Talk:Turkish literature/Archive 1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Note

N.B.: I am currently working hard to get this entire article fleshed out and, in fact, fully informed. I realize that, in doing so, it is going to go over the recommended limits for article size. However, once the article has been "completed" (I use quotes since, after all, what article in Wikipedia is ever really complete?), I intend to start reshaping it and redirecting detailed info to other pages as per the summary style guidelines; it will be much easier to make an attractive (and not too long!) page by subtracting after the article's "completion", rather than constantly revising each single section as the article is in process of being written. Thanks for your patience. —Saposcat 14:30, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Turkish Folk Literature

The information in Turkish Folk Literature and Turkish_literature#Folk literature looks very unbalanced. Ideally the latter should be a summary of the first. At the moment Turkish Folk Literature is as substub and the section Turkish_literature#Folk literature is has more than a page-long of contents. --Donar Reiskoffer 10:19, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

You are, of course, absolutely right. I can chalk that up to the fact that I have yet to get around to managing/expanding on the subpages of the Turkish literature article. For the nonce, what I will do is simply copy/paste Turkish literature's Folk literature section into Turkish Folk Literature—rather inadequate, I know, but it should suffice as a stopgap until I can do further expansion. Thanks for pointing this out; I appreciate it. —Saposcat 10:36, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Re: Arabic script

I have begun the process of adding the Arabic script of Ottoman names, terms, etc. However, as I am a novice in using the script, if anyone is able to help out by adding Arabic script in the appropriate places (or correcting any mistakes I may have made), it would be greatly appreciated. —Saposcat 09:30, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I have decided to use Arabic script only for terms (e.g. tenâsüb, tezâd), titles (e.g. Hüsn ü Aşk, Taaşuk-u Tal'at ve Fitnat), and group names (e.g. Jön Türkler, Genç Kalemler). There is such a plethora of personal names that it would create too much clutter to give them all Arabic script; instead, the person's individual pages will have the script (if applicable). —Saposcat 10:58, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Normative?

The current first sentence is

  • "Turkish literature refers to literature written in the Turkish language, either in its Ottoman variety—which was heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic and used a variant of the Arabic script—or in its more normative variety, such as that spoken in the Republic of Turkey today."

What does "normative variety" mean? Melchoir 00:24, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Here, "normative" is used to mean basically, "standard". Ottoman Turkish was, in a sense, a very specialist variety of the Turkish language, and was not understood by the vast majority of Turkish speakers. Definition-wise, the word "normative" approximates better to the situation than the word "standard" (at least, as far as I understand the meanings and connotations of the two words), and that is why I used it here. —Saposcat 04:38, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Historians

Among prose traditions, historians should be mentioned as well. I suggest the following phrase;

the tarih or history, was a prose tradition that started very early in the Ottoman Empire, with Aşıkpaşazade's work on the origins of the Ottoman dynasty in the 15th century, and reached its summit with such 17th century historians as Naima and Peçevi. Often, the historian was a part of the imperial bureaucracy, assigned to the task of recording events, but great Ottoman historians could build upon the inheritance of former writers, and enrich their prose with lively accounts and shrewd observations, thus going beyond the mere task of the vak'anüvis (chronicler, annalist). There were also many local chroniclers, concentrating on the events that had taken place at a specific locality or region during a certain period and this tarih tradition strecthed well into the 19th century.

--Cretanforever 16:32, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

You are right about me missing out on the history-writing tradition; a big oversight on my part. However, I don't think that so much text should go in this article, but rather in the Prose of the Ottoman Empire article, once it gets fleshed out (not to say that history isn't important, of course, but rather so as not to destroy the integrity of the current article's prose section).
I will write up a brief summary statement of history soon and put it into the list of prose types. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. —Saposcat 20:36, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
I have added history (i.e., târih) to the list, mentioning Aşıkpaşazâde, Kâtib Çelebi (another very important historian), and Naîmâ to the note. I think it best, at this stage, for the good points you bring up regarding their style of history-writing to go into the sub-page rather than this page (once the sub-page starts getting built up, of course). —Saposcat 20:56, 23 April 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for taking my suggestion into account Saposcat. I appreciate a lot the serious application you put into the articles you work on. :) --Cretanforever 21:43, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Lead paragraph

How about we play with it here and discuss it? I think the original complaints on the mainpage were that the first sentence was far too complex and that the "...literature is literature..." construction was a bit redundant.

