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The First Episode of Language Reform in Republican Turkey: The Language Council from 1926 to 1931

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 July 2008

İLKER AYTÜRK
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Extract

Following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 and the consolidation of the Kemalist regime in 1926, the President of the new republic, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk launched a reform process which aimed at changing Turkey's laws, administration, culture and, most significantly, its image. One facet of this process of transformation was the language reform that commenced with romanisation of the Turkish script in late 1928 and reached its zenith later on in the 1930s. Between 1932 and 1934, the Türk Dil Kurumu – the Turkish Language Institute, a radical reformist institution founded by Atatürk in 1932 – banished thousands of Arabic and Persian words from spoken and written Turkish and fabricated new, ‘authentically’ Turkish, words to replace them. The radical-reformist zeal subsided in 1935 as a result of the linguistic chaos of the previous years and came to a halt in 1936 with the proclamation of the so-called Sun-Language Theory. However, so much had changed during those few years and has done since, that even secondary school and university graduates in contemporary Turkey are not able to read and understand, for instance, Atatürk's famous Speech of 1926 from its original, and hence feel the need to consult ‘modernised’ or simplified versions. In this respect, the legacy of the language reform in early republican Turkey remains a matter of bitter controversy and pits the reformist Kemalists against an array of Islamists, conservatives and even liberals. The current debate on what proper Turkish is neatly overlaps with the major fault line that still divides Turkish society.

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Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 18 , Issue 3 , July 2008 , pp. 275 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2008

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References

1 The main reference works on the Turkish alphabet reform are still those in Turkish. See, Harf Devriminin 50. Yılı Sempozyumu (Ankara, 1981); Şakir, M. Ülkütaşır, Atatürk ve Harf Devrimi (Ankara, 1991)Google Scholar; Bilâl, Şimşir, Türk Yazı Devrimi (Ankara, 1992)Google Scholar; Hüseyin, Yorulmaz, ed. Tanzimat'tan Cumhuriyet'e Alfabe Tartışmaları (İstanbul, 1995)Google Scholar; Nurettin, Gülmez, Tanzimat'tan Cumhuriyet'e Harfler Üzerine Tartışmalar (İstanbul, 2006)Google Scholar. For a multi-faceted account of the language reform, one may consult Uriel Heyd, Language Reform in Modern Turkey (Jerusalem, 1954); Karl, Steuerwald, Untersuchungen zur türkischen Sprache der Gegenwart, Vol.1, Die türkische Sprachpolitik seit 1928 (Berlin-Schöneberg, 1963)Google Scholar; Zeynep, Korkmaz, Türk Dilinin Tarihî Akışı İçinde Atatürk ve Dil Devrimi (Ankara, 1963)Google Scholar; Agâh, Sırrı Levend, Türk Dilinde Gelişme ve Sadeleşme Evreleri, 3d ed. (Ankara, 1972)Google Scholar; Geoffrey, Lewis, The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success (Oxford and New York, 1999)Google Scholar; Jens, Peter Laut, Das Türkische als Ursprache? Sprachwissenschaftliche Theorien in der Zeit des erwachenden türkischen Nationalismus (Wiesbaden, 2000)Google Scholar; Kâmile, İmer, Türkiye'de Dil Planlaması: Türk Dil Devrimi (Ankara, 2001)Google Scholar; Tuğrul, Şavkay, Dil Devrimi (İstanbul, 2002)Google Scholar; Hüseyin, Sadoğlu, Türkiye'de Ulusçuluk ve Dil Politikaları (İstanbul, 2003)Google Scholar. Studies on the Sun-Language Reform are relatively few; Zürcher, Erik J., ‘La théorie du ‘langage-soleil’ et sa place dans la réforme de la langue turque’, in La linguistique fantastique, ed. Auroux, Sylvain (Paris, 1985), pp. 83–91Google Scholar; Geoffrey, Lewis, ‘Turkish Language Reform: The Episode of the Sun-Language Theory’, Turkic Languages, 1 (1997), pp. 25–40Google Scholar; Laut, Das Türkische als Ursprache?, pp. 94–161; Jens, Peter Laut, ‘Noch einmal zu Dr. Kvergić’, Turkic Languages, 6 (2002), pp. 120–133Google Scholar; İlker, Aytürk, ‘Turkish Linguists against the West: The Origins of Linguistic Nationalism in Atatürk's Turkey’, Middle Eastern Studies, 40 (2004), pp. 1–25Google Scholar; Beşir Ayvazoğlu, ‘Etimolojik Türkçülük: Türk Tarih Tezi ve Güneş-Dil Teorisi'nin Ön Tarihi’, Muhafazakâr Düşünce, No.5 (2005), pp. 29–42; İlker Aytürk, ‘H. F. Kvergić and the Sun-Language Theory’, Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft (forthcoming). This list is by no means an exhaustive one and includes only the essential reference works.

