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Languages of the Ottoman Empire

February 05, 2023

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. 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.[4]

The Ottomans had altogether three influential languages known as "Alsina-i Thalātha" (The Three Languages) that were common to Ottoman readers: Ottoman Turkish, Arabic and Persian.[2] Turkish, 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, 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] and was also spoken regionally, mainly in Arabia, North Africa, Mesopotamia and the Levant.[5] Throughout the vast Ottoman bureaucracy Ottoman Turkish language was the official language, a version of Turkish, albeit with a vast mixture of both Arabic and Persian grammar and vocabulary.

Some ordinary people had to hire special "request-writers" (arzuhâlcis) to be able to communicate with the government.[6] The ethnic groups continued to speak within their families and neighborhoods (mahalles) with their own languages (e.g., Jews, Greeks, Armenians, etc.) In villages where two or more populations lived together, the inhabitants would often speak each other's language. In cosmopolitan cities, people often spoke their family languages, 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]

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. Ottoman Turkish, during the period, gained many loanwords from Arabic and Persian. Up to 88% of the vocabulary of a particular work would be borrowed from those two languages.[5]

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, Armenian and, in the east and southeast, Kurdish and Aramaic languages were also spoken. In Syria, Iraq, Arabia, Egypt and north Africa, most of the population spoke varieties of Arabic with, above them, a Turkish-speaking elite. However, in no province of the Empire was there a unique language.[8]

Translations of government documents

As a result of having multiple linguistic groups, the Ottoman authorities had government documents translated into other languages, especially in the pre-Tanzimat era.[9] Some translators were renowned in their language groups while others chose not to state their names in their works.[10] Documents translated into minority languages include the Edict of Gülhane, the Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856,[9] the Ottoman Penal Code (Ceza Kanunnamesi), the Ottoman Commercial Code (Ticaret Kanunnamesi), the Provincial Reform Law (Vilayet Kanunnamesi), the Ottoman Code of Public Laws (Düstur),[11] the Mecelle,[12] and the Ottoman Constitution of 1876.[13]

Alsina-i Thalātha

Ottoman Turkish

See also: Ottoman Turkish language

Throughout the empire's history, Turkish enjoyed official status,[1] having an important role as the Lingua Franca of the multi-lingual governing elite throughout the empire.[14] Written in Perso-Arabic script, the Ottoman variant of Turkic language was replete with loan words from Arabic and Persian.[15] The 1876 Constitution of the Ottoman Empire stated that Ottoman Turkish was the official language of the government and that in order to take a public office post one had to know Ottoman Turkish.[16]

Vekayi-i giridiyye, a newspaper published in Egypt after 1830, was the first newspaper in the Turkish language in the empire; there was a version in both Turkish and Greek.[9]

Arabic

Arabic was the liturgical and legal language of the empire,[1] being one of the two major languages for Ilm (Ottoman Turkish: ulûm), along with Ottoman Turkish.[1][17]

Being the language taught in the Madaris,[18] the Ottoman legal apparatus in particular relied on old Arabic Hanafi legal texts, that until the late empire remained untranslated, and the Ottoman jurists would also continue to author new jurisprudential works in the language.[19][20][21] Indeed, Arabic was the major language for the works of the Hanafi school,[22] which was the official Maddhab of the empire.[23] However some Arabic legal works were translated into Turkish.[24]

The Arabic newspaper Al Jawaib began in Constantinople, established by Fāris al-Shidyāq a.k.a. Ahmed Faris Efendi (1804-1887), after 1860. It published Ottoman laws in Arabic,[25] including the Ottoman Constitution of 1876.[26]

Several provincial newspapers (vilayet gazeteleri in Turkish) were in Arabic.[25] The first Arabic language newspaper published in the Arab area of the empire was Ḥadīqat al-Akhbār, described by Strauss, also author of "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," as "semi-official".[27] Published by Khalīl al-Khūrī (1836–1907), it began in 1858.[28] There was a French edition with the title Hadikat-el-Akhbar. Journal de Syrie et Liban.[29] Others include the Tunis-based Al-Rāʾid at-Tūnisī and a bilingual Ottoman Turkish-Arabic paper in Iraq, Zevra/al-Zawrāʾ; the former was established in 1860 and the latter in 1869. Strauss said the latter had "the highest prestige, at least for a while" of the provincial Arabic newspapers.[30]

