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Languages of the Ottoman Empire

Languages of the Ottoman Empire
1911 Ottoman calendar in Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, Greek, Armenian, Hebrew/Judeo-Spanish, French and Bulgarian
OfficialOttoman Turkish
RecognisedArabic,[1][2] Persian[1][2]
MinorityAlbanian, Armenian, Aromanian, Azerbaijani, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic (Suret), Western Neo-Aramaic, Berber (Tamazight), Bulgarian, Cappadocian Greek, all Caucasian languages, Coptic, Chagatai Turkic, Crimean Tatar, Crimean Gothic, Croatian, Domari, Gagauz, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Aramaic, Judaeo-Spanish, Kurdish, Latin,[dn 1] Laz, Megleno-Romanian, Polish, Pontic Greek, Romanian, Russian, Ruthenian, Serbian, Slovak, Ukrainian, Urum, Yevanic, Zazaki, Bosnian
ForeignFrench

The language of the court and government of the Ottoman Empire was Ottoman Turkish,[3] but many other languages were in contemporary use in parts of the empire. The Ottomans had three influential languages, known as "Alsina-i Thalātha" (The Three Languages), that were common to Ottoman readers: Ottoman Turkish, Arabic and Persian.[2] Turkish was spoken by the majority of the people in Anatolia and by the majority of Muslims of the Balkans except in Albania, Bosnia, and various Aegean Sea islands; Persian was initially a literary and high-court language used by the educated in the Ottoman Empire before being displaced by Ottoman Turkish;[1] and Arabic, which was the legal and religious language of the empire,[1] was also spoken regionally, mainly in Arabia, North Africa, Mesopotamia and the Levant.[4]

Although the minorities of the Ottoman Empire were free to use their language amongst themselves, if they needed to communicate with the government they had to use Ottoman Turkish.[5] Some ordinary people had to hire special "request-writers" (arzuhâlcis) to be able to communicate with the government.[6] In villages where two or more populations lived together, the inhabitants would often speak each other's languages. In cosmopolitan cities, people often spoke their family languages, and many non-ethnic Turks spoke Turkish as a second language.[citation needed] Educated Ottoman Turks spoke Arabic and Persian, as these were the main non-Turkish languages in the pre-Tanzimat era.[7][1]

Italian seems to have remained the best known European language among Turks for some time, and as late as the nineteenth century (B.Lewis “The muslim discovery of Europe”, III On language and translation). The original version of the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774) between the Ottoman and Russian empires was in Italian and was later translated in Russian and Turkish.

In the last two centuries, French and English emerged as popular languages, especially among the Christian Levantine communities. The elite learned French at school, and used European products as a fashion statement.[citation needed] The use of Ottoman Turkish for science and literature grew steadily under the Ottomans, while Persian declined in those functions. During this period, Ottoman Turkish gained many loanwords from Arabic and Persian.[4]

Linguistic groups were varied and overlapping. In the Balkan Peninsula, Slavic, Greek and Albanian speakers were the majority, but there were substantial communities of Turks and Romance-speaking Romanians, Aromanians and Megleno-Romanians. In most of Anatolia, Turkish was the majority language, but Greek and Armenian—and in the east and southeast, Kurdish and Aramaic—were also spoken. In Syria, Iraq, Arabia, Egypt and north Africa, most of the population spoke varieties of Arabic while elites spoke Turkish. However, in no province of the Empire was a single language spoken exclusively.[8]

  1. ^ a b c d e Saydam, Y., 2009. Language problems in the Ottoman empire. Ekklesiastikos Pharos, 91(1), pp.38-57.
  2. ^ a b c Strauss, J., 2003. Who Read What in the Ottoman Empire (19th-20th centuries)?. Middle Eastern Literatures, 6(1), pp.39-76.
  3. ^ "The Rise of the Turks and the Ottoman Empire". Archived from the original on 2012-06-28. Retrieved 2012-07-18.
  4. ^ a b Spuler, Bertold, translated from German into English by Muhammad Ismail Marcinkowski. "Persian Historiography Outside Iran in Modern Times: Pre-Ottoman Turkey and Ottoman Empire" (Chapter 13.5). In: Persian historiography and geography. Pustaka Nasional Pte Ltd, 2003. ISBN 9971774887, 9789971774882. Start: 68. CITED: pages 68-69. -- Original German content in: Spuler, Bertold. "Die historische und geographische literatur in persischer sprache." in: Iranian Studies: Volume 1 Literatur. BRILL, 1 June 1968. ISBN 9004008578, 9789004008571. Chapter "Türkei", start p. 163, cited pp. 163-165. Content also available at ISBN 9789004304994, as "DIE HISTORISCHE UND GEOGRAPHISCHE LITERATUR IN PERSISCHER SPRACHE." Same pages cited: p. 163-165.
  5. ^ Language use in the Ottoman Empire and its problems, 1299-1923 Archived 2012-12-24 at archive.today
  6. ^ Kemal H. Karpat (2002). Studies on Ottoman social and political history: selected articles and essays. Brill. p. 266. ISBN 90-04-12101-3.
  7. ^ Küçükoğlu, Bayram (2013). "The history of foreign language policies in Turkey". Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. 70 (70). Elsevier: 1090–1094. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.01.162. - From: Akdeniz Language Studies Conference 2012 - Cited: p. 1091.
  8. ^ Imber, Colin (2002). "The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power" (PDF). p. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-26.


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