Sexist, discriminatory words in Press Advertising Agency dictionaries

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The Press Advertising Agency (BİK) has sent three dictionaries penned by Dr. Mehmet Gedizli to media outlets across the country. It is seen that sexist and discriminating words are used in the Dictionary of Nouns in Turkish, the Dictionary of Verbs in Turkish and the Dictionary of Phrases in Turkish.

As reported by daily BirGün, women have been otherized in these three dictionaries, which also feature some of the words that the Turkish Language Association (TDK) has decided to remove from its dictionaries.

'Men are credible, maidens are young women...'

Some of the sexist and discriminating words included in the dictionaries and their rough English translations are as follows:

♦ Man (Adam): Credible
♦ Male (Erkek): Trustworthy, brave
♦ One with the mouth of a brizzle (Karı Ağızlı): Man who gossips
♦ Woman (Kadın): Married girl
♦ Missus (Kaşık Düşmanı): Woman, spouse
♦ Girl (Kız): Unmarried woman
♦ To be dishonored/polluted (Kirlenmek): To lose chastity, to fall into disrepute
♦ Bed-bunny (Oynak): Flirtatious woman
♦ Street-sweeper (Sokak Süpürgesi): Woman who does not stay home and wanders around too much, slut
♦ Slut (Sürtük): Woman who spends her time by wandering around and does not stay at her home
♦ Maiden (Taze): Young woman
♦ Boody (Yollu): Woman that one can have easily

When some of these words were seen in a dictionary of the TDK, which has long been considered an authority in terms of Turkish language, women brought this sexist and discriminatory language use to justice.

The Ankara 6th Administrative Court has concluded that words such as "bed-bunny", "maiden", "available" and "boody" humiliate women and ruled that the words in question shall be removed from the TDK dictionary.

About Mehmet Gedizli

Dr. Mehmet Gedizli, the author of the dictionaries, has been teaching Turkish at the Sakarya University for 20 years. He has some books such as "Three Languages in a Single Word" (Tek Kelimede Üç Dil" and "Our Words in Your Language" (Dilinizdeki Kelimeleriniz). (EMK/SD)