The Great Turk

**LeftEyeNine** · 04-06-2006, 03:59

Originally Posted by GoreBag

He is also responsible for the introduction of the Latin alphabet to Turkish, rather than Arabic, if I'm not mistaken.

Yep. That was a booster in how many people were able to write and read.

**Kraxis** · 04-06-2006, 04:36

Originally Posted by LeftEyeNine

Yep. That was a booster in how many people were able to write and read.

Is Arabic really that hard to learn?

**Byzantine Prince** · 04-06-2006, 07:41

For Turks it is.

Personally I dislike the guy and the attention he gets. He wasn't even born in Turkey. He is an Ottoman from Thessalonica. Isn't there a dispute over his ancestry?

Ok, I'de rather it had remained the Ottoman Empire and developed into a constitutional monarchy like England. Turkey has a lot of traditions I admire, but the ultra-nationalism and modernism that Ataturk started sickens me.

**Rosacrux redux** · 04-06-2006, 08:17

I would argue (and believe me, I never thought I'd defend Kemal but... life is full of surprises...) that the Ottoman tradition was too deep rooted in the multinational society that was the predesessor for modern Turkey to be removed by half-cooked attempts and semi-effective measures. He did the only thing he know would work: introduce a full-fledged nationalism, one that was fitting with the international environment (at least the side of it that produced the Italian, German, Japanese neo-ultra-nationalism) and one that would leave no opportunity for the old Ottoman tradition to survive. A radical approach, nevertheless, but it's not his fault that it survives up to day and in most instances even enhanced. It's the fault of the subsequent generations of Turkish politicians and especially the Army that were unable to understand how times have changed and how what was a great idea in the 20s is a living relic in the 2000s.

Kemal was fixed on modernizing his states and under that light the current citizen of Turkey should be eternal gratefull to him. He had several shortcomings, as I said, and I think we'll have the opportunity to talk about those too.

**LeftEyeNine** · 04-06-2006, 11:20

Originally Posted by Byzantine Prince

For Turks it is.

Personally I dislike the guy and the attention he gets. He wasn't even born in Turkey. He is an Ottoman from Thessalonica. Isn't there a dispute over his ancestry?

Ok, I'de rather it had remained the Ottoman Empire and developed into a constitutional monarchy like England. Turkey has a lot of traditions I admire, but the ultra-nationalism and modernism that Ataturk started sickens me.

Selanik (=Thessalonica) had a serious Turkish population by the year he was born there. It was quite time since Greece was conquered by 1881, and you know Selanik is located in the north eastern part of Greece hence making it a good place for Turkmen emmigrants to settle down in.

His father Ali Rıza Efendi is from Söke, Aydın -where I am born and is the homeland of a lot of yörüks, nomad Turkmen tribes, all of them having green or blue eyes contradicted to the general Turkish look. His mother Zübeyde Hanım is from Konya, and that is the central part of Anatolia. He has major Turkish ancestry for sure.

Is Arabic really that hard to learn?

It is from a different branch of languages, has quite difficult grammatical structure making it the most powerful language on the planet while doubling its complexity.

Edit:

Turkey has a lot of traditions I admire, but the ultra-nationalism and modernism that Ataturk started sickens me.

Can you admit Greece is as nationalistic as Turkey ? One simple question.. Personally I think so and that's where harsh conflicts here and anywhere else is yielded.

**Rosacrux redux** · 04-06-2006, 11:51

LEN, could we please drop the Greece vs Turkey thing from this discussion? Kemal is an interesting personality and one that could spark a nice debate, no need to start the "we are better than you" crap that surfaces in every such topic.

**LeftEyeNine** · 04-06-2006, 13:45

Originally Posted by Rosacrux redux

LEN, could we please drop the Greece vs Turkey thing from this discussion? Kemal is an interesting personality and one that could spark a nice debate, no need to start the "we are better than you" crap that surfaces in every such topic.

Done, my pleasure.

Since BP revealed about such points, I tried to reach an agreement, not to start an argument that's never gonna end. Well, nevermind that question then please.

**Rosacrux redux** · 04-06-2006, 14:29

Originally Posted by LeftEyeNine

Done, my pleasure.

Since BP revealed about such points, I tried to reach an agreement, not to start an argument that's never gonna end. Well, nevermind that question then please.

**Kraxis** · 04-06-2006, 13:29

Originally Posted by LeftEyeNine

It is from a different branch of languages, has quite difficult grammatical structure making it the most powerful language on the planet while doubling its complexity.

I didn't want to imlpy that Turkish and Arabic are related, I know they are not. I hear both languages often enough to notice the difference.

But I meant, can't you use Arabic letter in other languages, like the Latin alphabet? I mean it is after all phonetic.
Of course, if it was in Arabic both as in letters and language, then I understand the conversion as it makes little sense to write differently from how you speak.

**Randarkmaan** · 04-06-2006, 13:36

Didn't he also modify the Ottoman turkish language a bit, I think he did, removing some persian and arabic words and replacing them with turkish ones. I'm not really sure about this though.

As for introducing the latin alphabet, I think it was for "westernizing" the country, not having an easier alphabet. Anyway, didn't he also enforce "western" dress?

**LeftEyeNine** · 04-06-2006, 14:01

Originally Posted by Kraxis

I didn't want to imlpy that Turkish and Arabic are related, I know they are not. I hear both languages often enough to notice the difference.

But I meant, can't you use Arabic letter in other languages, like the Latin alphabet? I mean it is after all phonetic.
Of course, if it was in Arabic both as in letters and language, then I understand the conversion as it makes little sense to write differently from how you speak.

You told it yourself, it's after all phonetic and Arabic does not suit Turkish phonetics. You are surely aware that you can use the letters of any alphabet to speak your language however it surely does limit or make it harder to speak your own words. Arabic has so complex notations that a word is written differently when it is at the beginning or in the middle or at the end of the sentence -if I'm not mistaken of course.

Randarkmaan, the modernized alphabet served both purposes. Our calendar and other measurement means were modernized in Western way so that Turkey could adopt the world outside as well.

**Kraxis** · 04-06-2006, 14:52

Originally Posted by LeftEyeNine

You told it yourself, it's after all phonetic and Arabic does not suit Turkish phonetics. You are surely aware that you can use the letters of any alphabet to speak your language however it surely does limit or make it harder to speak your own words. Arabic has so complex notations that a word is written differently when it is at the beginning or in the middle or at the end of the sentence -if I'm not mistaken of course.

I'm not very well versen in the Arabic alphabet, so I won't comment on that.
But with the Latin alphabet, pretty much every language adapts it to it's form. For instance the word 'chance' is pronounced in Danish 'sjangse', in French 'syaangs' and in English 'tjans'. Get what I mean?

In any case it doesn't seem that is possible because of the conventions with Arabic (uncorruptable ect ect). I just applied what I thought was a global ability of phonetic alphabets.