Evolution of Turkish - 2

This is the 2nd Chapter of "The Evolution of Turkish" For Chapter I, check : http://hfurkank.blogspot.com.tr/2015/06/evolution-of-turkish-1.html

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In January 1908, the Turkish Association was found.  Everyone agreed on amending the language, but the method was the source of controversy. There were 3 types of members in the Association. The Simplifiers, wished to replace the sophisticated Ottoman words with simpler ones used in daily speech. The Turkicizers suggested that new words should be created only by the usage of Turkish suffixes, not Arabic or Persian suffixes. They also believed that the Arabic and Persian words in use should be counted as Turkish. The Purifiers wished to replace every word with pure Turkish, using words from Central Asian Turkic languages.

These methodologies had great influence on the general entelectual spirit of the time. By the end of WWI, the Turkish intellectuals refused to describe themselves as Ottomans, and they avoided using the old Ottoman language.

This estrangement from Ottoman language continued till the foundation of the Turkish Republic. After this, Atatürk carried on the language revolution and changed the alphabet, from the Old Persian alphabet to the international Latin alphabet.

Atatürk, introducing the new alphabet.

At this point, I would like to recall the first paragraph of the previous chapter. I stated that every nation has its breaking points, points which deflect the nation from its ongoing path. I also stated that the Turkish Nation has had 2 breaking points in history, and that the first breaking point was the adoption of Islam. Having said that, I can, without hesitation, state that the second breaking point of the nation is the revolutions Atatürk made.

With these revolutions, both the alphabet and the content of the dictionaries completely changed. Considering that people contemplate through the agency of words, this change altered the way the society actually started to think, and so a new era for the Turks started.

The language revolution was a mixture of all three schools, the Simplifiers, Purifiers and the Turkicizers. The authorities tried to extract all the Arabic and Persian words from the language, which was an attempt as radical as trying to extract the Greek and Latin words from English.

They were successful in extracting these words at first. But then, the remaining words weren’t enough to express complex situations, and the language needed relevant words to cure this problem, and so it fronted French, and adopted thousands of words from the French vocabulary.

The Turkish nation had a new language now. This change was done in a very short time period, and so it had a shock effect. After this effect vanished, the societyhad a new method of thinking and questioning style, for it begun to think in western words.

Were these revolutions a success or a catastrophe for the Turkish nation? Was Turkish impoverished by these attempts? What happened to Turkish after these incidents? What is the state of the Modern Turkish today?

I will be answering these questions in the next Chapter.

Sincerely…