On the 89th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Language Academy... What are its origins and the countries in which it speaks?

ANKARA - The 

Turks' celebration of the 89th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Language Academy arouses curiosity about the conditions of its formation, its historical origins, its linguistic family, the nations and countries in which it is currently spoken, and Turkey's efforts to spread it globally.

The Turkish Language Academy was established under the direction of Turkish President Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, in July 1932, under the name “Turkish Language Proofreading Academy.” It was co-founded by deputies and well-known literary figures of that era, such as Semih Refaat, who held the position of the first president of the complex.

At the 1934 conference the name of the complex was changed to the Turkish Language Research Complex, and in 1936 the name was changed to the Turkish Language Research Academy.

spread of language

The Turkish language is among the most spoken languages ​​in the world. According to the study prepared by the former President of the Turkish Language Association (TDK) Shukri Khaluk Aqalin in 2008, which stated that out of a total of 6,912 languages ​​spoken around the world, Turkish is among the most widely spoken languages ​​in the world. The 5 most spoken languages ​​in the world are spoken by about 3% of the world's population.

In this context, the Vice-President of the Turkish Language and Literature Association (TDED) Mehmet Oymak stated that "the Turkish language is the fifth largest spoken language in the world and is nearly 5,000 years old, and the number of Turkish speakers today is about 250 million people. Approximately 12 million square kilometres.

Oymak told Al Jazeera Net, "With the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish language spread and expanded towards the west and the number of its speakers increased. With the Ottomans tightening their grip on Anatolia after the conquest of Istanbul in 1453, the Ottoman Empire adopted the Turkish language, which was written in Arabic letters as an official language in all departments in various states. However, in 1927, Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic, made several changes at the administrative and cultural levels of the country, including the replacement of the Ottoman Turkish alphabet with Arabic letters for the Latin alphabet, and later the Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu) was established, in order to remove many of foreign influences (Arabic and Persian) on the Turkish language.

One of the characteristics of the Turkish language - according to Oymak - is that it depends on suffixes at the end of the word or verb, and is equal between the two genders (masculine and feminine), and there is no defining tool, and phonetic letters are an important element in the composition of words and verbs, in addition to that the adjective precedes the descriptive and the subject comes. at the beginning of the sentence and the verb at the end of it.

The Turkish language is not only the official language in Turkey, but also in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, as well as being an official language alongside Greek in Greek Cyprus.

5 other countries, besides Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, adopt the Turkish language and its dialects as their official language;

They are Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

In recent years, the Turkish government has taken a strategy to spread both Turkish culture and language, and for that it has established many institutions and bodies to carry out this task.

Today, Turkish institutions such as the Presidency of Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB) and Yunus Emre Enstitüsü are taking concrete and important steps to teach and disseminate the Turkish language, either through online courses or through e-learning.

In addition to the free Turkish language teaching programs offered by state institutions, municipalities and charities for those who wish to learn Turkish, thousands of foreign students coming to Turkey to complete their university studies enroll annually in Turkish language preparatory programs in their first year before starting to study their university majors.

Turkish Language Complex

On the 89th anniversary of the founding of the Turkish Language Complex, its President Gürer Golesvin said, "All state officials attach importance to language, culture and history, and Kemal Atatürk has given it the same and more importance, ordering the establishment of the new Turkish Language Complex (TDK) and the foundation of the Turkish History Foundation (TTK)."

Golsvin told TRT that the complex has published more than 1,400 works since its inception, and added, "When we look from the past to the present, we should mention the two most important works; It was published in 11 volumes with the last appendix, and the second a printing dictionary, which is specific to Arabic texts written in historical times, in 8 volumes, and the two dictionaries were made available to Internet users via the complex’s website.

He pointed out that the "Contemporary Turkish Dictionary" prepared by the complex contains more than 100,000 entries, and is constantly updated. The complex also prepared the Contemporary Turkish Dictionary application for phones and tablets two years ago, and it can be downloaded for free and used without an internet connection.

Golesvin emphasized that the complex, since its establishment, has not only focused on Turkish grammar, dictionary and works, but has prepared research and publications on the Turkish world in the past and present, and has published the ancient Turkish inscriptions of Huseyin Namik Orkon, and Talaat Tekin’s works in the Turkish language, and has also completed printed works such as Diwan of the Turkish Language and Dede Korkut. .

The head of the Turkish Language Academy indicated that the complex had completed a study for collecting a dictionary of the Ottoman Turkish language, which lasted about 15-20 years, and added, "The AK articles in the first volume of the Ottoman Turkish dictionary were completed and delivered, and the volume for Article Z will be delivered within one to two months."

The complex began recording all texts written in the Oghuz language for the first time 30 years ago, which is the ancient Anatolian Turkish language, which contains currently used and unused words, and words of non-Turkish origin, but it has been translated into Turkish, and one million and 200 thousand dictionary vouchers have been prepared. .

It is worth noting that the head of the Turkish Language Academy undertakes this task by appointment, and the Academy's Science Council includes 44 members, 24 experts, 80 employees, and a library rich in research.