Cultural Post 3 - Language & Culture

[David Mowry]

The Turkish language truly is an unavoidable aspect of the culture. Based on the reforms of founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Ottoman script was transformed into a Latin one. This transformation is said to be more suitable to the Turkish language, along with fostering modernization attempts by making the language more adaptable to foreign languages, that is, Turks could study foreign languages and foreigners could study Turkish with much more ease. Moreover, many of the Arabic, Persian and French loan-words were replaced with historically Turkish or provincially accepted terms. One historical website, Ataturk.com, suggests that 80 percent of written Ottoman Turkish consisted of loan words, in contrast to the 10 percent used today. Kütüphane (library) is a good example. Kütüp is an Arabic word, taken over by Farsi, which has become Turkish kitap, or book. Hane, one the other hand, is a Farsi word for house or place. Thus, the foreign "book house" turns into library.

One seemingly circumstantial facet of the language is the absence of q, w and x. Although these letters are absent in Turkish, they are present in Kurdish, which is spoken by many in the Southeast. As only the official Turkish language is allowed on state-issued identification documents, the Kurdish names for people and towns are limited to colloquial use. Further, Kurdish has been limited throughout various periods in modern history, including, until 2002, in broadcast media (television broadcast was allowed in 2006). While this limitation on non-official languages may be supported for reasons nation-building or cultural unity, it is controversial that foreign loan words could be used on television as early as 1992 (Show TV as the oft-cited example).