2 There is a confusion regarding the Turkish name of the Language Council, since two appellations, Dil Heyeti and Dil Encümeni have been used interchangeably in the literature. I prefer to use the former for the reason that foundational documents, such as the statute of the Council, refer to it as the Dil Heyeti. The researcher, however, should be prepared to come across the term Dil Encümeni quite often in some other works on the Turkish language reform.

3 A basic introduction to what Ottoman Turkish is can be found in, Fahir, İz, ‘Ottoman and Turkish’, in Essays on Islamic Civilization: Presented to Niyazi Berkes, ed. Little, Donald P. (Leiden, 1976), pp. 118–139Google Scholar; Engin, Sezer, ‘XIX. Yüzyıl Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Dil, Bürokrasi ve Edebiyat İlişkisi Üzerine’, Yeni Türkiye Dergisi (1999), pp. 483–493Google Scholar.

4 See his poems “Kızılelma”, “Kendine Doğru”, “Vatan”, “Lisan”, and “Sanat” in Ziya Gökalp Külliyatı I: Şiirler ve Halk Masalları, ed. Fevziye Abdullah Tansel, 3d ed. (Ankara, 1989). Uriel Heyd provides an English summary of Gökalp's views on ‘the new Turkish’ in his book Foundations of Turkish Nationalism: The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gökalp (London, 1950), pp. 115–121.

5 A concise summary of the views of those factions can be found in Halil Nimetullah, Bugünkü Dilimiz (İstanbul, 1930).

6 The TGNA passed a so-called Surname Law in 1934, obliging all Turkish citizens to pick a family name. Most of these people mentioned here adopted their family names in 1934 and those are given in parantheses for identification purposes. No such identification can be provided for those who died before 1934.

7 Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi Zabıt Ceridesi (hereafter TZC), Devre:2, İçtima Senesi:1, İnikad:12, Cilt:1, 01.09.1339 [1923].

8 TZC, Devre:2, İçtima Senesi:3, İnikad:74, Cilt:23, 20.03.1926.

9 Ibid.

10 Ibid.

11 Ibid.

12 TZC, Devre:2, İçtima Senesi:3, İnikad:79, Cilt:23, 29.03.1926. For another exchange on proper Turkish between Tunalı Hilmi Bey and the Minister of Education, Mustafa Necati Bey, please see TZC, Devre:2, İçtima Senesi:3, İnikad:95, Cilt:25, 06.05.1926.

13 See reminiscences of Mehmet Emin, Erişirgil, ‘Bir Tarih, Bir Teklif’, in Atatürk ve Türk Dili: Belgeler, ed. Korkmaz, Zeynep (Ankara, 1992), p. 131Google Scholar.

14 TZC, Devre:2, İçtima Senesi:3, İnikad:100, Cilt:25, 16.05.1926.

15 Zürcher, Erik J., The Unionist Factor: The Role of the Committee of Union and Progress in the Turkish National Movement, 1905–1926 (Leiden, 1984)Google Scholar.

16 Gülmez, Tanzimat'tan, pp. 197–198.

17 Metin, Heper, İsmet İnönü: The Making of a Turkish Statesman (Leiden, 1998), pp. 56–89Google Scholar; Şimşir, Türk Yazı Devrimi, p. 83; Ahmet Cevat Emre, İki Neslin Tarihi (İstanbul, 1960), p. 327.

