Evolution of Turkish - 1

The Evolution of Turkish - 1

Every nation has its own turning points. Points which deflect the nation from its ongoing path. The Turkish nation has had 2 great turning point of this sort. The First breaking point was towards the end of the 10^th century, when the Turks adopted Islam and entered a pot of civilizations heavily influenced by Arabic and Farsi cultures.

They abandoned the equestrian nomadic culture and entered the Middle Eastern Culture. This shift inherently affected the Turkish culture, and by doing so, the Turkish language. This interplay was so intense that the Turks changed the alphabet they used, from the old Orkhon Alphabet to the Farsi alphabet.

Hacivat and Karagöz

Following this revolutionary alteration, two different utilizations of the language emerged. One of the utilizations was used by the gentry, and was intensely affected by Arabic and Farsi, whereas the other utilization was used by the proletariat and preserved the relics of the nomadic culture.

The gap between the utilizations increased regularly over time, as an outcome of the cultural interaction in the region. The shadow-play, Hacıvat  ve Karagöz is an embodied instance of this divergence. In this play, the disconnect between the mentioned parties is the source of humor. Hacıvat is a member of the gentry, and speaks Ottoman Turkish (The Turkish heavily influenced by Arabic and Farsi), whereas Karagöz is from the proletariat. During the play, and Karagöz becomes befuddled and gets the wrong end of the stick by mistaking an Ottoman word, with a Turkish one which, of course, has a totally opposite meaning.

Toward the 19^th century, with the Servetifünun Movement the gap reached an unimaginative level. Namık Kemal, a Turkish intellectual of the century, wrote, “Even of literates in Istanbul, perhaps one in 10 is incapable of understanding a normally phrased note.” So, simply the language was over the heads of the people.

This problem had to be solved, and so towards the 20th century, different cultural movements emerged to unify Turkish. I will be explaining these cultural movements and the Turkish Language Revolution in my subsequent blogs.

I suggest that you read the links below. They are complementary to my writings..

http://www.turkishculture.org/literature-124.htm

http://www.todayszaman.com/news-202858-was-the-turkish-language-reform-a-success-or-a-catastrophe.html

Do not hesitate to ask me questions, by writing comments below

For chapter 2, click here.

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

_________________________________________________________________

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…