Ottoman Turkish

Short description: Standardized register of Turkish in the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Turkish

لسان عثمانى
Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

Ottoman Turkish written in Nastaliq style
(لسان عثمانى)

Region| Ottoman Empire
Ethnicity| Ottoman Turks
Era| c. 15th century; developed into modern Turkish in 1928[1]

Language family

Turkic

* Common Turkic
* Oghuz
* Western Oghuz
* Ottoman Turkish

Early form

Old Anatolian Turkish

Writing system

| Ottoman Turkish alphabet
Official status

Official language in

* Beylik of Tunis
* Cretan State
* Emirate of Jabal Shammar
* Khedivate of Egypt
* Ottoman Empire
* Provisional National Government of the Southwestern Caucasus
* Provisional Government of Western Thrace
* Turkish Provisional Government
* Turkey (until 1928)[lower-alpha 1]

Language codes
ISO 639-1| `ota`
ISO 639-3| `ota`

Linguist List

| `ota`
Glottolog| `otto1234`[3]

Ottoman Turkish (Ottoman Turkish: لِسانِ عُثمانى, romanized: Lisân-ı Osmânî, Turkish pronunciation: [liˈsaːnɯ osˈmaːniː]; Turkish: Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian, and its speakers used the Ottoman Turkish alphabet for written communication. During the peak of Ottoman power (c. 16th century CE), words of foreign origin in Turkish literature in the Ottoman Empire heavily outnumbered native Turkish words,[4] with Arabic and Persian vocabulary accounting for up to 88% of the Ottoman vocabulary in some texts.[5]

Consequently, Ottoman Turkish was largely unintelligible to the less-educated lower-class and to rural Turks, who continued to use kaba Türkçe ("raw/vulgar Turkish"; compare Vulgar Latin and Demotic Greek), which used far fewer foreign loanwords and is the basis of the modern standard.[6] The Tanzimât era (1839–1876) saw the application of the term "Ottoman" when referring to the language[7] (لسان عثمانی Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. or عثمانليجه Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.); Modern Turkish uses the same terms when referring to the language of that era (Osmanlıca and Osmanlı Türkçesi). More generically, the Turkish language was called تركچه Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. or تركی Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. "Turkish".

## Contents

* 1 Grammar
* 1.1 Cases
* 1.2 Verbs
* 2 Structure
* 3 History
* 3.1 Language reform
* 4 Legacy
* 5 Writing system
* 6 Numbers
* 7 Transliterations
* 8 See also
* 9 Notes
* 10 References
* 11 Further reading
* 12 External links

## Grammar

A poem about Rumi in Ottoman Turkish.

### Cases

* Nominative and Indefinite accusative/objective: -∅, no suffix. كول göl 'the lake' 'a lake', چوربا Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'soup', كیجه Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'night'; طاوشان گترمش Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'he/she brought a rabbit'.
* Genitive: suffix ڭ/نڭ Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.. پاشانڭ Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'of the pasha'; كتابڭ Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'of the book'.
* Definite accusative: suffix ى Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.: طاوشانى كترمش Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'he/she brought the rabbit'. The variant suffix Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. does not occur in Ottoman Turkish orthography (unlike in Modern Turkish), although it's pronounced with the vowel harmony. Thus, كولى Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'the lake' vs. Modern Turkish gölü.[8]
* Dative: suffix ه Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.: اوه Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'to the house'.
* Locative: suffix ده Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.: مكتبده Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'at school', قفسده Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'in (the/a) cage', باشده Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'at a/the start', شهرده Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'in town'. The variant suffix used in Modern Turkish (–te, –ta) does not occur.
* Ablative: suffix دن Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.: ادمدن Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. 'from the man'.
* Instrumental: suffix or postposition ايله Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.. Generally not counted as a grammatical case in modern grammars.

