Talk:Turkish language

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Please do not edit archived pages. If you want to react to a statement made in an archived discussion, please make a new header on THIS page. Baristarim 11:33, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

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[edit] Copyedit question

Hello! I'm with the WP:LoCE and did a small edit on the first paragraph in the lead this morning. I have a question: in the infobox, it lists several Western European countries and the United States as having substantial immigrant Turkish-speaking populations. However, the final sentence of the first paragraph currently reads, "Turkish is also spoken by several million immigrants in Western Europe, particularly in Germany." Additionally, the United States are not mentioned in the "Geographic Distribution" section. However, here on the talk pages, I saw a population figure quoted (117,000) that was on a par with the other nations listed in the infobox and article. If this is correct, shouldn't the U.S. be included in the article text? The sentence in the lead could read, "Turkish is also spoken by several million immigrants spread throughout the United States and Western Europe, particularly in Germany." and you could easily add the U.S. in your distribution section.

Or if not, then perhaps the U.S should be removed from the infobox? Not trying to be a pain...it just seems a bit inconsistent. Galena11 01:27, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the useful copyedit in the lead section: a great improvement!
As for the US, see my (only slightly) tongue-in-cheek comment under Alaska. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 13:56, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyedit

This article, or a portion of it, was copyedited by the League of Copyeditors in October 2007. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
  • Copyeditor(s): Galena11 14:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello! I put several clarifying questions/suggestions in hidden comments within the article text, labeled "COPYEDITOR'S NOTES". Overall, this was an easy copyedit and most of my changes were to punctuation and some sentence refinement. I also moved one image to the right side, because it was cluttering up the other images and obscuring the text. Nice job! Galena11 14:11, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Tiresome translators

I have had to remove Turkish translators in 200 countries several times recently from the External Links. Can someone please block this spam? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

PS And it's probably time to archive this discussion page: any volunteers? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:54, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
Y Done—including To do list. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FSI course no longer free?

The Foreign Service Institute Turkish course mentioned in Learning resources appears to be no longer free for download. I think this must be a very recent change, because I got through to the website only a month or so ago. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:09, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

PS I think it's still available here—for the time being! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 11:20, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is Dünya a turkish word?

In the turkish language you have two words for world, Dünya and Cihan if both arabish words?? Can someone help me,please? Deniz —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.190.114.222 (talk) 19:36, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

As far as I know; Cihan is Persian, Dünya is arabic, and Acun is Turkic. Kerem Özcan (talk) 19:54, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I must admit I'd never heard acun, but the other two are indeed from those languages. Dünya is also used in Persian—and even in Modern Greek (ντουνιάς): in Arabic it literally means "lower/inferior" (as opposed to heaven). --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Just a Q. could Dunya be actually an Aramaic word? Similarly Leyla is often said to be Arabic but it is in fact Aramaic, a language which is similar to Arabic any way.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 11:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Interesting. I had never thought of the original meaning of Dunya in Arabic. It is very correct. As I know Dun in Arabic means inferior. I have thought about the possible etymology of Jahan (Cihan(. I gueessed it came from Jahesh (movement, motion( , but I found out that thjis and the other word Keyhan (cosmos) both come from the Pahlevi Gêhan. So it is more complicated than I thought. --Babakexorramdin (talk) 07:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Hi, do you know the Etmology Dictionary of the official Language Institute of the Turkey TDK?
Here are answers to your questions:
Dünya is arabic: http://www.tdk.org.tr/TR/SozBul.aspx?F6E10F8892433CFFAAF6AA849816B2EF4376734BED947CDE&Kelime=d%c3%bcnya
Cihan is persian: http://www.tdk.org.tr/TR/SozBul.aspx?F6E10F8892433CFFAAF6AA849816B2EF4376734BED947CDE&Kelime=cihan
Acun is turkish: http://www.tdk.org.tr/TR/SozBul.aspx?F6E10F8892433CFFAAF6AA849816B2EF4376734BED947CDE&Kelime=acun
Look also to my site: http://turki-loanwords.freehost.ag/index.html --Meyman (talk) 19:02, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Citations and references

I see that this has already been discussed (see the archive). I didn't notice the discussion at the time, but I really don't think a footnote merely mentioning an author's name (eg Soucek or Findley) is sufficient—even though the full references are given in the References section. At the very least, the year of publication should be given in the footnote; and a page reference would be useful (otherwise you're expecting the reader to wade through an entire book to verify one statement!). (See WP:CITE for further details.)

