Logo of the Turkish Language Association

The Turkish Language Association (Turkish: Türk Dil Kurumu - TDK) is the official regulatory body of the Turkish language, founded on July 12, 1932 and headquartered in Ankara, Turkey. The association acts as the official authority on the language (without any enforcement power), contributes to linguistic research on Turkish and other Turkic languages, and is charged with publishing the official dictionary of the language. This is a list of bodies that regulate languages. ... Turkish (Türkçe) is a Turkic language spoken natively in Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia and other countries of the former Ottoman Empire, as well as by several million emigrants in the European Union. ... July 12 is the 193rd day (194th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 172 days remaining. ... 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the countrys second largest city after Istanbul. ... The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with an estimated 140 million native speakers and tens of millions of second-language speakers. ...

History

The association was established on July 12, 1932 under the name Türk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti (Society for Research on the Turkish Language) by the initiative of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, by Samih Rıfat, Ruşen Eşref Ünaydın, Celâl Sahir Erozan and Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, all prominent names in the literature of the period and members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The head specialist and Secretary General of the association was the Armenian linguist Agop Dilaçar starting from 1934, who continued to work in the association until his death in 1979. July 12 is the 193rd day (194th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian Calendar, with 172 days remaining. ... 1932 (MCMXXXII) was a leap year starting on Friday (the link will take you to a full 1932 calendar). ... Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (IPA: ; 1881–November 10, 1938), until 1934 Gazi Mustafa Kemal Pasha, Turkish army officer and revolutionary statesman, was the founder and the first President of the Republic of Turkey. ... Turkish poet, novelist and diplomat (then senator). ... The Grand National Assembly (Türkiye Büyük Millet Meclisi in Turkish) is the unicameral parliament of Turkey which carries out legislative functions. ... The following is a list of linguists, those who study linguistics. ... 1934 (MCMXXXIV) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... This page refers to the year 1979. ...

Functions

The association heads the scientific efforts for linguistic research on the Turkish language and its sister Turkic languages of Central Asia. Another primary mission of the association is to maintain and publish Türkçe Sözlük, the official Turkish dictionary, and Yazım Kılavuzu, the Turkish writing guide, in addition to many other specialized dictionaries, linguistics books and several periodicals. The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with an estimated 140 million native speakers and tens of millions of second-language speakers. ... Map of Central Asia showing three sets of possible boundaries for the region Central Asia located as a region of the world Central Asia is a vast landlocked region of Asia. ...

The association strives to protect the integrity of the Turkish language and was a key institution in the struggle of the Republic of Turkey to re-position itself as a secular nation-state after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. During the 1930s and 1940s, it has led massive campaigns to replace the many Arabic, Persian, Greek and French loanwords whose immense use in the Turkish language during the centuries preceding the foundation of the Republic had created a literary language considerably different from the spoken Turkish of the time, which is now called Ottoman Turkish. The Arabic language (Arabic: ‎ translit: ), or simply Arabic (Arabic: ‎ translit: ), is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ... Persian is an Indo-European language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Southern Russia, neighboring countries, and elsewhere. ... A loanword is a word directly taken into one language from another with little or no translation. ... Ottoman Turkish (Turkish: Osmanlıca or Osmanlı Türkçesi, Ottoman Turkish: لسان عثمانی - lisân-i Osmânî) is the variant of the Turkish language that was used as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire. ...

Recently however, the attention of the association has been turned towards another threat, not only to the Turkish language, but to many other languages as well: The globalization and the spread of English. This phenomena has resulted in the infiltration of many languages by many English words and Turkish has not been spared. Since the 1980s, TDK constantly campaigns for the use of the Turkish equivalents of these English words. It also has the task of scientifically deriving such words from existing Turkish roots if no such equivalents exist. It actively promotes the adoption of such words instead of their English equivalents in the daily lives of the Turkish people. Some successful examples of such suggestions for IT terms include: The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ...

Turkey currently doesn't have a legal framework to enforce by law the recommendations of TDK in public life (contrary to France, for example). On the other hand, there is a bill that is in consideration in the Turkish Parliament at the moment that will give TDK and the Ministries of Education and Culture the tools to enforce legally the labelling of Turkish equivalents of these words next to their foreign counterparts, particularly in the news media, advertising, and commercial communications.

Publications

The association, in addition to maintaining Türkçe Sözlük and Yazım Kılavuzu has published more than 850 linguistics related books, mainly consisting of studies on Turkic languages, specialized dictionaries, philological books, and works of literature. The Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken across a vast area from Eastern Europe to Siberia and Western China with an estimated 140 million native speakers and tens of millions of second-language speakers. ... Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. ... Old book bindings at the Merton College library. ...

TDK also publishes Türk Dili, a journal on Turkish literature, since 1951, Belleten, the annual journal on Turkic languages, since 1953, and Türk Dünyası, another periodical published twice a year on Turkish language and literature since 1996. 1951 (MCMLI) was a common year starting on Monday; see its calendar. ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link is to a full 1953 calendar). ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ...

See also

• Turkish language

Turkish (Türkçe) is a Turkic language spoken natively in Turkey, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia and other countries of the former Ottoman Empire, as well as by several million emigrants in the European Union. ...

External links

• Türk Dil Kurumu, the official site of the association
• Kitaplar, the list of published books by TDK
• Süreli Yayınlar, the list of periodicals published by TDK

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