Ottoman Turkish language

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Ottoman Turkish
لسان عثمانى‎ lisân-ı Osmânî
Spoken in: Ottoman Empire
Language extinction: Reformed into Modern Turkish in 1928
Language family: Altaic[1] (controversial)
 Turkic
  Oghuz
   Ottoman Turkish 
Writing system: Ottoman Turkish alphabet (abandoned in 1928)
Language codes
ISO 639-1: none
ISO 639-2: ota
ISO 639-3: ota
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Ottoman Turkish (Turkish: Osmanlıca or Osmanlı Türkçesi, Ottoman Turkish: لسان عثمانی‎ lisân-ı Osmânî) was the variant of the Turkish language that was used as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire. It contains extensive borrowings from Arabic and Persian languages. As a result of this process, Ottoman Turkish was largely unintelligible to the less educated members of society[citation needed]. Ultimately, however, spoken Turkish would come to be greatly influenced by Ottoman Turkish.

Contents

That Ottoman Turkish's Arabic borrowings were not the result of the direct exposure of the language to Arabic is evidenced by the typically Persian phonological mutation of the words of Arabic origin.[citation needed], the conservation of archaic phonological features of the Arabic borrowings suggests that the Arabic-enriched Persian was absorbed into pre-Ottoman Turkic at an early stage, when the speakers were still located to the northeast of Persia, prior to the westward migration of the Turkic tribes under Islam. An additional argument for this is that Ottoman Turkish shares the Persianate character of its Arabic borrowings with other Turkic languages that had even less interaction with Arabic, such as Tatar.

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

  • Fasih Türkçe (Eloquent Turkish): Language of poetry and administration.
  • Orta Türkçe (Mediocre Turkish): Language of higher classes and trade.
  • Kaba Türkçe (Vulgar Turkish): Language of lower classes.

A person would use each of variants above for different purposes. For example, a scribe would use the Arabic asel (عسل) for honey when drafting documents but the Turkish bal when buying it.

Historically, Ottoman Turkish was transformed in three eras:

  • Eski Osmanlı Türkçesi (Old Ottoman Turkish): The version of Ottoman Turkish used until 16th century. It was almost identical with the Turkish used by Seljuks and Anatolian Turkish Beyliks, thus often regarded as part of Eski Anadolu Türkçesi (Ancient Anatolian Turkish).
  • Orta Osmanlı Türkçesi (Middle Ottoman Turkish) or Klasik Osmanlıca (Classical Ottoman Turkish): Language of poetry and administration from 16th century until Tanzimat. This is the version of Ottoman Turkish that comes to most people's minds.
  • Yeni Osmanlı Türkçesi (New Ottoman Turkish): Shaped from 1850s to 20th century under influence of journalism and Western-oriented literature.

For more details on this topic, see Turkish language.

In 1928, following the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I and the establishment of 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. It also saw the replacement of the 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, as well as to foster a new variety of spoken Turkish that more explicitly reflected Turkey's new national identity as being a post-Ottoman state.

Please see the list of replaced loanwords in Turkish for more examples on Ottoman Turkish words and their modern Turkish counterparts. Three examples of Persian loanwords are found below.

English Ottoman Modern Turkish
necessary واجب vâcib zorunlu
hardship مشکل müşkül güçlük, zorluk
city شهر şehir kent/şehir

Historically speaking, Ottoman Turkish is not the predecessor of modern Turkish, but rather the standard Turkish of today is essentially Yeni Osmanlı Türkçesi as written in the Latin alphabet and with an abundance of neologisms added. One major difference between modern Turkish and Ottoman Turkish is the former'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 takdîr-i ilâhî (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").

Main article: Ottoman Turkish alphabet

Ottoman Turkish was primarily written in the Ottoman Turkish script (الفبا elifbâ), a heavily Persian-influenced variant of the Arabic script. It was not, however, unknown for Ottoman Turkish to also be written using the Armenian script: for instance, the first novel to be written in the Ottoman Empire was 1851's Akabi, written in the Armenian script by Vartan Pasha. Similarly, when the Armenian Düzoğlu family managed the Ottoman mint during the reign of Sultan Abdülmecid, they kept records in Ottoman Turkish, but used the Armenian script. Other scripts, too—such as the Greek alphabet and the Rashi script of Hebrew—were used by non-Muslim groups to write the language, since the Arabic alphabet was identified with Islam. On the other hand, for example, Greek-speaking Muslims would write Greek using the Ottoman Turkish script.

