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. Ultimately, however, spoken Turkish would come to be greatly influenced by Ottoman Turkish. Ottoman redirects here. ... An extinct language is a language which no longer has any native speakers, in contrast to a dead language, which is is a language which has stopped changing in grammar, vocabulary, and the complete meaning of a sentence. ... Turkish ( IPA ) is a language spoken by 65–73 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... A language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common proto-language. ... Altaic is a proposed language family that includes 66 languages [1] spoken by about 348 million people, mostly in and around Central Asia and northeast Asia. ... Altaic is a putative language family which would include 60 languages spoken by about 250 million people, mostly in and around central Asia. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. ... The Oghuz languages, a major branch of the Turkic language family, are spoken by more than 110-130 million people (including second language speakers) in an area spanning from the Balkans to China. ... Writing systems of the world today. ... The Ottoman Turkish alphabet (الفبا elifbâ) was the version of the Arabic alphabet that was used for the Ottoman Turkish language during the time of the Ottoman Empire. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... The Unicode Standard, Version 5. ... Turkish ( IPA ) is a language spoken by 65–73 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. ... Ottoman redirects here. ... Arabic redirects here. ... Farsi redirects here. ...

Structure

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. Arabic redirects here. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are traditionally considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family. ... The Tatar language (Tatar tele, Tatarça, Татар теле, Татарча) is a Turkic language spoken by the Tatars. ...

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. For other uses, see Honey (disambiguation). ...

History

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.

The Seljuk Turks (Turkish: Selçuk; Arabic: سلجوق Saljūq, السلاجقة al-Salājiqa; Persian: سلجوقيان Saljūqiyān; also Seldjuk, Seldjuq, Seljuq) were a major branch of... Anatolian beyliks (also Turkmen beyliks, Tevâif-i mülûk (in Ottoman Turkish) were small Turkish emirates or muslim principalities (beylik) governed by tribal beys, which were founded in several locations of Anatolia as of the end of the 13th century. ... The Tanzimat (Ottoman Turkish: تنظيمات), meaning reorganization of the Ottoman Empire, was a period of reformation that began in 1839 and ended with the First Constitutional Era in 1876. ... // Production of steel revolutionized by invention of the Bessemer process Benjamin Silliman fractionates petroleum by distillation for the first time First transatlantic telegraph cable laid First safety elevator installed by Elisha Otis Railroads begin to supplant canals in the United States as a primary means of transporting goods. ...

Language reform

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. Turkish ( IPA ) is a language spoken by 65–73 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. ... Year 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... “The Great War ” redirects here. ... This article or section is incomplete and may require expansion and/or cleanup. ... “Mustafa Kemal” redirects here. ... The Turkish alphabet is a variant of the Latin alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, a certain number of which (Ç, Äž, I, Ä°, Ö, Åž, and Ãœ) have been adapted or modified for the phonetic requirements of the language. ... For other uses, see Nation (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see State (disambiguation). ...

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. This list of replaced loanwords in Turkish includes Ottoman Turkish loanwords mostly of Arabic and Persian, but also French, Greek, and Italian origin, which were replaced with their Turkish counterparts suggested by the Turkish Language Association (Turkish: Türk Dil Kurumu - TDK) as a part of the cultural reforms - in... Look up Persian in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Turkish ( IPA ) is a language spoken by 65–73 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. ...

Legacy

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"). A neologism (Greek νεολογισμός [neologismos], from νέος [neos] new + λόγος [logos] word, speech, discourse + suffix -ισμός [-ismos] -ism) is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently created (coined) — often to apply to new concepts, to synthesize pre-existing concepts, or to make older terminology sound more contemporary. ... A compound is a word (lexeme) that consists of more than one free morpheme. ... For the glossary of hacker slang, see Jargon File. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ...

Alphabet

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. The Ottoman Turkish alphabet (الفبا elifbâ) was the version of the Arabic alphabet that was used for the Ottoman Turkish language during the time of the Ottoman Empire. ... Ottoman Turkish alphabet (الفبا elifbâ), refers to the version of the Arabic alphabet that was once used for the Ottoman Turkish language, during the time of the Ottoman Empire. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Perso-Arabic script. ... The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing the Arabic language, which is the language of the Quran, the holy book of Islam. ... The Armenian alphabet is an alphabet that has been used to write the Armenian language since the 5th century. ... This article is about the literary concept. ... Akabis Story (Vartan Pasha, 1851, Ä°stanbul) Vartan Pasha (Hovsep Vartanian or Osep Vartanian) was an Ottoman Armenian statesman, author and journalist of the 19th century, promoted to the rank of Pasha after three decades in the service of the state. ... Sultan (Arabic: سلطان) is an Islamic title, with several historical meanings. ... Sultan Abdul Mejid I Abd-ul-Mejid (Arabic: عبد المجيد الأول ) (April 23, 1823 – June 25, 1861) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire and succeeded his father Mahmud II on July 2, 1839. ... The Greek alphabet (Greek: ) is an alphabet consisting of 24 letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 8th or early 8th century BC. It was the first alphabet in the narrow sense, that is, a writing system using a separate symbol for each vowel... Rashi (1040-1105) (Artists imagination) Rashi רשי is a Hebrew acronym for רבי שלמה יצחקי (Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaqi), (February 22, 1040 – July 17, 1105), a rabbi in France, famed as the author of the first comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Tanakh. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Greek Muslims, also known as Greek-speaking Muslims, are Muslims of Greek ethnic origin, and are found primarily in Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece, although migrations to Lebanon and Syria have been reported[1]. The vast majority of the autochthonous Muslim minority in Greece (including the Greek-speaking Muslims), most of...