In other words, a typical footnote should read something like Soucek (2000): 15-25. I'm a little bit surprised this wasn't picked up at the FAC stage (or was it?). --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 12:29, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Translation of Asik Veysel Poem

I redid the translation, the English in the prior version was not very good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaanatakan (talk • contribs) 05:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I think this tanslation is weak 195.145.80.224 (talk) 07:41, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree the current translation is very poor. For one thing, in the translation of the repetitive verse "Dostlar beni hatırlasın" an article "the" before friends is grammatically inappropriate in English - it would read better as "May friends remember me". I also think the verse would be better translated as "Friends should remember me" to convey the poet's literary meaning - it is a verse that is directive, not wishful. I can suggest changes to the rest of the poem if that is ok by everyone. --BaharEngur (talk) 03:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fact tag

Babakexorramdin, your insertion of fact tag in front of Azerbaijan for speaking Turkish language is a baseless edit. Please refer to CIA World Factbook and variety of research material from historians like Vladimir Minorsky, to realize that language spoken in the region of historical Azerbaijan is Turkish/Oghuz Turkic. Atabek (talk) 00:04, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dialects

What is Rumelice? I'm hearing it for first time! As I know there is not such a language or dialect. I know it because I'm from Bulgaria. --Ilhanli (talk) 23:42, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question

If Turkish is an official language of Cyprus, and Cyprus is in the European Union, doesn't that mean that Turkish is one of the official languages of the EU? Polibiush (talk) 21:09, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Geoffrey Lewis (1920-2008)

My former teacher Geoffrey Lewis, whose grammar and other works are referred to throughout this article, has just died (see the London Times obituary ). He was a lovable man, a great scholar and a friend of Turkey, its language and its culture. May he rest in peace. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 17:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Another obituary was published in The Guardian on 12 March. There is also a tribute to Lewis on the BBC Turkish site, including an audio clip by Dr Bengisu Rona. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 14:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] İzafet (tamlama)

I've added a section on this basic grammatical feature. The table could be condensed a bit if necessary; but I feel it's important to keep the pairs of examples illustrating the difference between definite & indefinite compounds. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Population

dear E..... This article is about Turkish. This is the language of the republic of Turkey. Known as Anatolian or istanbuli Turkish., It is also spoken in some former dominions of the Ottoman empire such as Bulgaria etc... But it is not about Turkic languages. Turkic languages is a family of languages to which also other languages such as Uzbek, Uyghur, Azeri Turkic etc.... belong. These two terms are sometimes confused enormously, because many languages lack two different words which can distinguish these two terminology properly. In the Box on Turkish people, these articles are used which confuse the two terms. But even if you read the sources there too, you do not come to conclusion that they speak about Turkish being a native language in Tajikistan, Ubzkeistan, Iran, Azerbaijan etc...

As for other sections: I am not deleting anything. Only in place of Central Asia I use Siberia and Mongolia, or better said the Inner Asia, which is correct. Inner Asia is larger than Central Asia, and the location of the original Turkic is originally in this area ( The Orkhon-Yenissei inscriptions), not in what is known now as the former central Asian republics. I hope that I could informed you. I see from your edits that you are very sensetive to the Iranian edits and try to revert them at any costs. In any case I do not experience that Iranians and Turks are at odds, nor there is any ground for such prejuduices. Some people have here a hidden agenda, but I can assure you that edits on Turkey/related articles or Iran-related articles by Iranians does not follow such an agenda, at least not my edits. It is only about the correct information.--Babakexorramdin (talk) 17:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you please format the first part of your contribution so that it displays properly? In Firefox, at any rate, it disappears off to the right of the screen. Thanks. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 18:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)
  • Hi, Babak. There are Turkish populations in these countries, you can check this from the Turkish people article. In addition, there is nothing wrong if the relativeness of these languages is introduced in the article. It's informative. Since all these languages belong to the same group: the Turkic languages. There is no confusion here. Regards. E104421 (talk) 14:07, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
The people you mentioned are already mentioned in the article about Turkic peoples. It is veruy essential to take Turkic languages (the group you mentioned( and the Turkish language as separate. I have answered to this in my previous edit: this article is about Turkish, the language spoken in Turkey and some former Ottoman dominions in the Balkans and Cyprus> I think that you do afgree that this language (yours) deserves an article of its own!--Babakexorramdin (talk) 18:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
It's hard to follow exactly what the two of you are arguing about. There is a difference between the TurkIC languages and TurkISH. There are Turkic languages spoken throughout Central Asia from the Aegean Sea up to the Arctic Ocean. This article does not need an extensive introduction to TurkIC but only a reference to Turkic languages where the history of the family should be located. This is not the place for an overall view of TurkIC. As far as the countries where TurkISH is spoken, here is the statement from Ethnologue: "Spoken throughout Turkey as first or second language. Also spoken in Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Netherlands, Romania, Russia (Asia), Serbia and Montenegro, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, USA, Uzbekistan." In many of the Central Asian countries there are BOTH the local TurkIC language community and expatriate communities of TurkISH speakers. These regions of expatriate TurkISH speakers can be mentioned here in this article, but the discussion of TurkIC should be moved to that article. (Taivo (talk) 18:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC))
yes, If you read my comments, I am exactly saying the same as you. I say this article is about TurkISH. and NOT about other Turkic languages such as Uzbek, Azeri, Turkmen, Kazakh --Babakexorramdin (talk) 20:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)etc...