Isolated Final Middle Initial Name ALA-LC Transliteration Modern Turkish
ﺍ ﺎ — elif a, â a, e
ﺀ — hemze ˀ ', a, e, i, u, ü
ﺏ ﺐ ﺒ ﺑ be b, p b
ﭖ ﭗ ﭙ ﭘ pe p p
ﺕ ﺖ ﺘ ﺗ te t t
ﺙ ﺚ ﺜ ﺛ se s s
ﺝ ﺞ ﺠ ﺟ cim c, ç c
ﭺ ﭻ ﭽ ﭼ çim ç ç
ﺡ ﺢ ﺤ ﺣ ha ḥ h
ﺥ ﺦ ﺨ ﺧ hı ẖ h
ﺩ ﺪ — dal d d
ﺫ ﺬ — zel z z
ﺭ ﺮ — re r r
ﺯ ﺰ — ze z z
ﮊ ﮋ — je j j
ﺱ ﺲ ﺴ ﺳ sin s s
ﺵ ﺶ ﺸ ﺷ şın ş ş
ﺹ ﺺ ﺼ ﺻ sat, sad ṣ s
ﺽ ﺾ ﻀ ﺿ dat, dad ż, ḍ d, z
ﻁ ﻂ ﻄ ﻃ tı ṭ t
ﻅ ﻆ ﻈ ﻇ zı ẓ z
ﻉ ﻊ ﻌ ﻋ ayın ʿ ', h
ﻍ ﻎ ﻐ ﻏ gayın ġ g, ğ
ﻑ ﻒ ﻔ ﻓ fe f f
ﻕ ﻖ ﻘ ﻗ kaf ḳ k
ﻙ ﻚ ﻜ ﻛ kef k, g, ñ k, g, ğ, n
ﮒ ﮓ ﮕ ﮔ gef¹ g g, ğ
ﯓ ﯔ ﯖ ﯕ nef, sağır kef ñ n
ﻝ ﻞ ﻠ ﻟ lam l l
ﻡ ﻢ ﻤ ﻣ mim m m
ﻥ ﻦ ﻨ ﻧ nun n n
ﻭ ﻮ — vav v, o, ô, ö, u, û, ü v, o, ö, u, ü
ﻩ ﻪ ﻬ ﻫ he h, e, a h, e, a
ﻻ ﻼ — lamelif lâ la
ﻯ ﻰ ﻴ ﻳ ye y, ı, i, î y, ı, i

1A correct Ottoman variant of gef will have the "mini-kaf" of ﻙ and the doubled upper stroke of گ. This feature is surely rare in current fonts.

The educational opportunities for Ottoman Turkish (Osmanli Turki) is too many to list. This is just an attempt to provide the list of major known sources and institutes with substantive courses and resources in this language.

Currently thousands of courses in Ottoman Turkish Literature are offered around the world. In Turkey alone it is estimated that more than thirty thousand students learning Ottoman Turkish[2], as a classical language with great historical significance.

  • University of Oxford
    -Course Objectives: Introduction to the worlds of modern Turkish and Ottoman Turkish literature.
  • The Ohio State University
    -Course in Classical Turkish Poetry (Reading and analysis of Turkish poetry of the 13th through 18th centuries; Turkish metrics and literary theory.)

  • Erciyes Üniversitesi http://fef.erciyes.edu.tr/pxp/posts/tar-141-osmanlica-i702.php Faculty of Literature - Course contents and schedual.
  • Bogazci Universiti
    -A study of various texts from the early period up to the 19th century

Courses on state-run colleges

  • [3] 36 Branches of Istanbul Education Centers, Ottoman language courses.

  1. ^ "[1] Ethnologue"

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Notes: *Japonic and Korean are not generally recognized as belonging to the Altaic language family. See also Buyeo languages.
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Turkic languages
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Kypchak Altay | Baraba | Bashkir | Crimean Tatar¹ | Cuman† | Karachay-Balkar | Karaim | Karakalpak | Kazakh | Kipchak† | Krymchak | Kumyk | Kyrgyz | Nogai | Old Tatar† | Tatar | Urum¹
Oghuz Afshar | Azerbaijani | Crimean Tatar¹ | Gagauz | Khorasani Turkic | Ottoman Turkish† | Pecheneg† | Qashqai | Salar | Turkish | Turkmen | Urum¹
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Northeastern Chulym | Dolgan | Fuyü Gïrgïs | Khakas | Shor | Tofa | Tuvan | Western Yugur | Sakha/Yakut
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