Anatolian Turkish has a strong structure, a plain but rooted grammer and a rich vocabulary. It belongs to the "Ural-Altaic Language Family" and, is there fore, completely differet from the Indo-European-Semitic and Sinic language families. The essential tie between the many Ural-Altaic languages which extend over a wide area ranging from Finland to Manchuria, is the grammer and certain originalsound characteristics rather than any similarity of terminology.
The Turks, who founded various civilisations throughout the centuries, have undergone religios and cultural evolution and particularly after the Xth century, for various reasons, have been strongly infuenced by foreign languages.
However, as a result of the close relations with the Persians and adoption of Islam, Turks began to use Persian as a literary language and Arabic for scientific studies. In the time of the Ghaznavid State,
founded in Afghanistan (962-1183) Sultan Mahmoud encouraged the use of persian as a political language.
The Anatolia Seljuks who had devised Anatolian Turkish in a very short period of time were influenced by the Persian language and thus persian culture. Resistance to this Persian influence occurred in Anatolia.
In the beginnig of the Ottoman period, a considerably pure Turkish was used. However, after the conquest of Istanbul by Sultan Mehmet the Conquero many Arabic and Persian terms began to enter the Turkish vocabulary, due to the education in the Ottoman palace and the fact that many Sultans and Şehzades
(heirs to the throne) wrote poems in Persian. This continued until the Tanzimat (Reform). The efforts of some Sultans such as Murat II. ta prevent this trend were unsuccessful as writers and poets of Anatolia continued writing works in pure Turkish.
The movement to purify the Turkish language was started in the period after the foundation of the Turkish Republic and the language reform of Atatürk was one of his basic accomplishment. The matter was first taken up at the First Language Congress held at Dolmabahce Palace in 1932, and developed by Türk Dili Teknik Cemiyeti, currently. Türk Dili Kurumu (Turkish Language Association), established by Atatürk.
Despite the fact that only 35-40 % of Turkish terms were used in formal language before 1932, this figure is 75-80 % today, which shows that attempts to reform a language can be successful.
|
