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Tue Dec 9 16:05:40 UTC 2014

 Forwarded From: Fierman, William <wfierman at indiana.edu>

 Erdogan Pushes Ottoman Language Classes as Part of Traditional Turkish
Values

By CEYLAN YEGINSU
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/y/ceylan_yeginsu/index.html>DEC.
8, 2014
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  ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/e/recep_tayyip_erdogan/index.html>
of Turkey
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/turkey/index.html?inline=nyt-geo>
promised on Monday to introduce compulsory classes in Ottoman Turkish into
the national school curriculum, regardless of public objections.

Ottoman Turkish is an older form of the national language, written in a
type of Arabic script, with many words and phrases borrowed from Arabic or
Persian. Its official use was discontinued in 1928 by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/a/kemal_ataturk/index.html>,
the founder of modern Turkey
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/turkey/index.html>,
in favor of a more vernacular form of Turkish with fewer borrowed words,
written with the Latin alphabet.

“There are those who do not want this to be taught,” Mr. Erdogan told the
Religion Council in Ankara on Monday. “This is a great danger. Whether they
like it or not, the Ottoman language will be learned and taught in this
country.”

His remarks have added fuel to a debate sparked last week by the country’s
National Education Council, which proposed that Ottoman language classes
become mandatory at religious high schools and be offered as optional
electives in secular high schools.

The council also called for classes in “religious values” to be taught to
children as young as 6, and that compulsory religious education should
begin in the first three years of primary school.

The recommendations have drawn widespread criticism from parents and
political opponents, who argue that the council — and the Islamist-led
government of Mr. Erdogan — was trying to “Islamize” the country’s public
schools and roll back the secularization and modernization of Turkey that
Ataturk instituted.

“The education system is in shambles, but instead of introducing real
reforms, the government is pushing through irrelevant backward subjects
that do nothing more than brainwash children with their ideologies,” said
Ayse Karvan, a mother of two students at the Behcet Kemal Caglar High
School.

“Why Ottoman?” Ms. Karvan asked. “The Turkish language doesn’t even have
significant Ottoman roots. It’s not like Latin, which is the core root of
Latin languages. It’s irrelevant.”

Mr. Erdogan argued that knowledge of the older language will help Turks
reconnect with their past and enable them to read old documents and the
inscriptions on old gravestones. “History rests in those gravestones,” he
said. “Can there be a bigger weakness than not knowing this?” He called
Ataturk’s switch to vernacular Turkish and the Latin alphabet “equal to the
severing of our jugular veins.”

Mr. Erdogan’s critics often accuse him of wanting to recreate an Ottoman
Empire-like state in Turkey, pointing to measures to quash political
opposition and rein in the judiciary
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/world/turkish-police-to-get-more-search-powers.html>
and the media, to the immense new presidential palace
<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/01/world/europe/erdogan-uses-conflict-to-consolidate-power.html>
he is erecting in Ankara, and even to his remarks last month
<http://english.alarabiya.net/en/variety/2014/11/18/Erdogan-slams-ridicule-over-Muslims-discovered-Americas-claim-.html>
claiming that Muslim sailors reached the New World centuries before
Columbus.
 Next in Europe  German Party Backs Off Language Proposal for Immigrants

<http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/world/europe/christian-social-union-plan-immigrants-speak-german-at-home.html>

-- 
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

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