During the Hamidian period, Arabic was promoted in the empire in the form of Pan-Islamist propaganda.[31]

The Düstur was published in Arabic,[10] even though Ziya Pasha wrote a satirical article about the difficulty of translating it into Arabic, suggesting that Ottoman Turkish needs to be changed to make governance easier.[32]

In 1915, the Arabic-medium university Al-Kuliyya al-Ṣalaḥiyya (Ottoman Turkish: Salahaddin-i Eyyubî Külliyye-i islamiyyesi) was established in Jerusalem.[33]

Persian

 
Reprint of year three (January 1877-January 1878) of Akhtar ("The Star"), a newspaper in Persian

Persian was the language of the high-court and literature between the 16th and 19th centuries.[1]

There was a Persian-language paper, Akhtar ("The Star"), which was established in 1876 and published Persian versions of Ottoman government documents, including the 1876 Constitution.[25]

Strauss stated that "some writers" stated that versions of the Takvim-i Vekayi in Persian existed.[9]

Non-Muslim minority languages

There was a Greek-language newspaper established in 1861, Anatolikos Astēr ("Eastern Star"). Konstantinos Photiadis was the editor in chief,[34] and Demetrius Nicolaides served as an editor.[35] In 1867 Nicolaides established his own Greek-language newspaper, Kōnstantinoupolis. Johann Strauss, author of "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire: Translations of the Kanun-ı Esasi and Other Official Texts into Minority Languages," wrote that the publication "was long to remain the most widely read Greek paper in the Ottoman Empire."[35] Nicolaides also edited Thrakē ("Thrace"; August 1870 – 1880) and Avgi ("Aurora"; 6 July 1880 – 10 July 1884).[36]

There was a bilingual Turkish-Greek version of Vekayi-i giridiyye (Κρητική Εφημερίς in Greek).[9] The Edict of Gülhane and the Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856 were published in Greek.[9]

The Düstur was published in Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Judaeo-Spanish, as well as Turkish in Armenian characters.[10] The Mecelle was also published in Greek, with Photiadis and Ioannis Vithynos as co-translators.[37] A version of the Düstur also appeared in Karamanli Turkish.[10]

The Ottoman Constitution of 1876 was published in multiple non-Muslim languages, including those in Armenian, Bulgarian, Greek, and Judaeo-Spanish (Ladino).[13] There was also a version in Turkish written in Armenian characters.[38]

Regarding the Romance languages, Romanian was spoken in Dobruja, parts of Wallachia (Brăila, Giurgiu and Turnu Măgurele) and Moldavia (Budjak) annexed by the Ottoman Empire, the Danube shores, Yedisan (Transnistria) and the Temeşvar Eyalet. Megleno-Romanian was spoken in Moglena while Aromanian was spoken all over the Balkans, but south the Romanian-speaking parts.

Foreign languages

Constantinos Trompoukis and John Lascaratos stated in "Greek Professors of the Medical School of Constantinople during a Period of Reformation (1839–76)," that beginning in the 1600s many Christians took up certain educational professions as many Ottoman Muslims did not focus on foreign languages.[39]

French

 
A 1901 postcard depicting Galata in Constantinople (Istanbul), showing signage in Ottoman Turkish, French, Greek, and Armenian

However French in particular became more prominent during and after the Tanzimat era,[40] as Westernisation increased and since, at the time, it was a major language of the philosophical and diplomatic fields along with sciences.[7] It was the sole common language of European origin among all people with high levels of education, even though none of the native ethnic groups in the empire used French as their native language.[28] Lucy Mary Jane Garnett wrote in Turkish Life in Town and Country, published in 1904, that within Constantinople (Istanbul), "The generality of men, in official circles at least, speak French".[41] Among the people using French as a lingua franca were Sephardic Jews, which adopted French as their primary language due to influence from the Alliance Israélite Universelle.[13] Two factions opposing Sultan Abdul Hamid, the Ottoman Armenian and Young Turk groups, both used French.[42]

Strauss, also the author of "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," wrote that "In a way reminiscent of English in the contemporary world, French was almost omnipresent in the Ottoman lands."[43] Strauss also stated that French was "a sort of semi-official language",[44] which "to some extent" had "replaced Turkish as an 'official' language for non-Muslims".[13] Strauss added that it "assumed some of the functions of Turkish and was even, in some respects, capable of replacing it."[44] As part of the process, French became the dominant language of modern sciences in the empire.[17]