It currently stands thusly: "Turkish literature is written or composed in the Turkish language, either in its Ottoman form or in less exclusively literary forms, such as that spoken in the Republic of Turkey today. The Ottoman Turkish language, which forms the basis of much of the written corpus, was heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic and used a variant of the Perso-Arabic script."

Any comments? --Monotonehell 08:48, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

I think the lead paragraph, as it stands now, is good and solid. The only slight problem I might have with it is the fact that it seems to sort of come crashing to an end with the mention of Ottoman Turkish and its script, etc. An addition about non-Ottoman Turkish lit. and its linguistic milieu might be in order, so as to give more of a sense of completion. The only qualm with that is that doing so would start to bring the lead paragraph perilously close to just repeating information that the rest of the lead section sums up. Any thoughts?
(By the way, thanks for all your assistance; I appreciate it.) —Saposcat 08:55, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, I don't think we need to change these two but add a third, perhaps beginning "The oral tradition, meanwhile,..." This will only be partially redundant with the last two sentences of the last paragraph.
I agree the "literature is literature" bit reads oddly. A quick survey shows other pages employ the construction. Perhaps unpack literature as "the collection of texts, both written and oral" or simply remove the second mention as Mono did and then reverted. Marskell 09:24, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
"The collection of texts" idea is a good one, something like this:
Turkish literature is the collection of oral and written texts in the Turkish language. It/Turkish literature (which one?) includes both works composed in the Ottoman Turkish language, which was heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic and used a variant of the Perso-Arabic script, and works composed in less exclusively literary forms of Turkish, both oral and written.
That, too, may be a bit of a monstrosity, but maybe it's a step in the right direction. Maybe some cutting down on the second sentence (I'm a big fan of long, complex sentences—as you may have noticed—so I tend to be quite inadequate when it comes to splitting them apart, just as I wouldn't want to sever any of my own limbs) ... —Saposcat 09:37, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
On second thought, I'm taking us back to the original problem. Let's do this:
Turkish literature is the collection of oral and written texts in the Turkish language, either in its Ottoman form or in less exclusively literary forms, such as that spoken in the Republic of Turkey today. The Ottoman Turkish language, which forms the basis of much of the written corpus, was heavily influenced by Persian and Arabic and used a variant of the Perso-Arabic script.
... and then maybe come up with a way to add another sentence to the end of the paragraph. The "meanwhile" bit would sound too story-like, I think, but perhaps we can come up with some other transitional word/phrase to get at the same idea. Right now, I'm a bit tapped out of ideas on how to do it, though. If you agree with the above version of the first paragraph (using "collection of ... "), then I'll go ahead and make the changes. —Saposcat 09:45, 24 April 2006 (UTC)
Yes, the second is best. If we use the first suggestion we'll simply have the same problem that got this whole issue rolling. Marskell 10:10, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Mehmet Akif and Yahya Kemal missing??

Mehmet Akif Ersoy and Yahya Kemal Beyatlı are two of the greatest poets of Turkish literature. As a matter of fact they would be in the first 10 poets/authors that come to mind when Turksh Literature is in question. I wonder why noone had written anything about0 neither them nor their works; which include Kahraman Ordumuza...(a.k.a. İstiklal Marşı), Çanakkale Şiiri, Safahat (by Mehmet Akif); Rindlerin Hayatı, Rindlerin Akşamı, Rindlerin Ölümü, Eğil Dağlar, Kendi Gökkubbemiz (by Yahya Kemal).

You're right (though not, perhaps, about the top 10 thing, since that's always going to be a highly subjective list which they may or may not make their way onto, depending on whom you talk to). Why not be bold and add them in in an appropriate place, with appropriate brief summary/discussion? —Saposcat 04:22, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Well; my knowledge upon the subject is not enough for that. I just like to read them; but I can not write a satisfactory comment on their works. :)

Re: Karamanids

Karamanid literature is indeed important in the development of Turkish literature, but the addition of an entire section thereupon compromises the article's clearly stated organization; namely, the part where it says that Turkish folk literature (of which Karamanid literature is a part) will be looked at "from the perspective of genre". To put an entire new section on the Karamanids in thus disrupts the integrity of a featured article.

