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 Language Learning Forum : Lessons in Polyglottery |  | |
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6451 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes  Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 1 of 11 17 January 2008 at 6:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Dear Professor Arguelles,
it seems that you took up your study of Turkish again after having abandoned it due to time management reasons (at least it figures as one of the languages in the planning of your 'scriptorium'). May I ask for what reasons you did so? Is it because you're interested in seeing the connections to Persian and Arabic? Are you planning to study Ottoman as well in the future? The other thread about 'great books' made me wonder which works written in Turkish would qualify as such and would be included in such a reading canon. Do you have any ideas? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ProfArguelles Moderator United States foreignlanguageexper Joined 7042 days ago 609 posts - 2102 votes | Message 2 of 11 20 January 2008 at 7:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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Mr. Frisch,
You are quite correct. One of my own linguistic New Year’s Resolutions (maintained in full thus far) was to take Turkish back into my fold. I always regretted having to abort this language, and somehow or other, I now feel able to work her back into my schedule. In 2008, I have resolved to give 15 minutes a day (in the Scriptorium) to Turkish. Last year, when I reviewed all my “identification only” languages in the context of explaining “languages of the world sequences,” I was struck by how much understanding I seemed to have retained despite not having touched it at all for 7 years. Now that I have been working at it for the past 3 weeks, I feel this even more strongly. My reasons for studying Turkish? First and foremost, it is an interesting entity in and of itself. I am indeed further interested in seeing how Arabic and Persian are reflected in this language, and there are also interesting ties to the Southern Slavic languages and to Greek on the one hand, and perhaps even to Korean and Japanese on the other. Of course I will include the diachronic element of Ottoman at some point—I already have a 3 volume Osmanlica Imla Lugati by Dr. Ali Kemal Belviranli waiting on my shelves. I do not know how good that work is, but another real reason for my study of this language is the fact that I have some resources for it that I have always really enjoyed. I believe I recall that you are also working on this language, so I will share them with you, and hope that you may do the same as you are probably more advanced that I am. First and foremost, I have always considered Herbert Jansky’s Lehrbuch der Türkischen Sprache to be a particularly excellent grammatical treatise. P. Wittek’s Turkish is likewise an excellently structured reader. Both these works are probably out of print, but for a culturally informational bilingual text, I have long looked forward to really working through To Set Them Free: The Early Years of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk by Barbara K. Walker and Sema G. Kormali. Finally, I just discovered and acquired Ralph Jaeckel’s Dictionary of Turkish Verbs in Context and by Theme (Georgetown University Press, 2006). Indeed, I chanced upon this marvelous resource while browsing in a bookstore before I undertook the above mentioned review, and I recall feeling compelled to work through it then and there, and this is indeed now coming to pass… As for classic Turkish literature, I hope I am just ignorant as I would love to stand corrected on this, but I do not believe there is very much. The only work that is somehow in my consciousness is Fuzuli Mehmet bin Süleyman’s 16th century version of Leyla and Mejnun. My understanding is that Persian was almost always the preferred literary language of most Turkic courts, but I do hope that as I study more, I will discover more texts. Do you know of any? 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Marc Frisch Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6451 days ago 1001 posts - 1169 votes Speaks: German*, French, English, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Persian, Tamil | Message 3 of 11 21 January 2008 at 7:38am | IP Logged | ||
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Prof. Arguelles,
thank you for your answer and especially your recommendations of study materials.
Unfortunately, I don't. I have asked the very same question to Turkish friends of mine and, although they have learned Ottoman at school, they consider authors such as Nazim Hikmet and Yasar Kemal to be the fathers of Turkish literature, which I find rather surprising given that Kemal is still alive. Of course, this doesn't have to mean that there are no interesting literary works in Ottoman Turkish. I have been learning Turkish for more than two years now, but the lack of literature I would absolutely love to read has been very discouraging. If I didn't have other, more practical, reasons to learn the language, I probably would have stopped a long time ago. Nevertheless, I have always been fascinating by the language and its structure and found its study intellectually much more rewarding than languages such as Latin, Italian, or Russian, which have all more interesting literature to offer than I will be able to read in my lifetime. Edited by Marc Frisch on 21 January 2008 at 7:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| enedwaith Diglot Newbie Turkey aiesec.org.trRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5943 days ago 4 posts - 6 votes Speaks: Turkish*, English Studies: Russian, Lithuanian | Message 4 of 11 22 January 2008 at 10:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello,
As a turkish person, I have to say that turkish literature has 2 different parts. Palace Literature, and People`s Literature. The farsian language is generally used in elit palace Literature, but real old turkish literature is completely understandable by a normal turk, if it is written in latin letters. So I can strongly suggest ''Yunus Emre'' for clear observation and practice of classic turkish literature. Good days. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Wait 4u turn Triglot Newbie Turkey Joined 5926 days ago 17 posts - 19 votes Speaks: Turkish*, English, Spanish | Message 5 of 11 02 February 2008 at 2:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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I was born in a city of Turkey where the people mostly speak Kurdish and Arabic.