I think there is a conflict in the population of people speaking Turkish. There are already more than 70 million people who lives in Turkey that it is impossible only 50 million people use Turkish in their daily life all around the world. Also, it is written that Turkic languages include Azeri, Uzbek and other Central Assian languages. Even, only in Iran there are 35 million Azeris who speaks Azeri Turkic Language. The other 30 Turkic countries have not even been pointed out. So, the number 50 million is not a correct amount. Many articles state that Turkic Languages are spoken by 250 million people including Europe, Asia and America. I think this mistake which underestimates Turkic population around the world, should be corrected. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.226.25.240 (talk) 19:10, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

The fact that you mention Azeris and and "other Turkic languages" shows that you have not understood that this article is NOT about "Turkic languages" but ONLY about the "TurkISH language". The entire population of Turkey does NOT speak Turkish as a first language. There are Kurds, Armenians, Arabs, etc. who do not speak Turkish as their first language. Ethnologue is considered to be an accurate and reliable source by the vast majority of linguists. If you have a better source please say so. (Taivo (talk) 01:04, 30 May 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Hapis(h)ane

User:Uannis has quite correctly changed the spelling of hapisane in the participial example yaklaştığını anladığı hapisane günleri to hapishane. Actually Orhan Pamuk, from whose novel Kar this quotation is taken, uses the informal spelling hapisane. I've compromised by mentioning the original spelling in the footnote. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Turkish style in examples

I would be interested to know other editors' opinions about the recent changes in some examples (mainly taken from Lewis 2001): isim, cevap, sene & imtihan were replaced with their "pure Turkish" equivalents ad, yanıt, yıl & sınav. Are these all improvements? Personally I find the first two changes unnecessary—but then I'm not a native speaker! --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 10:23, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

"Ad", "yıl" and "yanıt" are more commonly used.--78.163.176.197 (talk) 14:18, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
Google searches, restricted to Turkish pages:
  • isminiz: 1.23 million hits
  • adınız: 0.87 MH
  • cevabı: 8.8 MH
  • yanıtı: 2.0 MH
--NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 17:10, 28 March 2008 (UTC)
So, do I take it that there is a consensus for yanıt rather than cevap? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 16:50, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
PS Or perhaps I should rephrase the question: how many editors were actually unhappy with the words isim, cevap, sene & imtihan used in the Lewis examples? --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 16:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
You have right for the word cevap, the others may remain as is. --Chapultepec (talk) 17:18, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
That was more or less what I thought. I used the original words because they were in Lewis's first edition from the 1960s (I'm not sure about the more recent edition). I shall go ahead and change yanıt back to cevap. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 20:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I have changed my site.--78.183.238.241 (talk) 23:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC) fatihcokoy--78.183.238.241 (talk) 23:02, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question

In the article Saz semai, what does the "-si" at the end of the alternate name "saz semaisi" mean? Is this a plural modifier or some other kind of modifier? Badagnani (talk) 23:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

This is the possessive suffix. --Chapultepec (talk) 23:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I have been a new site.--85.102.106.199 (talk) 14:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NEW MESSAGE

I have been added a new site.--85.102.106.199 (talk) 16:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Question

How is Turkish an official language of the EU? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.73.138.43 (talk) 01:14, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] evidentiality

by the way, for those interested in Turkish grammar, we've been talking about the interpretation of evidentials here: Talk:Evidentiality#Comments about Turkish. – ishwar  (speak) 20:31, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Map

The map gives the impression that Turkish is spoken all over the United States, Canada, and Russia. I think it would be more useful, if the map indicates the regions where there is a concentration of Turkish speakers (for example take a look at French language and Bengali language. Thank you. Eklipse (talk) 20:24, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The ultimate absurdity is the implication that there's a Turkish-speaking group in Alaska: see my comment last year. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 21:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Maps of this nature--countries where someone speaks X language--will nearly always include the U.S. and therefore be pretty worthless because the scale required to include the U.S. means that the home country becomes infinitessimal. Where is Turkey on this map? I can't hardly see it. Get rid of the U.S. and other countries where Turkish is a marginal language and include only those countries where Turkish is one of the major languages. Maybe then we can see Turkey on the map. (Taivo (talk) 01:39, 19 May 2008 (UTC))
I suspect this may have some bearing on the rather ridiculous discussion on whether Turkish is the most "widely" or "commonly" spoken Turkic language. One editor went so far as to opine that the "widest geographical language appears to be Kypchak-Nogay"—presumably because of its geographical extent (?). --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 14:12, 19 May 2008 (UTC)
In my opinion, you should keep diaspora countries (like the US), but indicate precisely in which cities or regions Turkish speakers are concentrated (for examples refer to the two maps that I indicated above) Eklipse (talk) 21:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)