Eurasia: Turkic Unity Rests on Shared Culture Not Common Alphabet

[Harold Schiffman]

Window on Eurasia: Turkic Unity Rests on Shared Culture Not Common Alphabet

Paul Goble

Baku, February 6 – The six independent Turkic nations and Turkic
communities in Russia, China, Ukraine and Moldova can unite if they
continue to speak their own languages and learn international ones
like English and Russian but risk being driven apart by any effort,
however well-intentioned, to impose a single pan-Turkic tongue. This
call for unity in diversity is the sharpest answer yet to a call a
month ago by a group to Azerbaijani parliamentarians to create a
common Latin script alphabet for all the Turkic languages in the world
and promote Anatolian Turkish the common language of all Turks
(http://news.trend.az/index.shtml?
how=news&newsid=1108987&lang=RU).Although the leader of this group,
Nizami Jafarov, the chairman of the Azerbaijani parliament's permanent
commission of culture, said that the existing Turkic languages would
not disappear, many have been concerned that his push for Latinization
by 2010 would in fact lead to the demise of many Turkic tongues.

(At present, among the independent Turkic countries, only Azerbaijan,
Turkey and Uzbekistan use a Latin script, although Kazakhstan,
Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan have discussed it. Among the smaller
Turkic groups in Russia, China, Ukraine and Moldova, only the Crimean
Tatars and Gagauz use a Latin-based alphabet.) Now in an extensive
article posted on Azerbaijan's Media Forum portal, commentator Ismail
Veliyev argues that this push for a common alphabet and a common
"'all-Turkic'" language is "now the main danger on the path to Turkic
consolidation."
(www.mediaforum.az/articles.php?lang=rus&page=05&article_id=20080205021401320)

Instead of bringing people together, he writes, "this harmful idea"
will drive the Turkic peoples apart with each thinking about how such
a change would harm its national dignity. Indeed, he said, those who
say they are for unity are "most of all thinking about essentially
petty personal 'glory,'" rather than the good of the Turkic world. If
people want the Turkic peoples to advance and come together, Veliyev
says, then they must work to "boost the economy, develop science,
improve the social-political arrangements of society, integrate into
the system of international relations, strengthen communications and
cultural ties, and so on."
Those who focus on language alone, whom he calls the Turkic world's
own "hurrah patriots," remain "prisoners of the Stalinist definition
of the nation which reduces everything to the question of the unity of
language," when in fact culture, which is only enriched by diversity,
is "the starting point of all-Turkic unity."

More than that, he continues, efforts to find "a common Turkic
language [are] a step backwards not forward." Now, he says, "the world
is striving to learn English, which like Latin, Arabic, and French at
various points in the past, is "the worldwide instrument for the
exchange of ideas."  If the Turkic nations of the world are not to end
up as a backwater, they must pursue a three-pronged language policy.
First, each must "develop its own language. Then, all must learn
English. And finally, many of them must "preserve the Russian
language" as the lingua franca for those who lived "under the aegis of
the Russian state." Such concerns about language, Veliyev argues, call
attention to an even more important point: "Turkish brotherhood must
not be thought of as the creation of some kind of new super-state.
With the subordination of subjects and with someone being put under
someone else. This is impossible."
Not only do the history of the Turkic world and the current state of
the international community make that "impossible," he concludes, but
"one should not forget" that Turkic groups across the world are
differentiated anthropologically and in terms of religions.
To make his last point, Veliyev notes that the Tuvans are Lamaites,
the Buryats Buddhists, the Sakha shamanists, the Gagauz Christians,
the Karaims Jews, and most of the others Muslims, with some being
primarily Shiite (Azerbaijanis) and most of the others Sunni.

Given such diversity, he says, it is important to ask why these
various peoples are so drawn to each other. And he argues that the
reason is that they share at a deep level a common culture even if
they are different in other ways. Consequently, Veliyev argues, "the
common Turkic home is a small model of universal brotherhood." That is
not something that should be taken lightly, he says, and it is not
something that anyone should risk destroying by pursuing the
impossible goal of a common Turkic language or even a common Turkic
alphabet. Veliyev's article will not be the last word on this subject,
and now that this debate has been joined, it is likely to echo through
the entire Turkic world, a development that could promote the very
unity in diversity that Veliyev wants and that some of his opponents
view as impossible or at least unsustainable.

http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2008/02/window-on-eurasia-turkic-unity-rests-on.html


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