If you’re holidaying in Turkey and want to understand a little more about the language, here are a few facts to spark your imagination.
The language originated in the Altai mountain range in Siberia, and has progressed across the steppe grasslands as nomadic tribes spread out into central Asia and beyond. Turkish comes from a family of languages known as Turkic and has nothing to do with Arabic whatsoever. Turkish is spoken by an impressive 70 million people across the globe.
Written in Orkhon script for a thousand years, the Turkish government under president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk introduced the use of the Roman alphabet into all official communications in 1926. This marked a change in direction from the Ottoman empire and administration that had ruled Turkey from 1292.
The modern Turkish alphabet has 29 letters. Words that had previously been borrowed from Persian and Arabic have long been replaced by those of Turkish origin.
Once you come to grips with the Turkish language you’ll soon realise that most of the jokes centre around a hapless character called Temel, his wife Fatma and their friend Dursun. Jokes in any language often don’t translate well and these are no exception. The moment someone suggests that you listen to their latest fikra, or joke, be prepared to hear more bizarre anecdotes about this trio.
The Turkish influence on language has spread far and wide, and even if you haven’t realised it, you’re probably using words of Turkish origin in your everyday conversations. For example, the word divan comes from the Turkey. The origins for the word kiosk, also come from the Turkish word kosk, which is an open pavilion.
Turkic languages come from the Altaic group which Korean and Japanese also originate from as Japanese and Turkish have a similar sentence structure. So, if you have knowledge of the Turkish language you’ll have a better understanding of languages in countries across Central Asia.