18 The Enverî reform consisted of detaching the otherwise connectible letters of the Arabic alphabet from one another and inserting extra vowels between consonants, even where they are not needed according to the classical spelling system. This reform aimed at achieving a number of goals. Its first aim was to reduce the number of types required for printing. Since Arabic letters change shape according to their place in a word, the number of types for printing a text correctly in that alphabet exceeds several hundreds. Disconnecting the letters, however, fixed the number of necessary types at three dozens at most, saving a lot of time and energy for the typesetters. Second, the Enverî script was also supposed to standardise and simplify reading Ottoman texts by introduction of extra vowels. For more information see Gülmez, Tanzimat'tan, pp. 99–105, and Şimşir, Türk Yazı Devrimi, pp. 53–54. İsmet İnönü was a lieutenant-colonel in 1914; see Türk İstiklâl Harbi'ne Katılan Tümen ve Daha Üst Kademelerdeki Komutanların Biyografileri (Ankara, 1972), pp. 185–188.

19 T. C. Başbakanlık Cumhuriyet Arşivi, Bakanlar Kurulu Kararları (hereafter BCA–BKK) 030.18.01–025.39.18. The decree refers to the text of ‘the attached statute’, which contained principles for the appointment of the Language Council's members, but as this attachment has vanished in the archive, we may consider the first statute of the Council lost in all likelihood.

20 BCA–BKK 030.18.01–029.32.20. The convoluted expression in the Turkish text sums up the task of the committee as ‘[l]isanımızda Latin harflerinin sûret ve imkân-ı tatbikini düşünmek. . .’. The wording of the decree invites speculation in the sense that it was not at all clear whether this nine-member committee was identical with the Language Council. The decree authorised the establishment of ‘a council’, which would draw from the allowance in the budget earmarked for ‘the Language Council’. In a short while, however, everyone started to call this committee ‘the Language Council’ (Dil Heyeti).

21 Short biographical information about these members can be found in İbrahim Alâettin Gövsa, Türk Meşhurları Ansiklopedisi (n.p., n.d.). Two exceptions are Ahmet Cevat (Emre) and İbrahim Grandi. The former's autobiography, İki Neslin Tarihi (İstanbul, 1960) provides ample information about his life. Grandi, on the other hand, is a mysterious personality. The only thing we know about him is that he served as a diplomat in Turkish foreign service.

22 Baki Süha Ediboğlu, Falih Rıfkı Atay Konuşuyor (Ankara, 1945), pp. 30–31.

23 The author of the report was İbrahim Grandi [Grantay] and this was mentioned when the report was published; İbrahim Grandi (in the name of Dil Encümeni), Elifba Raporu (İstanbul, 1928). Other publications include, Dil Encümeni, Yeni Türk Alfabesi: İmlâ Şekilleri (İstanbul, 1928); Dil Encümeni, İmlâ Lügati (İstanbul, 1928); Dil Encümeni, Halk Dershanelerine Mahsus Türk Alfabesi (İstanbul, 1928).

24 Ülkütaşır, 59–128; Şimşir, pp. 157–245.

25 Özerdim, Sami N., Harf Devriminin Öyküsü (Ankara, 1962), p. 13Google Scholar.

26 Ibid.

27 The Turkish cabinet approved the creation of new bureaucratic positions at the Ministry of Education to be filled in by the Language Council members as well as endowing the Council with a permanent secretary; see BCA–BKK 030.18.01–029.36.6 and BCA–BKK 030.18.01–029.46.10.

28 Özerdim, Harf Devriminin Öyküsü, p. 27.

29 BCA–BKK 030.18.01–1.7.7 and its annex 18.147.2.1928.

30 Ibid.

31 Ibid.

32 Cooper, R. L., Language Planning and Social Change (New York, 1989)Google Scholar.

33 BCA–BKK 030.18.01–1.11.3 and BCA–BKK 030.18.01–2.15.11 and this last document's annex 18.147.9.1929.

34 Similarly, most of the new members were well-known personalities in those days and their biographies are included in Gövsa's Türk Meşhurları Ansiklopedisi. Among those not included, Baha (Toven), or rather Mehmed Bahaeddin Toven, was a retired military officer, who composed one of the best Turkish dictionaries of the early republican era. A short biographical information is provided by Ali Birinci, in his introduction to Toven's dictionary's second edition; see Mehmed Bahaeddin, Yeni Türkçe Lügat, 2d ed (Ankara, 1997 [originally 1924]). Julius (Gyula) von Mészáros was a Hungarian Turcologist, who was employed by the Turkish government at the time as the co-director of the Ankara Ethnological Museum. Hasan Fehmi (Turgal), was a bureaucrat in the Ministry of Education and served as the department chair for Turkish libraries between 1926 and 1939.

