Turkish Culture Within Germany

[Kristen Harrison]

I did my Cultural Project on Turkish culture within Germany, because I've taken German for years now, and I want to live there for awhile. That's one reason I was interested in taking Turkish, because there is a huge Turkish immigrant population in Germany, and it's created a huge cultural phenomenon of Turkish influence. There are about 3.5 million Turks in Germany, and they have influenced such cultural aspects as food, language, music, media broadcasting, and religion. Getting citizenship there has been a problem for many, as Europe has traditionally recognized citizenship by blood rather than place of birth. Yet, there have been some reforms in the last decade, and now people born in Germany can opt for German citizenship, although dual citizenship is still not recognized.

Turkish is Germany's second language, and many second- and third-generation Turks speak their Turkish with a German accent, or even modeled on a German dialect. Others speak a kind of pidgin German influenced by Turkish, often called Turkdeutsch or Kanaksprak. This German creole is a mix of Turkish, modified by adding German grammatical and syntactical structures, with Arabic and Turkish words sprinkled in as well.

The most interesting thing I found in my research on German-Turkish culture was that the Turkish language is used in German not only by the members of its own community, but also by people with no Turkish background. Especially in urban areas, it functions as a popular peer group language for teenagers. It has a "toughness" connotation and flourishes in the youth subculture, even among non-Turks. The Turkish language has been used as an expression of solidarity and identity for Turkish youth, especially in the creation of Turkish-language rap and hip-hop.

There is currently a problem of a language gap between Turks and Germans, because many Turks do not have a working knowledge of German even though they've been living there for generations. One professor at Berlin's Technical University conducted a study in the Berlin neighborhood of Kreuzberg (which is overwhelmingly immigrant, and mostly Turkish) and found that 63 % of preschool children spoke little to no German. This happens because immigrants tend to group together into urban cultural enclaves and it becomes possible for them to go about their lives completely normally without having to speak any of the language of their host country. Politicians and other public figures have called attention to the problem of integration for German Turks, and some local schools offer classes in Turkish, and many German schools now offer courses to take Turkish as a foreign language.

[Haktan Tursun]

Hello, Kristen, I am Haktan, new FLTA asisstant to work at UR. I was in Germany last year as a foreign language asisstant and I had the chance to observe the situation of Turkish immigrants in Germany. I can also speak German, I hope we can talk about that issue more in detail when I come there and I hope we can do this in Turkish:)