Persian Loanwords in Ottoman and Modern Turkish Language - Research Paper Example

PERSIAN LOANWORDS IN OTTOMAN AND MODERN TURKISH LANGUAGE Introduction Understanding the Turkish language embraces a little understanding of the country’s history. The imperial power called Ottoman Empire existed from 1299 to 1923. This can be called one of the largest empires to have power over the borders of the Mediterranean. During this period three languages were used by the Turks. Arabic was the main language for religion. Persian was the language for refined literature, art, and diplomacy. The official language used for the administration of the empire was the Ottoman Turkish and this elite and ornamented language kept the general population away from the high class, developing a kind of communication problem. Because of this mixture, Ottoman Turkish was incomprehensible to most members especially the less educated people (Saydam Yelda 2006). Even today, spoken Ottoman Turkish is less understood in modern day Turkey. Loanwords of Persian Origin Extensive Persian loanwords which are also filled with Arabic borrowings have been accepted by the Turks in Ottoman as well as in the modern Turkish language. The language was abundant with neologisms. When one looks into the Turkish language, there are three basic periods recognised as a part of the historical development of the Turkish language. They are a) old Anatolian Turkish b) Ottoman Turkish and c) modern Turkish. It was in the 11th century that the Turks were influenced by the Arabs. It was mainly because of the language of the Koran and the Arabs and Persians were well advanced in science and literature. For this reason, with in a Turkish sentence structure, the Arab alphabet was immediately accepted and adopted by the Turks (Saydam Yelda 2006). Many Persian words do not have TDK1- prescribed equivalent because they are better assimilated into the language than the Arabic language and culture which was perceived by the Turks as more “foreign”. Persian spelling was also used by the Turks for Turkish words. For most people, Ottoman Turkish is completely a diverse language than the Turkish of today or the modern Turkish. It may be a politically-motivated assertion but it remains to be true because citizens in the modern-day Turkey could hardly comprehend spoken Ottoman Turkish. When written, Ottoman Turkish used Persian spelling which differs significantly from the Arabic system. Borrowing foreign words such as Persian loanwords is great for many reasons. It can make the word easier by finding common ground with non-native speakers. Although it may have some drawbacks or disadvantages, the benefits are still great especially if the learner aims to really understand the language through descriptive linguistics. Studying the characteristics of both Ottoman Turkish and Modern Turkish languages is fitting into the place of linguistics. This article deals with theoretical linguistics which deals with the fields of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Theoretical linguistics is involved in the search for an explanation of the properties that all languages have in common. In the study of language, descriptive linguistics objectively analyzes and describes how language is spoken by a group of people in a speech community (or how it was spoken in the past). A Description of Phonology One of the aims of linquistics is a description of phonology. As there are thousands of Persian loanwords in Ottoman and in Modern Turkish language one cannot help but learn the details of phonology. Phonology is in itself a borrowed word from the Ancient Greek which means phone, “voice, sound” and logus, “word, speech, subject of discussion”. In other words, phonology is the orderly use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language as noted by Crystal (2003). The Ottoman Turkish word “vâcib” and “zorunlu” in modern Turkish, with its English equivalent “obligatory” must have been analyzed at all levels of the language that are thought to makeup sound for conveying linguistic meaning. The modern Turkish word “zorunlu” was used as the equivalent of the Ottoman Turkish word “vâcib” which is equivalent to the English word “obligatory”. Phonology is the study of sound harmonization in languages. If we consider that it is concerned with anatomy and physiology, the organs of speech and how we learn to use them, it is therefore necessary to bear in mind that students of Turkish language look back to the Ottoman Turkish word before giving the equivalent in modern Turkish language. Pronunciation and intonation have to be relevant to the social attitudes of the society in order to represent the word symbolically. Müşkül, şehir, and cenk are also Ottoman Turkish loanwords which are equivalent to güçlük/zorluk, kent/şehir, and savaş respectively in modern Turkish language. Again, these Ottoman Turkish words have been analyzed carefully before assuming the modern Turkish language equivalents. A Description of Morphology In linguistics the internal building system of words and its study is called morphology. This includes the grammatical processes of inflection, marking categories like tense, person, case, and derivation which give the formation of new words from the existing words. Many languages have a highly complex morphology. In English the formation of new words from an existing word such as “acceptable” from accept is an example of derivation which is contained in the study of morphology. The description had been based on root words whose phonological and morphological rules have been taken into account. Oflazer (2001) of Bilkent University Turkey described the rules of morphology as finite state machines dealing with examples and discussing how various special cases were handled. Thousands of root words have been used to form new words representing the modern Turkish language. Languages vary widely in the number of morphemes that a word can have. English words have multiple morphemes – replacement is composed of