I have added, to the already existing text, a note about the importance of Karamanoğlu Mehmet Bey's declaration, as well as (on a different issue) a note about the Kutadgu Bilig. I am currently considering how to smoothly work in mention of other Karamanid poets, as well as of the "Divan-i Lugat-it Turk", without compromising the article's structure. I believe that this is a fair way of proceeding, and kindly request that you please propose further text changes/additions here, on the talk page, before suddenly adding large chunks of text into the article. —Saposcat 14:13, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

I have added a note, in the "Folk poetry" section, about the early Anatolian poets Yunus Emre, Sultan Veled, and Şeyyat Hamza. —Saposcat 14:43, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Thanks,
Would it be possible to enter a sub-section for Autobiograpies-Historical works, as there are many such as the Baburnama, many of the Ottoman Sultans etc as Autobiographies are not common in Islamic history prior to these Turkish works. Or the Piri Reis "Kitab-i Bahrieh" and also I think Mir Ali Shir Navaoi definately deserves a special place, Bernard Lewis the famous Islamic Historian refer's to him as "Chaucer of the Turks.
Regards
—Johnstevens5
Not an entire separate subsection on autobiographies, as that would be too much (history already exists as a note in the Ottoman prose section), but if you could give me the names of a few authors and such, I could certainly add autobiographies to the list in the section where history (târih) is now.
However, remember what this "Turkish literature" page is discussing: literature in Turkish and Ottoman Turkish. By those standards, neither the Baburnama nor Nava'i actually belong in this article. Cheers. —Saposcat 22:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Mir Ali Shir Nava'i

