Language Research

Mustafa Kemal founded the modern Republic of Turkey in 1923 from a portion of the Ottoman Empire, following the empire's collapse as a result of World War I (1914-1918). Turkey became a secular state in 1928, and a multiparty political system was established in 1950. Apart from a brief period of government by a military junta in 1960 and 1961, Turkey remained under civilian rule until 1980, when, in a period of political instability, inflation, and acts of terrorism, the military again took control. Civilian rule was restored to Turkey at the end of 1983.

In 1945 Turkey joined the UN and in 1949 it became a member of NATO. Turkey occupied the northern portion of Cyprus in 1974 to prevent a Greek takeover of the island; relations between the two countries remain strained. Periodic military offensives against Kurdish terrorists have dislocated part of the population in southeast Turkey and have drawn international condemnation.

Independence achieved on October 29, 1923 as the successor state to the Ottoman Empire.

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Updated (July 2003)

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE TURKISH LANGUAGE POLICY

Since the Middle Ages, leaders concentrate their efforts on improving the inferior status of the Turkish language in society. One of the Turkish historians, E. Z. Karal, writes, “In the history of Turkey, the language problem indicates efforts made to transform Turkish into an independent, national and modern language.”

As early as in the 10th Century, when the Turks adopted Islam, the Turkish language was heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic. Although, in line with Turkish expansion to the West, the Turkish language had spread from sedentary groups to semi-sedentary groups and then to settled groups, this did not prevent the dominance of Arabic and Persian in science, education, literature and even administration. It is recorded that during the Seljuk¹ period the language of the palace was Persian and that some Turkish sultans did not hesitate to adopt Persian names.

Ironically, the poets of that time who wrote in Turkish pointed out that Turkish, in comparison with Arabic and Persian, is a limited, crude and inexpressive language and their shortcomings must therefore be overlooked. When in 1277, Karamanoglu Mehmet Bey, the leader of a principality that emerged after the dissolution of the Seljuks, prohibited the use of languages other than Turkish it was not to confirm the superiority of Turkish, but rather to prevent the domination of other languages. The Ottoman dynasty did not follow the Seljuk model and used Turkish in the Ottoman palace. However, the territorial expansion of the Ottoman Empire also failed to contribute to the status of Turkish. In fact, the expansion degraded the status of Turkish in two ways: by reducing the proportion of Turkish speakers in the overall population of the Empire, and by elevating the status of Persian and Arabic because of the increased importance of Islam.

The elite of the Empire spoke a synthetic language called Ottoman Turkish (Osmanlica). Loaded with Arabic and Persian words and influenced by their grammatical rules, Osmanlica was almost unintelligible to common people. The Turkish language was again undervalued and the word “Turk” carried negative implications such as “vulgar, inconsiderate, and illiterate.” The minorities were free to use their languages. Moreover, the Ottoman Sultans sometimes addressed the minorities in their respective languages and used foreign languages in their diplomatic correspondence with European states.

Karal identifies the period between 1453 and 1517 as being marked by the growing influence of Arabic and Persian, and 1517-1718 as the period when the superiority of these languages over Turkish was completed. In the 18th Century, language awareness among the Turks emerged. However, specific measures to improve the status of the language were not introduced until after 1839. With debates on the form of the state also discussions about the status of Turkish were open but this issue was resolved only when the Republic of Turkey was created.

Turkish became the official language of the Ottoman State with Article 18 of the 1876 Constitution. This article stated, “A prerequisite for Ottoman subjects' employment in State service is knowledge of Turkish, which is the official language of the State.” As yet, there was no agreement as to which language variety (the palace or the folk language) should become the standard language. During the first assembly of Parliament, another problem concerning language became evident. The differences between the various dialects of Turkish were so great that the secretaries were unable to type the speeches of the members of parliament.

The second Constitution made Turkish compulsory in all primary schools. In regions where they constituted the majority, minority groups were allowed to learn their languages at school, in addition to Turkish. The Turkish language was also compulsory at secondary level, where the regional languages became optional. Private schools were permitted under the condition that they would be controlled by the state. Another law was passed making the use of Turkish in court compulsory.

These language policy measures proved to be counterproductive. The minorities, who had enjoyed greater linguistic rights until then, reacted against the new rulings because they saw them as a policy of Turkification. Instead of uniting the nation, these policies raised language movements that went hand in hand with national revolts, particularly in the provinces with a large Arabic-speaking population. The proposal to teach regional languages to judges was inapplicable because of the number of languages spoken in the country.

EDUCATION

Despite the growing European interest in Turkish, it was not taught at any level of general education in the Ottoman Empire. Turkish was used at just one school (Enderun); however, Turks were not permitted to attend this school, training students for administrative posts. Although minorities were allowed to print books in their languages since 1494, Turkish was not used in printing until the 18th Century. The translation of Qur'an (Koran) into Turkish was prohibited by ulema (Doctors of Islamic law) until the 20th Century.

Until 1910, Turkish was not introduced into medreses (educational institution) due to the strong resistance of ulema. Several schools based on the European model, such as the Navy School (1773) and the Military School (1793) began to use the Turkish language partially.