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. ALA-LC is a set of standards for romanization, or the representation of text in other writing systems using the Latin alphabet. ... Turkish ( IPA ) is a language spoken by 65–73 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. ...

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.

Educational opportunities in Ottoman Turkish Language

Currently thousands of courses in Ottoman Turkish Litreature 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.

Tertiary level studies in Ottoman Turkish Language (Outside Turkey):

• University of "Sts. Cyril and Methodius" - Makedonia
  Courses for Ottoman Turkish Litreture.

• University of Oxford
  -Course Objectives: Introduction to the worlds of modern Turkish and Ottoman Turkish literature.

• University Of California UCLA
  -Intoductory and Advanced courses for elaborate high style of classical Ottoman period (15th to 19th century).

• Harvard University
  - Ottoman Turkish Course Offerings

• California State University
  -2007-2008 ACADEMIC YEAR GRANT PROGRAM

• The University of Michigan
  -Course Guide

• Princeton University
  -Courses in Modern Turkish and Ottoman Turkish

• 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.)

Courses in Turkish Universities

• Erciyes Üniversitesi http://fef.erciyes.edu.tr/pxp/posts/tar-141-osmanlica-i702.php Faculty of Literature - Course contents and schedual.

• Sabanci University
  -Beginning and Intermediate Ottoman

• Bogazci Universiti
  -A study of various texts from the early period up to the 19th century

• Beykent University
  -Ottoman Language Course details

• Eastern Mediterranean University
  -Ottoman Language and Script

• Baskent University
  - Ottoman Language and Ottoman Divan Literature.

• Mersin UniversityFaculty of Turkish Language and Literature.

• İstanbul University History (tarih)

• Kastamonu University Turkish Teacher (Türkçe öğretmenliği)

• Doğu Akdeniz Üniversitesi Turkish Teacher(Türkçe öğretmenliği)

• Uluslararası Kıbrıs Üniversitesi Turkish Literature (Türk Dili ve EDebiyatı)

• Selçuk Üniversitesi Literature Teacher (Edebiyat Öğretmenliği)

• Yakın Doğu Üniversitesi History Teacher (Tarih Öğretmenliği)

• Trakya Üniversitesi Art History (Sanat Tarihi)

• İstanbul University Librarianship (kütüphanecilik)

• Yedi Tepe University History (Tarih)

• Lefke Avrupa Üniversitesi History (Tarih)

• Abant İzzet Baysal University History

Courses on State Run Collages

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

Online Courses

• Ottoman Turkish courses in internet

Online Ottoman Turkish Resources

• University of Michigan
• Ottoman Turkish writings
• Ottoman Romanization Table

Ottoman Dictionaries and Tools

• Online Ottoman Turkish - Turkish Dictionary by Ebruli Sözlük
• Online Ottoman Turkish - Turkish Dictionary by MaxTR
• Ottoman Keyboard
• Ottoman Turkish keyboard
• Ottoman Turkish keyboard with google search

See also

• Culture of the Ottoman Empire
• Turkish language
• Ottoman Turkish alphabet

Early on as the Ottoman Turks drove out the Byzantines from Anatolia and later pursued them into Europe, the pursuit was a part of the Jihad (or Holy War) against Christianity, and the first Ottoman rulers called themselves Gazi, or Holy Warriors. ... Turkish ( IPA ) is a language spoken by 65–73 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. ... The Ottoman Turkish alphabet (الفبا elifbâ) was the version of the Arabic alphabet that was used for the Ottoman Turkish language during the time of the Ottoman Empire. ...

Bibliography

• Lewis, Geoffrey. "The Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success".

References

External links

Ottoman Turkish language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

• http://www.osmanlimedeniyeti.com Has a great resource of Ottoman Turkish texts as well as Ottoman Divan Poetry
• A web applet for typing in the Ottoman alphabet
• Ottoman Web resources and links - University of Michigan