within the boundaries of present-day Mongolia. These were
erected to Bilge Kaghan (735), Kültigin (732), and
the vizier Tonyukuk (724-726). Apart from these, there are
some one hundred inscriptions of various sizes mentioned
by the Swedish army officer Johan von Strahlenberg. The
first to read them and publish his results was the Danish
Turcologist Wilhelm Thomsen, while the Russian Turcologist
(of Prussian extraction) Wilhelm Radloff contributed in
a major way to the deciphering of the script. The perfection
of the language used in these records, which document the
social and political life of the Gokturk Dynasty, proves
that Turkish, as a language of letters, has been in use
from very ancient times.
In later periods many forms of writing would appear: Nestorian
writing in the northeast, Sogd, Uighur, and Pali writings
in the southeast, Manichaean texts. In Brahman writing,
and from the 11th centuary onward, Arabic script for Islamic
texts. In addition, depending on the region in which they
lived, the Turks have employed Suryani, Armenian, Georgian
and ancient Greek alphabeths, producing literary works which
have transmitted the Turkish culture up to the present day.
After the waning of the Gokturk state, the Uighurs produced
many written texts that are among the most important source
works for the Turkish language. The Uighurs produced many
written texts that are among the most important source works
for the Turkish language. The Uighurs abondened shamanism(the
original Turkish religion) in favor of Buddhism, Manichaeanism
and Brahminism, and translated the pious and philosophical
works of all of them into Turkish. Examples are Altun Yaruk,
Mautrisimit, Sekiz Yükmek, Huastunift, etc. These were
collected by european turcologists in Turkische Turfan-Texte.
The Kokturk (Gokturk) inscriptions, together with Uighur
writings, are in a language called by scholars Old Turkish.
This term refers to the Turkish spoken, prior to the conversion
to Islam, on the steppes of Mongolia and Tarim basin.
With the emergence of the Cagatay Dynasty, which came about
when the Empire of Genghis Khan was divided among his sons,
a new wave of Turkish literature was born and flowered under
the influence of Persian literature. It reached its pinnacle
with the works of Ali Sir Navai in the 15th century.
The Turkish of Turkey that developed in Anatolia and across
the Bosphorus in the times of the Seljuks and Ottomans was
used in several valuable literary works prior to the 13th
century. The men of letters of the time were, notably, Sultan
Veled, the son of Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi, Ahmed Fakih,
Seyyad Hamza, Yunus Emre, a prominent thinker of the time,
and the famed poet, Gulsehri.
The Turkish Language up to the 16th Century
With the spread of Islam among the Turks from the 10th
century onward, the Turkish language came under heavy influence
of Arabic and Persian cultures.
The "Divanü-Lügati't-Türk" (1072),
the dictionary edited by Kaþgarly Mahmut to assist Arabs
to learn Turkish, was written in Arabic. In the following
century, Edip Ahmet Mahmut Yükneri wrote his book "Atabetü'l-Hakayýk",
in Eastern Turkish, but the title was in Arabic. All these
are indications of the strong influence of the new religion
and culture on the Turks and the Turkish language.
In spite of the heavy influence of Islam, in texts written
in Anatolian Turkish the number of words of foreign origin
is minimal. The most important reason for this is that during
the period mentioned, effective measures were taken to minimize
the influence of other cultures. For example, during the
Karahanlylar period there was significant resistance of
Turkish against the Arabic and Persian languages. The first
masterpiece of the Muslim Turks, "Kutadgu Bilig"
by Yusuf Has Hacib, was written in Turkish in 1069.
Ali Þir Nevai of the Çaðatay Turks defended the
superiority of Turkish from various points of view vis-a-vis
Persian in his book "Muhakemetül-Lugateyn",
written in 1498.
During the time of the Anatolian Seljuks and Karamano?ullary,
efforts were made resulting in the acceptance of Turkish
as the official language and in the publication of a Turkish
dictionary, "Divini Turki", by Sultan Veled (1277).
AhmetFakih, Seyyat Hamza and Yunus Emre adopted the same
attitude in their use of ancient Anatolian Turkish, which
was in use till 1299. Moreover, after the emergence of the
Ottoman Empire, Sultan Orhan promulgated the first official
document of the State, the "Mülkname", in
Turkish.
