The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success (review)

Language ◽  
2004 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 896-897
Author(s):  
Mohammed Sawaie
Keyword(s):  
Language Reform ◽  
Turkish Language

Effects of Turkish Language Reform on Person Perception

1980 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doan Cüceloğlu ◽  
Dan I. Slobin
Keyword(s):  
Person Perception ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
Turkish Language

Language and Politics: Turkish Language Reform

1964 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank Tachau
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Close Relation ◽  
National Language ◽  
George Orwell ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
National Community ◽  
Language And Politics ◽  
Turkish Language ◽  
New Religion

The close relation between language and politics was noted by George Orwell many years ago. Undoubtedly, no other political phenomenon brings this relationship more sharply into focus than that of nationalism.“In our time, the national community has assumed paramount power,” notes Frederick Hertz. Along with this development, “the national language has become one of the idols of a new religion. All nations regard it as a symbol of their independence and honour, as the supreme expression of their personality, and they esteem its exclusive domination within their national territory more highly than obvious spiritual and material advantages.” Indeed, language has been widely (though in some cases erroneously) accepted as one of the prime indicators of national identity.

Geoffrey Lewis, The Turkish language reform, a catastrophic success. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. 190. HB $65.00.

2002 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 645-647
Author(s):  
Ismail Aydingün ◽  
Ayşegül Aydingün
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
General Reader ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
Oxford University ◽  
Reading Matter ◽  
History Of ◽  
Turkish Language ◽  
Building Project

Geoffrey Lewis's book traces the history of Turkish language reform with fascinating style. The reader is provided with rich and well-selected examples, and the translation from Turkish to English is excellent. The author's experience of Turkey and his competence in Turkish are clear throughout. He states that the book has two purposes: to acquaint the general reader with the history of Turkish language reform, and to provide students at all levels of Turkish with some useful and stimulating reading matter. Lewis is successful on both counts. Furthermore, the book is significant in that it sheds light on the fact that, although language reform is not a well-known aspect of the Kemalist revolution, it played a vital role in the creation of the Turkish national identity. In other words, the aim of Turkish language reform was not simply to “purify” the language by eliminating foreign words and foreign grammatical features; rather, it was part of a nation-building project.

scholarly journals The First Episode of Language Reform in Republican Turkey: The Language Council from 1926 to 1931

2008 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
İLKER AYTÜRK
Keyword(s):  
First Episode ◽  
Reform Process ◽  
Current Debate ◽  
University Graduates ◽  
Language Reform ◽  
Administration Culture ◽  
Major Fault ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Early Republican ◽  
Turkish Language

Following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and the consolidation of the Kemalist regime in 1926, the President of the new republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk launched a reform process which aimed at changing Turkey's laws, administration, culture and, most significantly, its image. One facet of this process of transformation was the language reform that commenced with romanisation of the Turkish script in late 1928 and reached its zenith later on in the 1930s. Between 1932 and 1934, the Türk Dil Kurumu – the Turkish Language Institute, a radical reformist institution founded by Atatürk in 1932 – banished thousands of Arabic and Persian words from spoken and written Turkish and fabricated new, ‘authentically’ Turkish, words to replace them. The radical-reformist zeal subsided in 1935 as a result of the linguistic chaos of the previous years and came to a halt in 1936 with the proclamation of the so-called Sun-Language Theory. However, so much had changed during those few years and has done since, that even secondary school and university graduates in contemporary Turkey are not able to read and understand, for instance, Atatürk's famous Speech of 1926 from its original, and hence feel the need to consult ‘modernised’ or simplified versions. In this respect, the legacy of the language reform in early republican Turkey remains a matter of bitter controversy and pits the reformist Kemalists against an array of Islamists, conservatives and even liberals. The current debate on what proper Turkish is neatly overlaps with the major fault line that still divides Turkish society.

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