Geoffrey Lewis, The Turkish language reform, a catastrophic success. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. 190. HB $65.00.

Abstract

Geoffrey Lewis's book traces the history of Turkish language reform with fascinating style. The reader is provided with rich and well-selected examples, and the translation from Turkish to English is excellent. The author's experience of Turkey and his competence in Turkish are clear throughout. He states that the book has two purposes: to acquaint the general reader with the history of Turkish language reform, and to provide students at all levels of Turkish with some useful and stimulating reading matter. Lewis is successful on both counts. Furthermore, the book is significant in that it sheds light on the fact that, although language reform is not a well-known aspect of the Kemalist revolution, it played a vital role in the creation of the Turkish national identity. In other words, the aim of Turkish language reform was not simply to “purify” the language by eliminating foreign words and foreign grammatical features; rather, it was part of a nation-building project.