Kurdish people here speak Kurmanci ,which is the most common dialect of Kurdish in Turkey ,and of course which has enormous similarities with Persian language.They also speak a different dialect of Arabic which has been highly deformed by the effect of the official language(Turkish) and Kurmanci ,throughout the history. Being familiar with all these languages,I can say that learning one of them will be quite useful to learn one another. As all share the same religion and region ,they have stitched relationship in terms of vocabulary. As to the literary materials that can be used while learning Turkish ,I can suggest modern Turkish authors such as Orhan Pamuk,Elif Şafak,Oğuz Atay,and Yaşar Kemal. İf your intention is to learn more about culture ,then you could choose Yunus Emre,Mevlana(especially the book Mesneviler). İf you like reading poems,then I can advice Cahit Sıtkı Tarancı,Sezai Karakoç,Necip Fazıl Kısakürek. By the way,Turkish music is generally easy to follow and understand.Any Turkish learner must absoloutely listen to the gentle voice of Sezen Aksu.Music lovers can go on with the list below: Psychedelic-Baba Zula and Replikas Rock-Hayko Çepkin,Erkin Koray,Duman Arabesque-İbrahim Tatlıses,Orhan Gencebay Ethnic-Kardeş Türküler(highly advised) NEVER FORGET TO GET FATIH AKIN'S WORLD FAMOUS DOCUMENTARY ''CROSSING THE BRIDGE THE SOUND OF ISTANBUL''(In it,you can learn all about Turkish music and culture.) the advertisements are over now:) Edited by Wait 4u turn on 03 February 2008 at 6:11pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6408 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 6 of 11 04 February 2008 at 2:30am | IP Logged | ||
Well, In Persian literature we classify the works into three groups. One of them is artificial. In such works we are faced with overuse of Arabic. Authors of such works have reflected their own taste rather than Arabic. That's why they are called "artificial". People never used so many Arabic words / certain Arabic words used in such works. I think the same applies to the Ottoman literature and there must be artificial works. I liked to tell you this so as not to possibly have an overestimation about the Perso-Arabic influence on the Turkish spoken in the era of Ottomans. Edited by Alijsh on 04 February 2008 at 2:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alijsh Tetraglot Senior Member Iran jahanshiri.ir/ Joined 6408 days ago 149 posts - 167 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Persian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: German, Italian | Message 7 of 11 04 February 2008 at 2:59am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks. I didn't know the translation of a work of the Persian poet Mawlana Rumi (Mevlana) is considered as a literary material for Turkish. However, reading the literature in the original language is something else. Especially poetical techniques that will mostly be lost by translation. Which other books of Mevlana have been translated into Turkish? And I'd be grateful if you can introduce me a web site where I can read it online. I have some acquaintance with Turkish and want to have a look at translations. Thanks in advance. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Wait 4u turn Triglot Newbie Turkey Joined 5926 days ago 17 posts - 19 votes Speaks: Turkish*, English, Spanish | Message 8 of 11 04 February 2008 at 4:32am | IP Logged | ||
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Well,Mevlana is a sufi who is not only famous for his deep humanistic teachings but also a matchless poet whose works have been translated into hundreds of languages.It isn't a surprise that Madonna takes benefit from his poems for singing.(she is quite professinal to interpret the love of God into a love felt for anybody:)
By the way,whether you read the book in its original language or its translation,the important thing is his universal ,striking messages.And ,someone who is itended to learn about the culture can learn much via his books although its value misses when translated. What i had meant to say was that. Edited by Wait 4u turn on 04 February 2008 at 4:51am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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