Laws and official gazettes were published in French,[40] aimed at diplomats and other foreign residents,[28] with translation work done by employees of the Translation Office and other government agencies.[44] The employees were nationals of the empire itself.[45] Strauss stated that as Ottoman officials wished to court the favour of people in Europe, "the French translations were in the eyes of some Ottoman statesmen the most important ones" and that due to the features of Ottoman Turkish, "without the French versions of these documents, the translation into the other languages would have encountered serious difficulties."[28] Such translated laws include the Edict of Gülhane, the Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856,[9] and the Ottoman Constitution of 1876.[38] Strauss wrote that "one can safely assume that" the original drafts of the 1856 edict and some other laws were in French rather than Ottoman Turkish.[46] Strauss also wrote that the Treaty of Paris of 1856 "seems to have been translated from the French."[40] In particular versions of official documents in languages of non-Muslims such as the 1876 Constitution originated from the French translations.[40] French was also officially the working language of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the period after the Crimean War.[47]

In addition, newspapers written in other western European languages had editions in French or editions with portions in French.[43] The cities of Constantinople, Beirut, Salonika (Thessaloniki), and Smyrna (İzmir) had domestically-published French-language newspapers.[43]

In 1827 Sultan Mahmud II announced that the empire's first medical school, the Imperial Military School of Medicine, would for the time being teach in French; that school and a civil medical school both taught in French. By the 1860s advocates of French medium instruction and Ottoman Turkish medium instruction were engaged in a conflict; Turks advocated for Turkish while minoritarian groups and foreigners advocated for French.[43] Spyridon Mavrogenis, employed in the imperial medical school as a professor, advocated for the usage of French.[48] The empire later made Ottoman Turkish the language of the two medical schools.[43] Another French-medium medical school was Beirut's Faculté Française de Médecine de Beyrouth. The Turkish-medium Şam Mekteb-i tıbbiyye-i mulkiyye-i şahane in Damascus acquired books written in French and enacted French proficiency tests.[49] In 1880 the dual Ottoman Turkish and French-medium law school, Mekteb-i Hukuk, was established.[33]

Others

Garnett wrote that, as of 1904, in regards to males of "official circles" within Constantinople, "many read, if they do not speak, English".[41]

In regards to foreign languages in general, Garnett stated "in all large towns there are quite as many Turks who read and write some foreign language as would be found in a corresponding class in this country [meaning the United Kingdom]."[41]

Gallery

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    1896 calendar in Salonika (now Thessaloniki), a cosmopolitan city; the first three lines in Ottoman script

Sources

  • Strauss, Johann (2010). "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire: Translations of the Kanun-ı Esasi and Other Official Texts into Minority Languages". In Herzog, Christoph; Malek Sharif (eds.). The First Ottoman Experiment in Democracy. Wurzburg. pp. 21–51. (info page on book at Martin Luther University)
  • Strauss, Johann (2016-07-07). "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire". In Murphey, Rhoads (ed.). Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recording the Imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Rule. Routledge.

