6 ms·

I'm turkish and because of hidden arabic imperialism and assimilation rooted deep in islam, I refuse to use even arabic words which are common in turkish.

biggio 8y ago
Compared to Turkish I find Arabic quite messy
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  I’m not surprised Turkish is simpler. It was “reformed” so much after the foundation of the republic that modern Turks can’t understand Ottoman Turkish. It was written in Arabic script and had a great, great many Arabic and Persian words. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language > 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. It is considered particularly ironic that Atatürk himself, in his lengthy speech to the new Parliament in 1927, used a style of Ottoman which sounded so alien to later listeners that it had to be "translated" three times into modern Turkish: first in 1963, again in 1986, and most recently in 1995.
  - biggio 8y ago
    Interesting. I suppose reform worked for Turkish. I'm fascinated by the simplicity and the straightforwardness of Turkish.
    - fatihdonmez 8y ago
      Of course it worked, now we can easily understand other turkic people from Kygrzystan, Uzbekistan, Uyghur, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan. It’s one of the most important and critical reform, Ataturk did.
aibrahem 8y ago
As someone coming from an Arabic Muslim country, I'm really interested to understand why you have this view. In my country (Egypt), Turkey is actually seen as being a huge part of Islamic history, and it's often cited as a proof of the diversity of the Islamic and Arabic world that it was hugely impacted by the Turkish culture (Words, Foods..etc).
- gnulinux 8y ago
  Because Turkey is a very heterogeneous country with different people mostly deeply disliking each other (sad but true). Diversity != tolerance. I lived in the Bay Area and Boston area for years, and for example, these cities are more ethnically and racially diverse, but in my experience Istanbul is much more culturally rich (i.e. there are more heterogeneous groups). Inside this group there are "secular" and "religious" Turks who are roughly half of Turks. Due to years of politics and other stuff, these groups deeply hate each other. They try to live differently, act different, eat different stuff and even talk different languages. I grew up in a "secular" middle/upper class Turkish family (my family was also non-practicing Muslim) and when I met more religious people in my high school years it was clear even the language we speak was different. For me, I grew up in a bubble and never had any contact with any culture other than mine (except some Jewish people who were majority where I lived). Anyway, pretty much all groups had a similar experience, but when one of them has the power, they basically try to control everyone and this brings insane amount of frustration to other side. The entire political history of the Republic is all about seculars trying to make conservatives secular and vice versa. This is so crazy it affects things like language, education, art etc... I was very frustrated of this whole mess and luckily (thanks to my family's wealth) I went to US for undergrad to restart my life.
bovine3dom 8y ago
You'd have a hard time doing the same in English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabic_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabi... Some quite common words are on that list: jumper, cat, fanfare...
- kkarakk 8y ago
  this is not a fair comparison. arabic words when spoken, are always assumed to have religious connotations first whereas english is always assumed to have contextual connotations first. it is a huge distinction
- posterboy 8y ago
  Fanfare is surely related to latin fanum, temple, whence fanatic, but good to know there's an arabic connection. Edit: Some nationalist tendencies would even try to find a turkic root, for everything, and there might be some reason to it with the prominent location of anatolia, but historical location and language is hard to trace, of turks and of whoever else stayed there.
sdiq 8y ago
You probably forgot Fatih, is that not still Arabic?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
BeetleB 8y ago
>I'm turkish and because of hidden arabic imperialism and assimilation rooted deep in islam, I refuse to use even arabic words which are common in turkish. Ahem, but I think most Arabs complain about Turkish imperialism. I don't think Turkey was ever conquered by the Arabs, but the reverse is true.
- fatihdonmez 8y ago
  They can complain whatever they want to but here are the facts. Turks brutally were murdered almost 70-80 years to turned to be a muslim and start believing arab god to survive. Turks adopted all the arabic culture/traditions as part of islam. Turks used arabic alphabet along with the bunch of arabic words. Even nowadays current government is pushing more islamic/arabic values to turkish people as part of islamization process.
  - heuiop 8y ago
    > Turks brutally were murdered almost 70-80 years to turned to be a muslim and start believing arab god to survive. When did this happen? What year/century are you talking about?
    - fatihdonmez 8y ago
      early islamic period around 7th centuries; you can find more information here; https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Arabs-forced-Turks-to-convert-to-Islam-1/answer/Uygar-Eraslan https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Arabs-forced-Turks-to-...
aliswe 8y ago
Ataturk used so many arabic words it's very difficult for a modern turk to understand... you should give it a try