It was the adoption of compulsory education, creation of the Translation Bureau and publication of the Official Gazette that brought significant changes to the status of Turkish in education and science. Yet, when high schools and universities were set up almost a century later, the difficulties involved in using Turkish at these levels of education once again became clear and the previous measures were acknowledged as being insufficient.

DEMOGRAPHIC DATA ON LANGUAGES IN TURKEY

There is no up-to-date demographic data on the language groups in Turkey. The official censuses from 1965 up to 1985 included questions about mother tongue and the second language, but their results were not displayed publicly. After 1985, the questions about mother tongue were omitted.

The data collected from the official censuses up to 1965 are regarded to be not entirely reliable because they vary substantially.

For the purpose of the censuses, a mother tongue was defined as the language spoken at home. The main aim of the question about the second language was to learn about the knowledge of Turkish among other linguistic groups. The number of registered linguistic groups has changed over time: 14 in the 1927 Census, 31 in 1935 and 1945, 28 in 1950, and 25 in 1955, 1960 and 1965.

NUMBER OF SPEAKERS OF NON-OFFICIAL LANGUAGES IN TURKEY (1927-1965) Source: F. Dundar, Minorities in Turkish Censuses

*Proportion of non-official language groups in overall population

**Kurdish was divided into three groups in the 1950 Census and into four in the 1960 Census

MOTHER-TONGUE SPEAKERS OF NON-OFFICIAL LANGUAGES* IN TURKEY

*Languages with more than 1,000 speakers

Abaza 10,000 (1995)

Abkhaz 4,000 (1980) out of 35,000 (1993)

Adyghe (Circassian) 71,000 out of 130,000

Albanian 15,000 (1980) out of 65,000 (1993)

Armenian 40,000 out of 70,000 (1980)

Balkan Gagauz 327,000

Bulgarian 270,000 (1993)

Chechen 8,000

Domari 20,000 (1982) out of 61,000

Georgian 40,000 out of 91,000 (1980)

Greek 4,000 (1993)

Kabardian 202,000 (1993)

Kirghiz 1,137 (1982)

Kirmanjki 140,000 (1972)

Kurmanji 3,950,000 (1980) out of 6,500,000 (1993)

Ladino 8,000 out of 15,000 (1976)

Laz 30,000 out of 92,000 (1980)

Lezgi 1,200

Mesopotamian Spoken Arabic 100,000

North Levantine Spoken Arabic 500,000

North Mesopotamian Spoken Arabic 400,000

Romani 25,000 to 40,000

Serbo-Croatian 20,000 (1980) out of 61,000 (1980)

South Azerbaijani 530,000

Turoya 3,000 (1994) out of 50,000 to 70,000

Uzbek 1,981 (1982)

Western Farsi 500,000

Source: Ethnologue: Languages of the World, 14th Edition, SIL, 2002

Source: Recent Changes in Turkey's Language Legislation by Dr. Özlem Eraydin Virtanen, Adnan Menderes University, Nazilli, Turkey, 2003, http://www.ciemen.org/mercator/index-gb.htm

¹ A Turkish dynasty ruling in central and western Asia from the 11th to the 13th Century

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Updated (May 2004)

Turkey has a large North Caucasian diaspora that stems from the Russian conquest of the North Caucasus in 1864. An estimated million of Circassians, 150,000 of Abkhazians and smaller numbers of Ossetians, Chechens, Karachais, Balkars and Dagestanis were forced to leave their homeland and settle in various parts of the then Ottoman Empire, founding nearly a thousand ethnic enclaves in the heartland of Turkey.

Some organizations claim that between 5 and 7 million people of the North Caucasian descent live in Turkey, but more realistic figures estimate only around 2 and 2,5 million.

The Cherkess have always had a reputation of being a highly influential diaspora group, loyal to the Turkish state, holding a high office in the civil services, army and security services. However, mass migration from the countryside to the cities in the 1960s and 70s, deprived a new generation of knowledge of their historical languages.

Intellectuals and linguists sound alarm bells and warn that if no effort is made, these languages could die out in 50 years.

SCRIPT OF THE CIRCASSIAN AND ABKHAZ LANGUAGES

The Circassians and Abkhaz have more practical issues to worry about, given that the actual usage of their languages has also declined precipitately. A pressing problem is what script a written form of these languages will use.

In their homelands, both languages have been written in the Cyrillic script since the late 1930s. Many foreign scholars of the Caucasian languages¹ questioned the wisdom of this decision, saying that the Latin script is suitable both for the complex sound system of the languages, and compatible with the most modern computer keyboards. However, there is virtually no literature published in the Latin script in Circassian and Abkhaz and almost no teachers are familiar with it.

The opponents of this idea² argue that adoption of the Latin script would drive the North Caucasian and diaspora communities even further apart.

The necessary precondition for the language survival are properly organized language courses with trained teachers and modern teaching materials.

Source: Minelres News, April 2004, Istanbul, by Zeynel Besler, a research student at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, http://lists.delfi.lv/pipermail/minelres/2004-April/003288.html

¹ like George Hewitt, a professor of the Caucasian languages at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London

² Professor Muhadin Kumakhov, a well-known Moscow-based Circassian linguist

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