### Verbs

The conjugation for the aorist tense is as follows:

| Singular | Plural

|
|

1st person  | -irim | -iriz
2nd person  | -irsiŋ | -irsiŋiz
3rd person  | -ir | -irler

## Structure

link=File:Redhouse's_Turkish_Dictionary.pdf?page=7

Ottoman Turkish was highly influenced by Arabic and Persian. Arabic and Persian words in the language accounted for up to 88% of its vocabulary.[5] As in most other Turkic and foreign languages of Islamic communities, the Arabic borrowings were borrowed through Persian, not through direct exposure of Ottoman Turkish to Arabic, a fact that is evidenced by the typically Persian phonological mutation of the words of Arabic origin.[9][10][11]

The conservation of archaic phonological features of the Arabic borrowings furthermore suggests that Arabic-incorporated Persian was absorbed into pre-Ottoman Turkic at an early stage, when the speakers were still located to the north-east of Persia, prior to the westward migration of the Islamic Turkic tribes. An additional argument for this is that Ottoman Turkish shares the Persian character of its Arabic borrowings with other Turkic languages that had even less interaction with Arabic, such as Tatar, Bashkir, and Uyghur. From the early ages of the Ottoman Empire, borrowings from Arabic and Persian were so abundant that original Turkish words were hard to find.[12] In Ottoman, one may find whole passages in Arabic and Persian incorporated into the text.[12] It was however not only extensive loaning of words, but along with them much of the grammatical systems of Persian and Arabic.[12]

In a social and pragmatic sense, there were (at least) three variants of Ottoman Turkish:

* Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. (Eloquent Turkish): the language of poetry and administration, Ottoman Turkish in its strict sense;
* Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. (Middle Turkish): the language of higher classes and trade;
* Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. (Rough Turkish): the language of lower classes.

A person would use each of the varieties above for different purposes, with the Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. variant being the most heavily suffused with Arabic and Persian words and Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. the least. For example, a scribe would use the Arabic Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. (عسل) to refer to honey when writing a document but would use the native Turkish word bal when buying it.

## History

Historically, Ottoman Turkish was transformed in three eras:

* Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. (Old Ottoman Turkish): the version of Ottoman Turkish used until the 16th century. It was almost identical with the Turkish used by Seljuk empire and Anatolian beyliks and was often regarded as part of Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. (Old Anatolian Turkish).
* Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. (Middle Ottoman Turkish) or Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. (Classical Ottoman Turkish): the language of poetry and administration from the 16th century until Tanzimat.
* Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. (New Ottoman Turkish): the version shaped from the 1850s to the 20th century under the influence of journalism and Western-oriented literature.

### Language reform

In 1928, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, widespread language reforms (a part in the greater framework of Atatürk's Reforms) instituted by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk saw the replacement of many Persian and Arabic origin loanwords in the language with their Turkish equivalents. One of the main supporters of the reform was the Turkish nationalist Ziya Gökalp.[13] It also saw the replacement of the Perso-Arabic script with the extended Latin alphabet. The changes were meant to encourage the growth of a new variety of written Turkish that more closely reflected the spoken vernacular and to foster a new variety of spoken Turkish that reinforced Turkey's new national identity as being a post-Ottoman state.[citation needed]

See the list of replaced loanwords in Turkish for more examples of Ottoman Turkish words and their modern Turkish counterparts. Two examples of Arabic and two of Persian loanwords are found below.

English | Ottoman | Modern Turkish

|
|

obligatory | واجب Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | zorunlu
hardship | مشكل Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | güçlük
city | شهر Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | kent (also şehir)
province | ولایت Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | il
war | حرب Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | savaş

## Legacy

Historically speaking, Ottoman Turkish is the predecessor of modern Turkish. However, the standard Turkish of today is essentially Türkiye Türkçesi (Turkish of Turkey) as written in the Latin alphabet and with an abundance of neologisms added, which means there are now far fewer loan words from other languages, and Ottoman Turkish was not instantly transformed into the Turkish of today. At first, it was only the script that was changed, and while some households continued to use the Arabic system in private, most of the Turkish population was illiterate at the time, making the switch to the Latin alphabet much easier. Then, loan words were taken out, and new words fitting the growing amount of technology were introduced. Until the 1960s, Ottoman Turkish was at least partially intelligible with the Turkish of that day. One major difference between Ottoman Turkish and modern Turkish is the latter's abandonment of compound word formation according to Arabic and Persian grammar rules. The usage of such phrases still exists in modern Turkish but only to a very limited extent and usually in specialist contexts; for example, the Persian genitive construction Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. (which reads literally as "the preordaining of the divine" and translates as "divine dispensation" or "destiny") is used, as opposed to the normative modern Turkish construction, ilâhî takdîr (literally, "divine preordaining").