In the 14th century, Aþykpaþa, Gülþehri, Ahmedi and
Kaygusuz Abdal, in the 15th century Süleyman Çelebi
and Hacy Bayram and in the 16th century Sultan Abdal and
Köro?lu were the leading poets of their time, pioneering
the literary use of Turkish. In 1530, Kadri Efendi of Bergama
published the first study of Turkish grammar, "Müyessiretül-Ulum".
The outstanding characteristic in the evolution of the
written language during these periods was that terminology
of foreign origin was accompanied with the indigenous. Furthermore,
during the 14th and 15th centuries translations were made
particularly in the fields of medicine, botany, astronomy,
mathematics and Islamic studies, which promoted the introduction
of a great number of scientific terms of foreign origin
into written Turkish, either in their authentic form or
with Turkish transcriptions.
Scientific treatises made use of both written and vernacular
Turkish, but the scientific terms were generally of foreign
origin, particularly Arabic.
The Evolution of Turkish since the 16th
Century
The mixing of Turkish with foreign words in poetry and
science did not last forever.
Particularly after the 16th century foreign terms dominated
written texts, in fact, some Turkish words disappeared altogether
from the written language. In the field of literature, a
great passion for creating art work of high quality persuaded
the ruling elite to attribute higher value to literary works
containing a high proportion of Arabic and Persian vocabulary,
which resulted in the domination of foreign elements over
Turkish. This development was at its extreme in the literary
works originating in the palace. This trend of royal literature
eventually had its impact on folk literature, and numerous
foreign words and phrases were used by folk poets.
The extensive use f Arabic and Persian in science and literature
not only influenced the spoken language in the palace and
its surroundings, but as time went by, it also persuaded
the Ottoman intelligentsia to adopt and utilise a form of
palace language heavily reliant on foreign elements.
As a result, there came into being two different types
of language. One in which foreign elements dominated, and
the second was the spoken Turkish used by the public.
From the 16th to the middle of the 19th century, the Turkish
used in science and literature was supplemented and enriched
by the inclusion of foreign items under the influence of
foreign cultures. However, since there was no systematic
effort to limit the inclusion of foreign words in the language,
too many began to appear.
In the mid-19th century, Ottoman Reformation (Tanzimat)
enabled a new understanding and approach to linguistic issues
to emerge, as in many other matters of social nature.
The Turkish community which had been under the influence
of Eastern culture, was exposed to the cultural environment
of the West. As a result, ideological developments such
as the outcome of reformation and nationalism in the West,
began to influence the Turkish community, and thus important
changes came into being in the cultural and ideological
life of the country.
The most significant characteristic with respect to the
Turkish language was the tendency to eliminate foreign vocabulary
from Turkish.
In the years of the reformation, the number of newspaper,
magazines and periodicals increased and accordingly the
need to purify the language became apparent.
The writing of Namýk Kemal, Ali Suavi, Ziya Paþa, Ahmet
Mithat Efendi and Þemsettin Sami which appeared in various
newspapers tackled the problem of simplification.
Efforts aimed at "Turkification" of the language
by scholars like Ziya Gökalp became even more intensive
at the beginning of the 20th century.
Furthermore, during the reform period of 1839, emphasis
was on theoretical linguistics whereas during the second
constitutional period it was on the implementation and use
of the new trend. Consequently new linguists published successful
examples of the purified language in the periodical "Genç
Kalemler" (Young Writers).
The Republican Era and Language Reform
With the proclamation of the Republic in 1923 and after
the process of national integration in the 1923-1928 period,
the subject of adopting a new alphabet became an issue of
utmost importance.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk had the Latin alphabet adapted
to the Turkish vowel system, believing that to reach the
level of contemporary civilization, it was essential to
benefit from western culture.
The creation of the Turkish Language Society in 1932 was
another milestone in the effort to reform the language.
The studies of the society, later renamed the Turkish Linguistic
Association, concentrated on making use again of authentic
Turkish words discovered in linguistic surveys and research
and bore fruitful results.
At present, in conformity with the relevant provision of
the 1982 Constitution, the Turkish Language Association
continues to function within the organizational framework
of the Atatürk High Institution of Culture, Language
and History.
The essential outcome of the developments of the last 50-60
years is that whereas before 1932 the use of authentic Turkish
words in written texts was 35-40 percent, this figure has
risen to 75-80 percent in recent years.
This is concrete proof that Atatürk's language revolution
gained the full support of public.
Turkey Profile
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