re, place, and ment. Modern Turkish language is not an exception; it also has complex morphology. Morphology is the recognition, analysis and depiction of the structure of words. While words are generally accepted as the smallest units of syntax, it is clear that in most languages, words can be related to other words by rules. For example, the Persian word (serhoş) in Table 2 literally means head-sweet. The Turkish word is derived from the root verb es- (esrik), meaning to blow, to fan (wind). Another example is the Persian loanword in Ottoman Turkish, “behar” which means spring. The Turkish compound word sonbahar (which literally means spring) means fall. The compound word ilkbahar (first-spring) means spring. But often just the word "bahar" is used. The rules understood by the speaker reflected specific patterns (or regularities) in the way words are formed from smaller units and how those smaller units interact in speech. In this way, morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies patterns of word formation within and across languages, and attempts to formulate rules that model the knowledge of the speakers of those languages. A Description of Syntax Patterns of word formation within and across languages would show the formation of sentences and the relationship of their component parts. The main device for showing this relationship of word order is called syntax in the English language. A Turkish language sentence, whether it is the Ottoman Turkish or the modern Turkish, also follow the word order to show the relationship of their component parts. In other words, Turkish language also use syntax because the syntactic investigation of a given language has as its goal in the construction of a grammar that can be viewed as a device of some sort for producing the sentences of the language under analysis as shown in Table 3 below. For instance, the Turkish word göz has an English meaning for “eye”, while the components of gözlük are göz + -lük which means eyeglasses in English. All the other Turkish words, as gözlükçü, gözlükçülük, gözlemci, gözle, and gözlemek, start with the first component, göz, which means “eye” in English. Therefore, the respective English meaning of these words all relate to “eye” or the first component, göz. The patterns of the words formed under the “Components” column show the relationship of word order which is referred to as “syntax”. Mathews (1998) quoted that "syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints ― the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk ― we think we’re using the language, but language is doing the thinking; we’re its slavish agents." With this quotation, one can be sure that language really does the thinking while the readers are slavish agents. If a sentence cannot show relationships of its component parts it could not give the readers the rules or order of the elements in a language statement. For Persian loanwords to be understood there should be correct syntax in the arrangement of words to form a statement. If the word order in an English sentence, “The boy loves his dog” is subject-verb-object and the changing of the word could change the meaning, same thing will happen in other languages, such as Turkish. However, it should not always be assumed that syntax means “word order”. Word order is much more flexible in other languages in which word endings indicate the case of a noun or adjective; such inflections make it unnecessary to rely on word order to indicate a word’s function in the sentence. G. L. Lewis (1953) asserted that Turkish is a member of the Altaic family of languages in the Turkic branch. However, Turkish has a simple and logical structure. In fact it is much different from the structure of Indo-European and Semitic languages. A Description of Semantics Syntax is the grammar, structure, or order of the elements in a language statement; semantics is the meaning of these elements. In linguistics, semantics is the study of the interpretation of signs or symbols as used by agents or communities within particular circumstances and contexts. Written language, such as in punctuation and paragraph structure have semantic content. In other forms of languages, such as the Turkish language, there is other semantic content. Table 4 above shows the meaning of each component according to word endings in order to indicate the case of a noun, verb or adjective. The Turkish word yat- is a Verb (order) which means in English, “lie down”. Yatmak has a word ending mak, showing a verb in the infinitive form meaning “to lie down. Yatık shows a word ending -(ı)k indicating an adjective with an English meaning “leaning”; yatak is ending in +-ak indicating a noun and with an English meaning of “bed, place to sleep”; yatay is ending in + -ay which becomes an adjective, meaning “horizontal”; yatkın is ending in + -gın which makes it an adjective meaning “inclined to; stale (from lying too long)”; and yatır which is ending in + -(ı)r as a verb meaning “lay down”. Yatırmak which is ending in + -(ı)r-mak becomes a verb in the infinitive form meaning “to lay down”; yatırım ends in + -(ı)r- + -(ı)m making it a noun, meaning “laying down; deposit, investment”; and yatırımcı which ends in + -(ı)r- + -(ı)m + -cı for a noun, meaning “depositor, investor”. The root word yat, which means “lie down” when added with different word endings form a different word and different part of speech, such as verb, adjective and noun. Although the new words formed by the components give a different part of speech, their English equivalents have all related meanings. The Ottoman Turkish Language Ottoman Turkish is the alternative of the Turkish language that was used as the organizational and fictional language of the Ottoman Empire. The language has wide borrowings from the Persian language which itself contains extensive borrowings from the Arabic language. To the less educated members of the empire, the spoken Ottoman Turkish was less understood. The language that was used only for the administration