In 2014, Turkey's Education Council decided that Ottoman Turkish should be taught in Islamic high schools and as an elective in other schools, a decision backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who said the language should be taught in schools so younger generations do not lose touch with their cultural heritage.[14]

## Writing system

Calendar in Thessaloniki 1896, a cosmopolitan city; the first three lines in Ottoman script

Most Ottoman Turkish was written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet (Ottoman Turkish: الفبا, romanized: elifbâ), a variant of the Perso-Arabic script. The Armenian, Greek and Rashi script of Hebrew were sometimes used by Armenians, Greeks and Jews. (See Karamanli Turkish, a dialect of Ottoman written in the Greek script; Armeno-Turkish alphabet)

## Numbers

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

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ایكی

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

اوچ

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

درت

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

آلتی

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

یدی

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

سكز

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

طقوز

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

اون

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

اون بر

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

اون ایکی

| Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

[15]

## Transliterations

The transliteration system of the İslâm Ansiklopedisi has become a de facto standard in Oriental studies for the transliteration of Ottoman Turkish texts.[16] Concerning transcription the New Redhouse, Karl Steuerwald and Ferit Develioğlu dictionaries have become standard.[17] Another transliteration system is the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG), which provides a transliteration system for any Turkic language written in Arabic script.[18] There are not many differences between the İA and the DMG transliteration systems.

İA-Transliteration[19] ا | ب | پ | ت | ث | ج | چ | ح | خ | د | ذ | ر | ز | ژ | س | ش | ص | ض | ط | ظ | ع | غ | ف | ق | ك | گ | ڭ | ل | م | ن | و | ه | ى

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Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist. | Script error: The function "transl" does not exist.

## See also

* Old Anatolian Turkish language
* Culture of the Ottoman Empire
* List of Persian loanwords in Turkish

## Notes

1. ↑ The national language was called "Turkish" in the 1921 and 1924 constitutions of the Republic of Turkey.[2]

