The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success

203 Pages·2000·10.188 MB·

by  Geoffrey Lewis

THE TURKISH LANGUAGE REFORM

The Turkish Language Reform
A Catastrophic Success
GEOFFREY LEWIS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford 0x2 6DP
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© Geoffrey Lewis 1999
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First published 1999
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Lewis, Geoffrey L.
The Turkish language reform: a catastrophic success / Geoffrey
Lewis,
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
1. Turkish language—Reform. 2. Turkish language—History.
I. Title.
PL115.L47 1999
494/35—dc2i 99-24289
ISBN 0-19-823856-8
13579 10 8 6 42
Typeset by Best-set Typesetter Ltd., Hong Kong
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Bookcraft (BathJJ^fiUJ^idsomer Norton
Acknowledgements
To all the many friends who supplied me with material, my deep gratitude. Most
of them said that if I criticized the language reform too harshly they would not
mind a bit. My especial thanks to Fuat M. Andic, Emre Aracı, Çiğdem Balım, Ruth
Davis, Sıtkı Egeli, Şükrü Elçin, Selim İlkin, Iverach McDonald, Andrew Mango,
Bengisu Rona, and Ali Suat Ürgüplü.

Contents
Abbreviations viii
Note on the Text ix
ι. Introduction ι
2. Ottoman Turkish 5
3. The New Alphabet 27
4. Atatürk and the Language Reform until 1936 40
5. The Sun-Language Theory and After 57
6. Atay, Ataç, Sayılı 75
7. Ingredients 94
8. Concoctions 107
9. Technical Terms 124
10. The New Yoke 133
11. The New Turkish 140
12. What Happened to the Language Society 153
References 169
General Index 177
Index of Words, Phrases, and Suffixes 183
Abbreviations
[A] Arabic
ATD Atatürk ve Türk Dili (Ankara: TDK, 1963)
AKDTYK Atatürk Kültür, Dil ve Tarih Yüksek Kurumu
AÜDTC Ankara Üniversitesi Dil Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi
DLT Diwän Lugät al-Turk
[F] French
[G] Greek
JRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of London
[M] Mongolian
OT Old Turkic
[P] Persian
TBMM Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi
TDK Türk Dil Kurumu
TDTC Türk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti
TL Türk Lirası (Turkish lira)
TTK Türk Tarih Kurumu