35 The Language Council moved back to the capital Ankara after preparing the new alphabet. It held its meetings in a rented building in the newly established Yenişehir quarter. See Erişirgil, ‘Bir Tarih, Bir Teklif’, p. 137.

36 Dil Encümeni Zabıt Defteri (hereafter DEZD), unpublished manuscript at the Archive of the Türk Dil Kurumu, meeting on 1 December 1928. The DEZD contains the minutes of the Language Council and is an invaluable source of information. The first entry in the book is dated 9 Teşrinievvel 1928 and the first 14 entries were jotted down in the Arabic alphabet. As per the new law on romanisation, the entries shifted to Latin alphabet on 1 December 1928. The last entry, on the other hand, was penned on 20 November 1929.

37 The DEZD, meetings on 1 and 30 December 1928. At the latter meeting, the Central Bureau agreed to pay 5 Turkish liras per 25 entries.

38 The DEZD, meeting on 6 January 1929.

39 Ibid. Hamit Zübeyr (Koşay) would soon emerge as a member of the radical-purist clique within the Language Council.

40 The DEZD, meeting on 9 April 1929.

41 Ibid.

42 İlker Aytürk, ‘Politics and Language Reform in Turkey: The “Academy” Debate’, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes, forthcoming. One striking example is a report on scientific terms commissioned by the University of İstanbul in 1941 to a former member of the Language Council, Professor Ragıp Hulusi Özdem. The report amounted to nothing less than a systematic assessment of all aspects of language policy in Turkey with a critical eye, sparing not even the alphabet reform of 1928. At the end of his treatise, Özdem recommended, in barely circumspect language, the establishment of a new committee, composed of academics from the universities and members of the Türk Dil Kurumu, to determine the future direction of language policy in Turkey. The desire to bypass the Türk Dil Kurumu did not escape its members, who denounced the report in the harshest terms in their reply. See Ragıp Özdem, Terimler Meselesi Münasebetile Dilimizin Islahı Üzerine Muhtıra (İstanbul, 1941) and Türk Dil Kurumu, Terimlerin Türkçeleştirilmesi Bakımından Profesör Doktor Ragıp Özdem'in Muhtırası Hakkında Rapor (Ankara, 1941).

43 The DEZD, meeting on 17 February 1929.

44 The following quotations from the speech might give an idea about the peculiarity of its language to those who are able to read Turkish: ‘Asıl değimli olan nokta, ekim yaşayışının bütün istelerini düzletip doyurmasıdır. Bunun içindir ki dil derneğimizin tutumu, pek doğru ve vuruşlu olarak, büyük bir erişkin dilin büyük bir sözkitabındaki bütün sözleri, diyelim ki, bütün anlatışları Türkçeye geçirmek tutamını bulmağa yönelmiştir. . . . Bu yayışlarımla sakınılacak köşelere işaret koyduktan başka kitabımıza çabuk varlık verilmesindeki değimi kabarıntı ile göstermiş oluyorum.’ Ibid. Anyone who is familiar with the Turkish prose of the late 1920s can tell how the language of the speech departed from the established canon.

45 Ibid.

46 Ibid.

47 See, for example, the semi-official Hâkimiyeti Milliye, 18 February 1929.

48 The DEZD, meeting on 5 March 1929.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

51 Curiously, Vasıf Bey resigned on 7 April 1929. He had been appointed as Minister of Education only a month and a half before, on 27 February 1929. Whether this abrupt removal from power was related to Vasıf Bey's conduct at the Language Council meetings or not is unknown. See Utkan Kocatürk, Atatürk ve Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Tarihi Kronolojisi, 1918–1938 (Ankara, 1988), p. 488.

52 We have to remember that in this case the Great Depression of 1929 was just round the corner and that the European economies had already entered a phase of recession before the crash of the New York Stock Exchange in October 1929. It is no coincidence that the following series of reforms in Turkey were to start in 1932, that is, only after the shockwaves of the Great Depression stabilised and became manageable.