biggio 8y ago

Compared to Turkish I find Arabic quite messy

barry-cotter 8y ago
I’m not surprised Turkish is simpler. It was “reformed” so much after the foundation of the republic that modern Turks can’t understand Ottoman Turkish. It was written in Arabic script and had a great, great many Arabic and Persian words. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language > 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. It is considered particularly ironic that Atatürk himself, in his lengthy speech to the new Parliament in 1927, used a style of Ottoman which sounded so alien to later listeners that it had to be "translated" three times into modern Turkish: first in 1963, again in 1986, and most recently in 1995.
- biggio 8y ago
  Interesting. I suppose reform worked for Turkish. I'm fascinated by the simplicity and the straightforwardness of Turkish.
  - fatihdonmez 8y ago
    Of course it worked, now we can easily understand other turkic people from Kygrzystan, Uzbekistan, Uyghur, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan. It’s one of the most important and critical reform, Ataturk did.

aibrahem 8y ago

As someone coming from an Arabic Muslim country, I'm really interested to understand why you have this view. In my country (Egypt), Turkey is actually seen as being a huge part of Islamic history, and it's often cited as a proof of the diversity of the Islamic and Arabic world that it was hugely impacted by the Turkish culture (Words, Foods..etc).

gnulinux 8y ago
Because Turkey is a very heterogeneous country with different people mostly deeply disliking each other (sad but true). Diversity != tolerance. I lived in the Bay Area and Boston area for years, and for example, these cities are more ethnically and racially diverse, but in my experience Istanbul is much more culturally rich (i.e. there are more heterogeneous groups). Inside this group there are "secular" and "religious" Turks who are roughly half of Turks. Due to years of politics and other stuff, these groups deeply hate each other. They try to live differently, act different, eat different stuff and even talk different languages. I grew up in a "secular" middle/upper class Turkish family (my family was also non-practicing Muslim) and when I met more religious people in my high school years it was clear even the language we speak was different. For me, I grew up in a bubble and never had any contact with any culture other than mine (except some Jewish people who were majority where I lived). Anyway, pretty much all groups had a similar experience, but when one of them has the power, they basically try to control everyone and this brings insane amount of frustration to other side. The entire political history of the Republic is all about seculars trying to make conservatives secular and vice versa. This is so crazy it affects things like language, education, art etc... I was very frustrated of this whole mess and luckily (thanks to my family's wealth) I went to US for undergrad to restart my life.

bovine3dom 8y ago

You'd have a hard time doing the same in English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabic_origin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_words_of_Arabi... Some quite common words are on that list: jumper, cat, fanfare...

kkarakk 8y ago
this is not a fair comparison. arabic words when spoken, are always assumed to have religious connotations first whereas english is always assumed to have contextual connotations first. it is a huge distinction
posterboy 8y ago
Fanfare is surely related to latin fanum, temple, whence fanatic, but good to know there's an arabic connection. Edit: Some nationalist tendencies would even try to find a turkic root, for everything, and there might be some reason to it with the prominent location of anatolia, but historical location and language is hard to trace, of turks and of whoever else stayed there.

sdiq 8y ago

You probably forgot Fatih, is that not still Arabic?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

BeetleB 8y ago

>I'm turkish and because of hidden arabic imperialism and assimilation rooted deep in islam, I refuse to use even arabic words which are common in turkish. Ahem, but I think most Arabs complain about Turkish imperialism. I don't think Turkey was ever conquered by the Arabs, but the reverse is true.

fatihdonmez 8y ago
They can complain whatever they want to but here are the facts. Turks brutally were murdered almost 70-80 years to turned to be a muslim and start believing arab god to survive. Turks adopted all the arabic culture/traditions as part of islam. Turks used arabic alphabet along with the bunch of arabic words. Even nowadays current government is pushing more islamic/arabic values to turkish people as part of islamization process.
- heuiop 8y ago
  > Turks brutally were murdered almost 70-80 years to turned to be a muslim and start believing arab god to survive. When did this happen? What year/century are you talking about?
  - fatihdonmez 8y ago
    early islamic period around 7th centuries; you can find more information here; https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Arabs-forced-Turks-to-convert-to-Islam-1/answer/Uygar-Eraslan https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-Arabs-forced-Turks-to-...

aliswe 8y ago

Ataturk used so many arabic words it's very difficult for a modern turk to understand... you should give it a try