Learning Turkish: A History of this Rich and Vibrant Language
2LikeIf you´re interested in learning Turkish, a good place to start is understanding the history of the language.
Turkey has been a shared living land for different societies for centuries. A land established its own culture by the contribution of multiple societies. This led to Turkey becoming a bridge between East and West today. You can feel this harmony of different societies not only in culture, food, and way of dressing but also in language. The Turkish language is a language that keeps its own systematic grammar and syntactic mentality but at the same time provides a new point of view to itself by accepting new words and grammatical structures from both Eastern and Western languages.
When Turkish people (Oghuz) were living in the heart of Asia, they did not have their language as a written language. They were used to use other Turkic societies' languages such as Köktürkçe, Uygurca, and Karahanlıca which are closer to Uzbek, and Kazakh languages today. They started to write in their languages long after they moved to Anatolia in the 13th century which we call Old Anatolian Turkish. Turkish people contacted many different cultures and languages, especially Persian on the way of this movement. Thus, Turkish and Persian are two languages today that have many shared words and grammatical structures. Not only Persian but also Arabic was also effective in the establishment of the Turkish language. Many Arabic and Persian manuscripts were translated into Turkish, especially at the beginning of placement to Anatolia and establishing a language in the land.
Apart from Arabic and Persian, Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek languages are also languages that affect the Turkish language because users of these languages have been living in the same land for centuries as well. You can find many originally Armenian and Greek words in today's Turkish.
When you look at Turkish history, you will find out there was a big Westernization movement after the 19th century. This Westernization flow was not only in politics, economy, etc but also in literature and language. French literature was a great example of Turkish literature that wanted to create a new modern Western literature. It was aimed to change the image and customs of the society and make them more Western via literature. Many French books were translated into Turkish in that process. As a result of this, many French words also enter the Turkish language via translation activities. This effect became more visible after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, in 1923. Ataturk, who is the founder and fabulous leader of the Republic of Turkey, tried to build strong relations with Western countries and this naturally affects the language itself, too.
Today, in the 21st century, as everyone knows English is the most powerful language in the world. Many languages are changing and transforming themselves with the effect of English. Turkish is also a language that has many originally English words in its corpus today.
In conclusion, Turkish has become a rich language today by incorporating fantastic tastes from different languages throughout history. As the country itself is located both in the Asian and European continents and has a beautiful Bosphorus sea in the middle, the language is also a bridge between East and West today.
So now, don't you want to enter this magical world of Turkish and learn more about the language? If you´re interested in having private lessons in Turkish, I am a private Turkish tutor. Please get in touch for more information.
