Erdoğan: Young people cannot read their forefathers’ gravestones
* Photo: Murat Kula / AA
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President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke at the 2019-2020 Special Awards Ceremony of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism yesterday (January 20).
"I believe that we can protect our culture, identity, history and art as long as we protect our language," said Erdoğan, raising concerns that "Turkish language is not receiving the attention it deserves."
"We do not give the attention deserved to the Turkish language, which is the sign of our national identity and memory," he said.
'Turkish in the hands of executioners'
Erdoğan also referred to the language reform that was undertaken in Turkey after the establishment of the Republic in 1923.
While Turkish had been written in the Arabic script for over a century, the Law on the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet passed the Parliament on November 1, 1928. With this amendment, not only did Turkish start to be written in an adapted version of the Latin script, but there were also attempts to rid the language of words and language use of Arabic and Persian origin and to replace them with their Turkish counterparts.
Speaking against this background, President and AKP Chair Erdoğan said, "Our Turkish has been subjected to the biggest word massacre in our history on the way to simplifying the language."
"The prohibitions imposed on words that we have been using for centuries have not been enough to free our language from the yoke of foreign languages, as claimed. On the contrary, our beautiful Turkish in the hands of language executioners got stuck in an impasse after a while with the words of Gazi himself," added Erdoğan further, referring to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first President of the Republic, as "Gazi", meaning veteran.
"In the current situation, young people cannot even read and understand the gravestones of their forefathers who lost their lives a century ago. Not only our young people, but our university graduates also have difficulties in reading the works written 70-80 years ago," said Erdoğan further.
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It is, in fact, not the first time that Erdoğan complained about the young being unable to read what is written on their ancestors' gravestones. In a speech in December 2014, Erdoğan said, "There are those disturbed by the offspring of this country learning Ottoman Turkish. This is the Turkish that does not get old. This is not foreign. We will learn the truth. They ask, 'Will we learn how to read gravestones?'. A history lies in those gravestones. Can there be a bigger weakness than not knowing this?" He also said, back then, "Ottoman Turkish will be taught and learnt in this country, either they like it or not..." |
Further in his speech at the ceremony, Erdoğan also stressed that "nations that do not protect their language and cannot enrich their language are doomed to topple, just like trees whose roots are drying up."
'Architecture, calligraphy, music...'
Indicating that Turkey has been situated at the crossroads of civilizations throughout history, Erdoğan briefly added:
"Besides Istanbul, which is a value by itself, there are other places in every corner of Turkey such as Hatay, Kayseri, Ürgüp, Hasankeyf, Ephesus and Hattusa which served as the cradle of civilizations throughout history. Excluding the venues where plundered pieces are on display, nowhere in the world can you see works that are similar in capacity and diversity to the ones Topkapı Palace is home to.
"Let alone the whole of Topkapı Palace, it takes hours to duly tour even one chamber of its. Our nation, continuously enriching the ancient civilization that spans thousands of years, has produced unique works in various fields of culture ranging from architecture and music to calligraphy and literature." (EKN/SD)