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:
1. Vowel harmony, a feature of all
Ural-Altaic tongues.
2. The absence of gender.
3. Agglutination
4. Adjectives precede nouns.
5. 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)
1. Ottoman Turkish (from the 16th
to the 19th century)
2. 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 Ka?garly Mahmut to assist Arabs to learn Turkish, was
written in Arabic. In the following century, Edip Ahmet Mahmut Yükneri
wrote his book "Atabetü'l-Hakayyk", 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 ?ir Nevai of the Ça?atay 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, A?ykpa?a,
Gül?ehri, 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 Namyk Kemal, Ali Suavi, Ziya
Pa?a, Ahmet Mithat Efendi and ?emsettin 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. |
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