| 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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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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.
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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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