Questioning of the elite dominance theory

[Geoffrey SUMMERS]

Larry Trask wrote:

Many thanks for your reply. I have commented on select parts.

>> How many languages were spoken on the Central Plateau in, say, AD 1900?

> The chief differences from today would have been a sizeable number of
> Armenian-speakers, most of them massacred a few years later, and a
> large number of Greek-speakers along the Aegean coast, almost all
> of them expelled after the Greco-Turkish war.  So far as I know,
> the central plateau would not have been very different linguistically.

I do not have figures to back up my impressions, surely someone does.
Certainly sizeable number of Armenian speakers all over the central
plateau, as evidenced by the writings of many European travellers, the
presence of churches (mostly undocumented), and doubtless in the Ottoman
defters. There was also a sizeable Greek (religion and language)
population in central Cappadocia right down until the excahnge of
populations in the early days of the Republic. I have understood that in
the 19th century some of the "Greeks" were moving from villages into
towns like Nevsehir. There were also Greek speakers in the Lake
District. Much of the steppe was essentailly grazing land, transhumant
Turkish even and some Kurdish speakers.

I know nothing much about others, although I note that the written
language of at least some of the Bektashi Order was Persian.

In short, I doubt that Turkish was the dominant language on the Central
Plateau in the early Middle Ages, and perhaps did not become so until
the 18th or even the 19th century

>> How long did the replacement take?

> I simply don't know, and I don't know if anybody knows.  Greek was
> the prestige language before the Turkish conquest, but I've never
> seen even a guess as to how many mother tongues were spoken in
> Byzantine Anatolia, or as to how long any of these languages lasted
> after the conquest.  I would certainly be interested in finding out,
> if anybody knows of any work on this topic.

I am not able to help.

>> To what extent did replacement spread through Turkish controlled lands
>> beyond Anatolia, depending on what you mean by Anatolia?

> Not very greatly, as far as I know, but then I was only talking
> about Anatolia.

But there were, and remain, many Turkish speakers in the Balkans. I have
heard it claimed that there were more Turkish speakers in the Balkans in
the 18th century than there were on the Anatolian plateau. Could anyone
substantiate this?

>> What was the Ottoman court language.

> As far as I know, it was Ottoman Turkish.

Someone jump on me if I am wrong here, but I had thought that the court
language was Persian and that the court rather looked down on Turkish.
Music, minature painting and other things also had a strong eastern
flavour. If I am correct, when did the change occur?

Geoff
--
Geoffrey SUMMERS
Dept. of Political Science & Public Administration,
Middle East Technical University,
Ankara TR-06531, TURKEY.

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