Abstract
The Approach of the Journal of Turkish Language to Ottoman Turkish in the Context of Modern Language Discussions (1951-1960)
Language discussions in the modern sense in Turkey
started after the declaration of the “Tanzimat Fermanı”. At
the beginning of the discussions, ideas were put forward
for updating the grammar elements according to the
Turkish grammar rules after the alphabet reform. The
debates with the “II. Meşrutiyet” continued over various
social movements, and the New Language Movement
began to draw attention with its views. In this period, ideas
for the simplification of Turkish were discussed.
With the Early Republican Period, language debates
took a different course and a new period in which the direct
intervention and influence of the state began. In this
period, language studies passed through phases in itself
and finally came to 1950. Democrat Party (DP), which
took over the power from the Republican People's Party in
the general elections held on May 14, 1950, preferred to
stand by the language conservatives by vetoing the
language decisions and practices before it. The DP
government, which developed a language attitude that
preferred Ottoman Turkish, neutralized the Turkish
Language Institution (TLI) in the context of language
policies. TLI also treated Ottoman Turkish as a “foreign
language” by using the term “Ottomanish” specifically, by
displaying an oppositional stance against this situation.
TLI management followed the path of writing negative articles against Ottoman Turkish in the journal, which, in
the words of Agâh Sırrı Levend, who had served as the
general secretary and chairman of the institution, was the
opinion organ of the Institution and whose name was
briefly named as “Türk Dili”. It has been observed that TLI
has widely displayed its opposition to the DP government
through the Turkish Language Journal, “Türk Dili”.
Keywords
Ottoman Turkish, Turkish Language Journal, TLI, Language Discussions.