Alisher Navoi

—Johnstevens5

This is good, but certainly too much for a subsection of this article, which is a general overview of Turkish literature. The main problem with it, however, is that Nava'i is not considered Turkish literature by the standards of this article (i.e., he did not write in Turkish or Ottoman Turkish, which is explicitly what this article covers).
Note, however, that a page on Nava'i already exists. Try adding information there. Cheers. —Saposcat 22:07, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi,
Navoiy did write in Turkish and influenced its literature to such a degree that the Ottoman Sultans kept his work's in their private libraries and were taught it. I have photographs of Navoiy illustrations and page's from Suleyman the Magnificent's library could I add this?
—Johnstevens5
To take an example from the Alisher Navoi page:
Qaro ko'zum, kelu mardumlug' emdi fan qilg'il,
Ko'zum qarosida mardum kibi vatan qilg'il.
Now, this is definitely Turkic (i.e., Türkî), and I would assume it's Uyghur insofar as the article claims Nava'i "was a Central Asian poet of Uyghur heritage", but it is certainly not Turkish (i.e., Türk).
I will not deny the fact that Nava'i had an influence on Turkish literature, but we can hardly just start naming every non-Turkish-language poet who had an influence on the tradition, or the article would become a mess of Persian poets, Turkic poets, et cetera ad nauseam. So again, I would say just use what you have on the Alisher Navoi article rather than here; you're doing good work on that page, and I appreciate that. Cheers. —Saposcat 20:55, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi,
Its no different as to "Olde English", or "Middle English" differences to modern English. Chaucer, Beofwolf etc is accepted as English literature today although we cannot read it.
As for Nava'i, the phrase you mentioned above is understandable even today.
Qara = Dark, Koz'um = Eye, kel'u come, emdi now etc etc
For example
Bir-bir ne deyin boshtin-ayog'ing yaxshi.
What can I say, your great from head to bottom,
This phrase would be understandable to any Turkish speaker.
Or
Yoq, Yoq, Yoq, desang agar ayoqingni o'pay"
If you say No, No, No I'll kiss your feet
The reason I think its important to include maybe a little sentance or somthing to Nava'i is because he was among the key figures who transformed the Turkic language into an accepted literary language.
As he was a Turk and wrote Turkish, he influenced the Turkish language this is why its important. If we read his work he state's that he is a Turk as does Babur Khan in his Baburnama, I don't think therefore we can isolate him from Turkish literature as from his work its clear that its how they percieved themselves.
Could you check the page I've just created regarding Navoi Alisher Navoi what do you think? I've got images of his work in Suleyman the Magnificent's library which I'm going to upload aswell.
p.s I have copies of the Divan's of Suleyman the Magnificent and his wife, also other works by him, could I upload them? they're really beautiful.
Regards,
—Johnstevens5 23:34, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
I still have to say that, despite a certain level of mutual intelligibility (which also exists among English and West Frisian, for example), Navai's language was not actually Turkish, but Chagatai, an extinct language most closely related to modern-day Uzbek, I believe. Thus, your example of Old English and Middle English applies to the relation between Navai's language and modern Uzbek (and possibly Uyghur), but not to that between his language and modern Turkish, which is in an entirely different branch of the Turkic language family. Unfortunately, there is not yet a page on Chagatai or Uzbek literature for Navai to fit into.
Moreover, I do think that Navai's influence on a Turkic language being used as a literary language was significantly less in the Ottoman world—which is what the article deals with in that time period—than, for example, Nesîmî's was.
I'll have a look at what you've been doing on the Navai page, too, and at some point I'll probably help out a bit with rearranging it and that sort of thing. As for Süleyman and Roxelana's divan pictures, you are of course more than welcome to upload them, and I think they might go well in his article and hers, though they wouldn't really fit in this article, since neither of them is really mentioned here. —Saposcat 11:03, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi, you are correct to a certain degree
The Ottoman Turkish spoken by the elite of the Ottoman was not very distant to the Turkish spoken in their original homeland of Central Asia.
For example, many scientists and professors's of Ulug Bek migrated later to the Ottoman court like the famous Ali Kuşçu.
In the libraries of the Sultan's there were many works by Central Asian Turks,
Suleyman the Magnificent, J.M.Rogers & R.M.Ward page 93-99 ISBN 0-7141-1440-5 - States that they payed alot of attention to the works of these Central Asian Turks.
The reason I'm stressing the importance of Nava'i is because Bernard Lewis the famous Brittish historian on Islamic studies refer's to him as the "Chaucer of the Turks". He was like a catylst in the movement of Turkish literature, writers like Fuzulli and even Suleyman the Magnificent were inspired by him and began to use Turkish in poetry instead of Persian.
Nava'i took the step to use Turkish as a language equal to or as he puts it one that could surpass Persian in the writting of poetry.
Over 30 years he produced more than thirty important works his material had a far reaching impact as he also wrote technical works that would be helpful to other Turkish poets - such as Mizan al-Awzan ("The Measure of Meters"), a detailed treatise on poetical meters – in addition to this he compiled the monumental Majalis al-Nafa'is ("Assemblies of Distinguished Men") and the Muhakamat al-Lughatayn ("Judgment between the Two Languages"), completed in December, 1499. He defended the superiority of Turkish from various points of view in comparison to Persian. It was the writer’s last definitive statement on the subject dearest to his heart, the Muhakamat is a perfect example of an author's final work acting also as his last will and testament which was to emphasize the importance of his native language.
Without these early writers the later Ottoman writers may not have had the inspiration to carry out the work they did.
Regards
—Johnstevens5
Although I still disagree with you (in a rather quibbling way, I admit), I'll just say "Fret no more", because I think I've found a reasonable place for a brief mention of Navai. It's in this paragraph from the "Divan poetry" section:
"As for the development of Divan poetry over the more than 500 years of its existence, that is—as the Ottomanist Walter G. Andrews points out—a study still in its infancy; clearly defined movements and periods have not yet been decided upon."
I'm thinking that something like this could be done:
"As for the development of Divan poetry over the more than 500 years of its existence, that is—as the Ottomanist Walter G. Andrews points out—a study still in its infancy; clearly defined movements and periods have not yet been decided upon. Early in the history of the tradition, the Persian influence was very strong, but this was mitigated somewhat through the influence of poets such as the Azerbaijani Nesîmî (?–1417?) and the Uyghur Ali Şîr Navâî (1441–1501), both of whom offered strong arguments for the poetic status of the Turkic languages as against the much-venerated Persian. Partly as a result of such arguments, Divan poetry in its strongest period—from the 16th to the 18th centuries—came to display a unique balance of Persian and Turkish elements, until the Persian influence began to predominate again in the early 19th century."
"Despite the lack of certainty regarding the stylistic movements and periods of Divan poetry, certain highly different styles are clear enough, and can perhaps be seen as exemplified by certain poets ..." etc.
So—what do you think? —Saposcat 12:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
Hi,
It sounds great, fantastic work on this page by the way, I've uploading image's in the Navoi page aswell, I've got many copies of manuscripts of Turkish literature if you need any tell me and I'll see if I have it.
Do you think the names of Turkish literary awards should be added?
Regards,
—Johnstevens5
Okay, I'll make the change then. I don't think the name of awards is especially necessary, but I'll have a look around other general national literature sites on Wikipedia when I get a chance, and see how they handle that sort of thing. By the way, thanks for your consideration, and your compliment. I appreciate it. —Saposcat 12:49, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
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