An Inquiry into the Dilemma of the Turkish Language

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Turkish is one of the youngest and rapidly developing languages; furthermore approximately 80 million people speak Turkish as a mother language in the world. 1928 was a very crucial year for the development of the Modern Turkish language because Latin alphabet adopted instead of Arabic script and after this transition numerous events sequentially shape the Turkish language. On the other hand, the use of contemporary the Turkish language triggers some concerns. Although the Turkish language has been searching ways out for sophisticated dilemmas since 1920’s, it confronts historical, political, cultural issues and risk of losing originality, degeneration of quality and misuse in the media; as a result of this process the Turkish language is headed in the wrong direction.
A 2006 study by Meltem Ahıska and Zafer Yenal analyzed the deformation of Turkish in “Where is the Turkish Language headed?”, one of the article from the book The Person You Have Called Cannot Be Reached At The Moment: Representations of Life Styles in Turkey 1980- 2005. They concentrate on evolution process of the Turkish language with multiple perspectives. Initially, they discuss the historical and political process of the Turkish language then they focus on spoken language and slangs, in the end they criticize how the media uses language and they make some predictions about the future of the Turkish language.
Debates about the Turkish language are not a current topic. Westernization of language has been just a part of the Turkish Republic’s modernization movement. Both men of letters, scholars and governors of state worked on this issue. The Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu) was founded by Atatürk’s directive in 1932. The Turkish Language Associat...

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...er to politicians, have adopted a style of speech highly colored with slang” (55). This quotation represents how hazardous position the Turkish language headed.
Eventually, the originality of the Turkish language is fading away day by day. The Turkish language has been trying to construct original manner, but it challenges various problems such as political, historical and cultural. For these reasons the Turkish language struggles on finding right direction. If Turkish people and authorities understand the significance of mother language, they may get over with this trouble.

Works Cited

Ahıska, Meltem, and Zafer Yenal. "Where is the Turkish Language Headed?" The Person You Have Called Cannot Be Reached at the Moment: Representations of Life Styles in Turkey 1980-2005. Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center Press, 2006. Print.

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