## References

1. ↑ "Turkey – Language Reform: From Ottoman To Turkish". http://countrystudies.us/turkey/25.htm.
2. ↑ "5662". https://dergipark.org.tr/tr/download/article-file/5662.
3. ↑ Hammarström, Harald; Forkel, Robert; Haspelmath, Martin, eds (2017). "Ottoman Turkish". Glottolog 3.0. Jena, Germany: Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History. http://glottolog.org/resource/languoid/id/otto1234.
4. ↑ Eid, Mushira (2006). Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics, Volume 4. Brill. ISBN 9789004149762. https://books.google.com/books?id=OWQOAQAAMAAJ.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Bertold Spuler (de). Persian Historiography & Geography Pustaka Nasional Pte Ltd ISBN: 9971774887 p 69
6. ↑ Glenny, Misha (2001). The Balkans — Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804–1999. Penguin. p. 99.
7. ↑ Kerslake, Celia (1998). "Ottoman Turkish". Turkic Languages. New York: Routledge. p. 108. ISBN 0415082005.
8. ↑ Redhouse, William James. A Simplified Grammar of the Ottoman-Turkish Language. pp. 52.
9. ↑ Percy Ellen Algernon Frederick William Smythe Strangford, Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe Strangford, Emily Anne Beaufort Smythe Strangford, "Original Letters and Papers of the late Viscount Strangford upon Philological and Kindred Subjects", Published by Trübner, 1878. pg 46: "The Arabic words in Turkish have all decidedly come through a Persian channel. I can hardly think of an exception, except in quite late days, when Arabic words have been used in Turkish in a different sense from that borne by them in Persian."
10. ↑ M. Sukru Hanioglu, "A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire", Published by Princeton University Press, 2008. p. 34: "It employed a predominant Turkish syntax, but was heavily influenced by Persian and (initially through Persian) Arabic.
11. ↑ Pierre A. MacKay, "The Fountain at Hadji Mustapha", Hesperia, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Apr. – Jun., 1967), pp. 193–195: "The immense Arabic contribution to the lexicon of Ottoman Turkish came rather through Persian than directly, and the sound of Arabic words in Persian syntax would be far more familiar to a Turkish ear than correct Arabic".
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Korkut Bugday. An Introduction to Literary Ottoman Routledge, 5 dec. 2014 ISBN:978-1134006557 p XV.
13. ↑ Aytürk, İlker (July 2008). "The First Episode of Language Reform in Republican Turkey: The Language Council from 1926 to 1931" (in en). Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 18 (3): 277. doi:10.1017/S1356186308008511. ISSN 1474-0591. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-the-royal-asiatic-society/article/abs/first-episode-of-language-reform-in-republican-turkey-the-language-council-from-1926-to-1931/1F1E7DDFF38AA89DC2FAD9EA22AE37FF.
14. ↑ Pamuk, Humeyra (December 9, 2014). "Erdogan's Ottoman language drive faces backlash in Turkey". Reuters (Istanbul). https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-education-ottoman/erdogans-ottoman-language-drive-faces-backlash-in-turkey-idUSKBN0JN1X020141209.
15. ↑ Hagopian, V. H. (5 May 2018). "Ottoman-Turkish conversation-grammar; a practical method of learning the Ottoman-Turkish language". Heidelberg, J. Groos; New York, Brentano's [etc., etc.]. https://archive.org/details/ottomanturkishco00hago.
16. ↑ Korkut Buğday Osmanisch, p. 2
17. ↑ Korkut Buğday Osmanisch, p. 13
18. ↑ Transkriptionskommission der DMG Die Transliteration der arabischen Schrift in ihrer Anwendung auf die Hauptliteratursprachen der islamischen Welt, p. 9
19. ↑ Korkut Buğday Osmanisch, p. 2f.

## Further reading

English

* V. H. Hagopian (1907). Ottoman-Turkish conversation-grammar: a practical method of learning the Ottoman-Turkish language, Volume 1. D. Nutt. Online copies: [1], [2], [3]
* Charles Wells (1880). A practical grammar of the Turkish language (as spoken and written). B. Quaritch. Online copies from Google Books: [4], [5], [6]
* V. H. Hagopian (1908). Key to the Ottoman-Turkish conversation-grammar. Nutt. https://books.google.com/books?id=wrsIAQAAMAAJ.
* Sir James William Redhouse (1884). A simplified grammar of the Ottoman-Turkish language. Trübner. https://archive.org/details/simplifiedgramma00redhuoft.
* Frank Lawrence Hopkins (1877). Elementary grammar of the Turkish language: with a few easy exercises. Trübner. https://archive.org/details/elementarygramm00hopkgoog.
* Sir James William Redhouse (1856). An English and Turkish dictionary: in two parts, English and Turkish, and Turkish and English. B. Quarich. https://books.google.com/books?id=CydMAAAAYAAJ.
* Sir James William Redhouse (1877). A lexicon, English and Turkish: shewing in Turkish, the literal, incidental, figurative, colloquial, and technical significations of the English terms, indicating their pronunciation in a new and systematic manner; and preceded by a sketch of English etymology, to facilitate to Turkish students ... (2nd ed.). Printed for the mission by A.H. Boyajian. https://books.google.com/books?id=9lFJAAAAYAAJ.
* Charles Boyd, Charles Boyd (Major.) (1842). The Turkish interpreter: or, A new grammar of the Turkish language. Printed for the author. https://archive.org/details/turkishinterpre00boydgoog.
* Thomas Vaughan (1709). A Grammar of The Turkish Language. Robinson. https://books.google.com/books?id=uFVWAAAAYAAJ.
* William Burckhardt Barker (1854). A practical grammar of the Turkish language: With dialogues and vocabulary. B. Quaritch. https://archive.org/details/apracticalgramm00barkgoog.
* William Burckhardt Barker, Nasr-al-Din (khwajah.) (1854). A reading book of the Turkish language: with a grammar and vocabulary ; containing a selection of original tales, literally translated, and accompanied by grammatical references : the pronunciation of each word given as now used in Constantinople. J. Madden. https://archive.org/details/readingbookoftur00bark.
* James William Redhouse (sir.) (1855). The Turkish campaigner's vade-mecum of Ottoman colloquial language. https://books.google.com/books?id=jD1bAAAAQAAJ.
* Lewis, Geoffrey. The Jarring Lecture 2002. "The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success".