of the empire was the Ottoman Turkish. Members of the military, civil, and religious elite conducted their business and talked in Ottoman Turkish, which was a combination of Persian, Arabic, and Turkish. Ottoman Turkish not only made use of vocabulary from Persian and Arabic but also lifted whole expressions and syntactic constructions out of these languages and integrated them into the Ottoman idiom. The less educated members of the Ottoman Empire had difficulty in understanding the spoken language. This was attributed to the multiple linguistic influences on Ottoman Turkish which caused the difficulties. Spelling and writing were also difficult to read. The mixture of Persian, Arabic and Turkish belong to three diverse language families: Ural-Altaic, Indo-European and Semitic. Grammatical, phonological, and etymological principles are totally different among the three families (Lewis, 1967). Because of these reasons, during the 19th century scholars began to request for a modification of the language. The language they wanted would be simpler and easier to read and write, and contain added purely Turkish words. The Arabic and Latin Alphabet The language transformation in Turkey began formally in May 1928. Arabic numbers were replaced with their Western counterparts. The new Turkish-Latin alphabet was approved. It became prohibited to write Turkish using the Arabic alphabet. There was fast acquisition of literacy because of the phonetically designed Latin alphabet representing the Turkish consonants and vowels which appeared simpler and clearer than the Arabic alphabet. It was based on one-sound, one-symbol of the standard Turkish. In writing the Turkish language, the Turkish alphabet which was a Latin-based alphabet was used for writing. The alphabet consist of 29 letters, a certain number of which (Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş, and Ü) have been modified or adapted for the phonetic requisites of the language. Out of these 29 letters, 8 are vowels (A, E, I, İ, O, Ö, U, Ü) and the rest (21) are consonants. The letters Q, W, and X of the Modern basic Latin alphabet do not occur in the Turkish alphabet. The set of sounds in spoken Turkish and their relationships with one another was described as phonology of the Turkish language. A system of vowel harmony is one of the characteristic feature of Turkish; the front and back vowels are distinguished from each other. Using only one of the two groups of these vowels is a system where the majority of words in Turkish adhere. Consonants are also affected, with palatal stops being present with front vowels and velar stops existing with back ones (^ TDK Online Dictionary - konsonant). By using the Latin alphabet and replacing the Arabic, Turkey detached a major link of its past with a part of its Islamic heritage. There was no need for the new generation to learn the Arabic letters ― the alphabet change cut it off from Turkeys Ottoman past, culture, value system, and religion. Substantial opposition to the language reform movement had emerged. Teachers, poets, writers, editors, journalists, and others began to protest publicly about the volatility and uncertainty of the officially sanctioned vocabulary. Eventually, the Turkish Language Society lost its semiofficial status tolerating some Arabic and Persian loanwords to start reappearing in government newspapers, books, magazines and journals. The price of language reform, however, had been a harsh and permanent separation from the literary and linguistic heritage of the Ottomans. Although some Turkish literary pieces have been written out into the new alphabet, the syntax and vocabulary are difficult to understand for a speaker of modern Turkish. Loanwords of Persian Origin Words of Persian origin give the Ottoman Turkish word, the modern spelling of the word in Turkish (as suggested by TDK), the modern Turkish equivalent, and its meaning in English. Most of the original Persian words are still widely used in modern Turkish. In fact, there are over 1,500 Persian words in Turkish. However, for many of the Persian words (unlike Arabic words), there is no TDK-prescribed equivalent. TDK did not put as much effort into replacing Persian words as it did for Arabic words, largely because the Persian words were better assimilated into the language. Arabic language and culture is general perceived by Turks to be more "foreign" than Persian language and culture. In fact, Ottoman Turkish effectively used Persian spelling for Turkish words; however this shared spelling differs significantly from the system used for Arabic words. Borrowing foreign words favors non-native speakers because a common ground is created. However, there are also some downsides or drawbacks. One of the most unsafe places to find such drawbacks is in any university whose medium is English. Sometimes new words are made funny-sounding especially if its meaning is not very popular and the new word is a loanword. Understanding how speech sounds are made, helps students in language figure out where languages came from and where they are going; it helps scientists encode computers to understand and imitate human speech; and it might even help you gain knowledge of a new verbal communication. The Turkish Language: Ottoman and Modern The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony and wide-ranging agglutination. The basic word order of Turkish is Subject Object Verb. In Turkish language the second-person plural forms can be used for persons as a sign of respect. Turkish also has no noun classes or grammatical gender. After the adoption of Islam by the cultural ancestors of the Ottomans its administrative language acquired a large compilation of loanwords from Persian and Arabic. The literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Ottoman Divan poetry, was heavily influenced by Persian, including the implementation of poetic meters and a great extent of imported words. The literary and official language during the Ottoman Empire was a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic that differed significantly from the periods everyday spoken Turkish; it was called Ottoman Turkish. Following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey and the script reform, the Turkish Language Association (TDK) was established with the aim of carrying out a research on Turkish. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a language reform to replace loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents (Sözlük, 2005). Usage of imported words was banned in the press. TDK has been successful in eliminating several hundred loanwords from the Turkish language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, it was also successful in reviving Old Turkish words which had not been used for centuries. Because of this sudden change in the Turkish language, younger and older people in Turkey started to be different in their vocabularies. The generations born before the 1940s tend to use the older terms of Arabic or Persian origin, while the younger generations favor new expressions. Their language debate had become politically motivated; with old-fashioned groups favouring the use of archaic words in the press and in everyday language. TDK continued to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies derived from the English language. Most of these words, particularly information technology terms received general acceptance. However, TDK was occasionally criticized for coining words which sound manufactured and man-made. Some prior changes also failed to meet with common approval. A good example was the word bölem to replace fırka, "political party". Fırka has been replaced by the French loanword parti. Some words brought back from Old Turkic have taken special meanings; for example betik, which originally meant "book", is now used to connote "script" in computer science. Many of the words coined by TDK exist with their older equivalents. When a loanword changes its original meaning it became slightly different from the native Turkish word which was supposed to be its equivalent. For instance, dert, derived from the Persian dard (درد "pain"), means "problem" or "trouble" in Turkish; whereas the native Turkish word ağrı is used for physical pain. The TDK which was established to conduct research on the Turkish language also undertook the initiative to replace Arabic and Persian loanwords with their Turkish counterparts. The Association succeeded in removing several hundred Arabic words from the language. While most of the words introduced into the language in this process were newly derived from existing Turkish verbal roots, TDK also suggested using old Turkish words which had not been used in the language for centuries. Older and younger people in Turkey tend to express themselves with different vocabulary. While the generations born up to the 1940s tend to use the old Arabic-origin words, the younger generations favor using the new expressions. Some new words are not used as often as their old counterparts or have failed to convey the basic meanings of their old equivalents. In addition, many new words have certainly taken up somewhat different meanings, and therefore cannot be always interchangeably used with their old words. Arabic, Persian, and French loanwords are still widely used in Turkish language today. This makes the Turkish language richer in expression as most people argue. The co-existence of both the loanword and the Turkish counterpart makes the language rich. On the other hand, some authorities believe that the use of borrowed words or loanwords spoils the languages synchronization because they clearly sound foreign. The terminology used by various people mostly depends on individual preference and also, to some extent, on their knowledge of the respective Turkish word. People who are more self-conscious of their vocabulary may become more inclined towards the usage of Turkish words. Turkish speakers’ common reaction regarding less common Turkish words is that there is no conveyed meaning of the foreign word because it sounds manufactured and man-made. While this may indeed be the case for some words, in most cases the reason behind this reaction is the inadequate usage of the Turkish counterpart. Hizmetleri (2001) in his online Turkish-English translations indicated that as the Turkish word is utilized more in daily language, people become more accustomed to it; and begin to attribute the meaning of the foreign word to the Turkish word. It may take years, or even decades, before a Turkish word can grow on peoples vocabulary and be more frequently utilized. Finally there are political insinuations to the uses of words. Lewis, (1967) pointed out that Persian was the language of poetry and the court. Arabic was and is the language of the mosque. Their deliberate usage (avoiding the usage of a "western" word) often implies romanticism or a religious subtext. Likewise, European word is often used due to the perceived "up to date" nature of such words. Then the use of "pure Turkic" words is favoured for nationalistic as well as for linguistic "simplification" purposes. Summary and Conclusion During the time of the cultural ancestors of the Ottomans, the administrative language of these states acquired a large set of loanwords from Persian and Arabic. Turkish literature was heavily influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters and a great quantity of imported words. The literary and official language during the Ottoman Empire was a mixture of Arabic, Turkish, and Persian that varied considerably from the periods everyday spoken Turkish; it was termed Ottoman Turkish. After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey and the script reform, the Turkish Language Association (TDK) was established under the patronage of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, with the aim of conducting research on Turkish. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a language reform to replace loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents. Usage of imported words in the press was banned; the association succeeded in removing several hundred foreign words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, it also opted for reviving Old Turkish words which had not been used for centuries. Owing to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the older terms of Arabic or Persian origin, the younger generations favor new expressions. However, when Ataturk himself delivered a lengthy speech to the new Parliament, his Ottoman diction sounded so alien that it had to be translated three times into modern Turkish. There was also a political breadth to the language debate, with conservative groups tending to use more archaic words in the press or everyday language. The past few decades have seen the continuing work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language, mostly from English. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance. However, the TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace firka, "political party"—also failed to meet with popular approval (in fact, firka has been replaced by the French loanword parti). Some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings; for example betik (originally meaning "book") is now used to mean "script" in computer science. Many of the words derived by TDK coexist with their older counterparts. This usually happens when a loanword changes its original meaning. For instance, dert, derived from the Persian dard ("pain"), means "problem" or "trouble" in Turkish; whereas the native Turkish word “agri” is used for physical pain. Among some of the old words that were replaced are terms in geometry, cardinal directions, some months names, and many nouns and adjectives. The branch of linguistics that is most concerned with developing models of linguistic knowledge is called theoretical linguistics. The fields that are generally considered the core of theoretical linguistics are syntax, phonology, morphology, and semantics. Although phonetics often updates phonology, it is often excluded from the purview of theoretical linguistics, along with psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. The search for the properties that all languages have in common is also a task of theoretical linguistics. Descriptive linguistics objectively analyzes and describes how a language is spoken in the past by a group of people in the speech community. Phonology is the orderly use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language. All scholarly research in linguistics is descriptive; like all other sciences, its aim is to observe the linguistic world as it is, without the bias of preconceived ideas about how it ought to be. Pronunciation and intonation have to be relevant to the social attitudes of the society in order to represent the word symbolically. Modern descriptive linguistics is based on a structural approach to language, as exemplified in the work of Leonard Bloomfield and others. Descriptivism is the belief that description is more significant or important to teach, study, and practice than prescription. Through the study of phonology the modern Turkish words equivalent to the loanwords or the Ottoman Turkish, are given the right sound and the meaning could be encoded. Another important structural approach to language is morphology. This includes the grammatical processes of inflection, marking categories like tense, person, case, and derivation which give the formation of new words from the existing words. Persian loanwords in Turkish have to be grammatically processed to mark categories like tense, person, case and derivation. Through morphology, new words in the modern Turkish could be formed and pronounced correctly as given in the Ottoman Turkish. Syntax is the grammar, structure, or order of the elements in a language statement; semantics is the meaning of these elements. In linguistics, semantics is the study of the interpretation of signs or symbols as used by agents or communities within particular circumstances and contexts. For Persian loanwords to be understood there should be correct syntax in the arrangement of words to form a statement. Written language, such as in punctuation and paragraph structure have semantic content. In other forms of languages, such as the Turkish language, there is also other semantic content. Linguistics is an interesting subject and Turkish language is a challenging subject matter. The language consists of Ottoman and Modern Turkish. Ottoman is the old language whose words sound foreign as they were borrowed mostly from the Persian language. Yet because of the people’s determination to understand the language, the TDK had given them the chance to learn the language by coining new words equivalent to the borrowed words. Hence, Turkey today use "pure Turkic" words which are favoured for nationalistic as well as for linguistic "simplification" purposes. Reference Crystal, D. (2003) The Cambridge Encylopedia of the English Language, 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press. Fowler, H.W. (1908) "The Kings English," Chapter I. Vocabulary, Neologism, 2nd ed. Hizmetleri, T. (n.d.) online Turkish-English translations. Lewis, G. L. (1953) Teach Yourselves Turkish: the English University press London. p.V Lewis, G. L. (1967) Turkish Grammar. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Mango, A (2000) Ataturk. The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey, ISBN: 1585670111 Overlook Press. Mathews, H. (1998) Oulipo Compendium, ISBN 0-947757-96-1, www.yourdictionary.com/... /ESL-Pronunciation-Phonology-Charts.html. Retrieved 30/12/2009 Oflazer, K., S. Nirenburg, M. McShane (2001), Computational Linguistics, v.27 n.1, p.59. Bilkent University Press. Saydam, Y. (2006) Language Use in the Ottoman Empaire and its Problems; Center for greek and Islamic studies t Johansburg University. Sözlük, G. T. (2005).Turkish Language Association. http://www.tdk.gov.tr/TR/BelgeGoster.aspx. Retrieved 30/12/2009. Read More