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No, I mean I am aware of all that and certainly the script change isn’t the only reason that Ottoman Turkish is inaccessible. Even if there were good reasons f

No, I mean I am aware of all that and certainly the script change isn’t the only reason that Ottoman Turkish is inaccessible. Even if there were good reasons for the change, it’s still unfortunate in my mind. It’s a bit like if American documents like the Declaration of Independence or Gettysburg Address were in language other than English. Sure, translations would be available and the actual speeches use words most contemporary Americans probably don’t know anyway. But something would indeed be lost, IMO, if the connection were severed. With 3, as far as I understand it, that’s essentially just because of language reforms and educational choices designed to distance the new Turkish language from its Ottoman past. Certainly not an inevitable conclusion. Regarding 4, the Latin alphabet isn’t particularly suited for writing English either, yet here we are.

keiferski 6y ago
Clarifying my third point there: while modern Turkish is based on historical "non-palace" speech, there was definitely an aspect of creation and coining of new words. After the foundation of the modern state of Turkey and the script reform, the Turkish Language Association (TDK) was established in 1932 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.[23] By banning the usage of imported words in the press, 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. 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. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language

keiferski 6y ago

Clarifying my third point there: while modern Turkish is based on historical "non-palace" speech, there was definitely an aspect of creation and coining of new words. After the foundation of the modern state of Turkey and the script reform, the Turkish Language Association (TDK) was established in 1932 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.[23] By banning the usage of imported words in the press, 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. 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. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language