Other languages

* Mehmet Hakkı Suçin. Qawâ'id al-Lugha al-Turkiyya li Ghair al-Natiqeen Biha (Turkish Grammar for Arabs; adapted from Mehmet Hengirmen's Yabancılara Türkçe Dilbilgisi), Engin Yayınevi, 2003).
* Mehmet Hakkı Suçin. Atatürk'ün Okuduğu Kitaplar: Endülüs Tarihi (Books That Atatürk Read: History of Andalucia; purification from the Ottoman Turkish, published by Anıtkabir Vakfı, 2001).
* Kerslake, Celia (1998). "La construction d'une langue nationale sortie d'un vernaculaire impérial enflé: la transformation stylistique et conceptuelle du turc ottoman". in Chaker, Salem. Langues et Pouvoir de l'Afrique du Nord à l'Extrême-Orient. Aix-en-Provence: Edisud. pp. 129–138.
* Korkut M. Buğday (1999). Otto Harrassowitz Verlag. ed. Osmanisch: Einführung in die Grundlagen der Literatursprache.

## External links

| Ottoman Turkish test of Wiktionary at Wikimedia Incubator

|

* Turkish dictionaries at Curlie
* Turkish language at Curlie
* Latin to Ottoman Turkish transliteration
* Ottoman Text Archive Project
* Ottoman Turkish Language: Resources – University of Michigan
* Ottoman Turkish Language Texts
* Ottoman-Turkish-English Open Dictionary
* Ottoman<>Turkish Dictionary – University of Pamukkale You can use ? character instead of an unknown letter. It provides results from Arabic and Persian dictionaries, too.
* Ottoman<>Turkish Dictionary – ihya.org

* v
* t
* e

Turkic languages

Proto-language|

* Proto-Turkic

Common Turkic|

| Arghu|

* Khalaj

|

Karluk|

* Äynu1
* Ili Turki
* Uyghur
* Uzbek
* Extinct
* Middle Turkic
* Khorezmian
* Chagatai

Kipchak|

| Ponto-Caspian|

* Crimean Tatar
* Karachay-Balkar
* Karaim
* Krymchak
* Kumyk
* Urum
* Extinct
* Kipchak
* Cuman

|

Aralo-Caspian|

* Siberian Tatar
* Karakalpak
* Kazakh
* Kyrgyz
* Nogai
* Extinct
* Fergana Kipchak

Uralo-Caspian|

* Bashkir
* Tatar
* Extinct
* Old Tatar

Oghuz|

* Azerbaijani
* Gagauz
* Khorasani Turkic
* Qashqai
* Rumelian Turkish
* Salar
* Turkish
* Turkmen
* Extinct
* Pecheneg2
* Old Anatolian Turkish
* Ottoman Turkish

Siberian|

* Altai
* Chulym
* Dolgan
* Khakas
* Shor
* Tofa
* Tuvan
* Yakut
* Western Yugur2
* Extinct
* Orkhon Turkic
* Old Turkic
* Old Uyghur
* Fuyu Girgis
* Dukhan

Oghur|

* Chuvash
* Extinct
* Khazar2
* Bulgar

* 1 Mixed language.
* 2 Classification disputed.

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