53 It is not possible to tell who, among the members of the Language Council, belonged to which trend exactly. But roughly speaking, the bureaucrats supported the Gökalpist views, while some of the author/poets still clung to the Ottomanist position. As for the radical-purists, only Hamit Zübeyr (Koşay) and Besim (Atalay) can be safely included within this group. For some inconclusive observations, see Hamit Zübeyir Koşay, ‘Atatürk ve Dilimiz’, in Atatürk ve Türk Dili (Ankara, 1963), pp. 137–140.

54 The DEZD, meeting on 15 January 1929. The two articles in question were those that belonged to Mészáros and Ahmet Cevat (Emre). Hamit Zübeyr (Koşay), however, disagreed with both! In any case, the bulletin was never published.

55 The DEZD, meeting on 5 March 1929.

56 Ibid.

57 The DEZD, meeting on 6 March 1929.

58 Ibid.

59 Ibid.

60 This collection would later appear in two volumes; Hamit, Zübeyr and İshak, Refet, Anadilden Derlemeler (Ankara, 1932)Google Scholar and Hamit, Koşay, Anadilden Derlemeler II (Ankara, 1952)Google Scholar.

61 The annex of the Decree of Council of Ministers No.8913, dated 1 March 1930, BCA–BKK 18.147.15.1930; and BCA–BKK 030.18.01–12.46.9 and its annex 18.147.17.1930; and see the budget of the Ministry of Education for 1930 in TZC, Devre:3, İçtima Senesi:3, Cilt:19.

62 A conspicuous exception was Ali Ekrem Bolayır's Lisânımız (İstanbul, 1930).

63 TZC, Devre:3, İçtima Senesi:3, İnikad:60, Cilt:19, 18 May 1930.

64 Ibid.

65 Falih Rıfkı [Atay], ‘Türk Lûgati’, Hakimiyeti Milliye, 22 June 1930, p. 1. Falih Rıfkı was forced to devote his editorial column in the semi-official Ankara newspaper, Hakimiyeti Milliye, to the defence of the Language Council. He basically argued that the completion of the entries to the end of the letter A should be considered as a success, as this proved that the Council had determined the lexicographical principles of the Turkish dictionary. Completing the rest of the dictionary was not going to take more than two years, according to him, since the Council could now give its attention to the lexicographical material. When he wrote this piece, Falih Rıfkı was nominally still a member of the Language Council, although he stopped attending its meetings since 21 April 1929.

66 Ahmet Talât Onay (1885–1956) was an accomplished poet and an amateur but respected researcher on Turkish folk literature. During his teaching career at Ottoman lycées before and during the World War I, he had a reputation for being a courageous Turkish nationalist. For more information, see Cemal Kurnaz, Ahmet Talât Onay (Ankara, 1990).

67 Those articles are said to have been published in the Çankırı newspaper, Duygu. I have not been able to locate a copy of this newspaper in major Turkish libraries. We are informed of their existence by İshak Refet [Işıtman]'s reply to Talat Bey; see İshak Rafet [sic], Dil Kavgası: Çankırı Mebusu Talât Beye Cevaplarım (Ankara, 1931).

68 TZC, Devre:4, İçtima Senesi:1, İnikad:29, Cilt:3, 16 July 1931.

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid.

71 It is not possible to confirm the accusation of favouritism, but Talât Bey was certainly right when he claimed that the vast majority of the Council members lacked any form of expertise in the field of linguistics and lexicography.

72 Ibid.

73 Ibid.

74 Ibid.

75 File of correspondence between the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Finance, BCA–BKK 18.147.18.1931; and Council of Ministers Decree, dated 12 July 1931, BCA–BKK 030.18.01–21.50.19.

76 Falih Rıfkı, ‘Kusur Kimin?’, Hakimiyeti Milliye, 19 July, 1931, p. 1.

77 Ibid. It should be noted that Talât Bey's troublemaking behaviour at the TGNA did not harm his career; and he continued to serve in the parliament until 1946.

78 Council of Ministers Decree, dated 17 August 1931, BCA–BKK 030.18.01–22.60.6.

79 Aytürk, ‘Politics and Language Reform in Turkey’, (forthcoming).