Notes

  1. ^ In Republic of Ragusa which was under Ottoman protection.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ^ . Archived from the original on 2012-06-28. Retrieved 2012-07-18.
  4. ^ Language use in the Ottoman Empire and its problems, 1299-1923 Archived 2012-12-24 at archive.today
  5. ^ a b Spuler, Bertold [de], translated from German into English by Muhammad Ismail Marcinkowski [de]. "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.
  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. ^ a b Küçükoğlu, Bayram (2013). "The history of foreign language policies in Turkey". Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences. Elsevier. 70 (70): 1090–1094. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.01.162. - From: Akdeniz Language Studies Conference 2012 - Cited: p. 1091.
  8. ^ Imber, Colin (2002). (PDF). p. 2. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-07-26.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 22 (PDF p. 24)
  10. ^ a b c d Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 24 (PDF p. 26)
  11. ^ Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 23 (PDF p. 25)
  12. ^ Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 31 (PDF p. 33)
  13. ^ a b c d Strauss, "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," (ISBN 9781317118442), Google Books PT193.
  14. ^ Darling, L.T., 2012. 5. Ottoman Turkish: Written Language and Scribal Practice, 13th to 20th Centuries. In Literacy in the Persianate World (pp. 171-195). University of Pennsylvania Press.
  15. ^ Korkut, J., Morphology and lexicon-based machine translation of Ottoman Turkish to Modern Turkish.
  16. ^ "The Ottoman Constitution, Promulgated the 7th Zilbridje, 1293 (11/23 December, 1876)". The American Journal of International Law. Cambridge University Press. 2 (4 (Supplement: Official Documents (Oct., 1908))): 367–387. 1908-10-01. doi:10.2307/2212668. JSTOR 2212668. S2CID 246006581. ART. 18. Admission to public office has a condition — the knowledge of Turkish which is the official language of the State. - Translation inclosed in dispatch No. 113 in the MS. Records, U.S. Department of State, dated December 26, 1876 (PDF version)
  17. ^ a b Strauss, "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," (ISBN 9781317118442), Google Books 198. "In the Ottoman Empire, the scientific language for Muslims had been traditionally Arabic[...] or Ottoman Turkish. But this applied to the traditional sciences (ulûm)."
  18. ^ Ihsanoglu, E. and Al-Hassani, S., 2004. The Madrasas of the Ottoman Empire. Foundation for Science, Technology and Civilisation, Manchester. Mathematics Education in the Balkan Societies Up To the WWI.
  19. ^ Panaite, V., 2019. Ottoman Law of War and Peace: The Ottoman Empire and Its Tribute-Payers from the North of the Danube. Brill.
  20. ^ C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (Leiden: Brill, 1937–1949), G II 583, S II 654.
  21. ^ Ali, Mohammed Farid. "Principles of issuing fatwa (usul al-ifta) in the Hanafi legal school: an annotated translation, analysis and edition of sharh uqud rasm al-mufti of IbnAbidin Al-Shami." (2013).
  22. ^ Taşkömür, H., 2019. Books on Islamic Jurisprudence, Schools of Law, and Biographies of Imams from the Hanafi School. In Treasures of Knowledge: An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502/3-1503/4)(2 vols) (pp. 389-422). Brill.
  23. ^ Peters, R., 2020. What Does It Mean to Be an Official Madhhab?: Hanafism and the Ottoman Empire. In Sharia, Justice and Legal Order (pp. 585-599). Brill.
  24. ^ Yıldız, S.N., 2017. A Hanafi law manual in the vernacular: Devletoğlu Yūsuf Balıḳesrī’s Turkish verse adaptation of the Hidāya-Wiqāya textual tradition for the Ottoman Sultan Murad II (824/1424). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 80(2), pp.283-304.
  25. ^ a b c Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 25 (PDF p. 27)
  26. ^ Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 34 (PDF p. 36)
  27. ^ Strauss, Johann. "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire" (Chapter 7). In: Murphey, Rhoads (editor). Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recording the Imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Rule. Routledge, 7 July 2016. (ISBN 9781317118442), Google Books PT192.
  28. ^ a b c d Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 26 (PDF p. 28)
  29. ^ Strauss, "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," (ISBN 9781317118442), Google Books PT192 and PT193.
  30. ^ Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 25-26 (PDF p. 27-28)
  31. ^ Chouinard, A.M., 2010. A Response to Tanzimat: Sultan Abdul Hamid II and Pan-Islamism. Inquiries Journal, 2(05).
  32. ^ Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 21 (PDF p. 23)
  33. ^ a b Strauss, "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," (ISBN 9781317118442), Google Books PT 197.
  34. ^ Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 32 (PDF p. 34)
  35. ^ a b Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 29 (PDF p. 31)
  36. ^ Balta, Evangelia; Ayșe Kavak (2018-02-28). "Publisher of the newspaper Konstantinoupolis for half a century. Following the trail of Dimitris Nikolaidis in the Ottoman archives". In Sagaster, Börte; Theoharis Stavrides; Birgitt Hoffmann (eds.). Press and Mass Communication in the Middle East: Festschrift for Martin Strohmeier. University of Bamberg Press. pp. 33-. ISBN 9783863095277. - Volume 12 of Bamberger Orientstudien // Cited: p. 37
  37. ^ Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 31-32 (PDF p. 33-34)
  38. ^ a b Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 33 (PDF p. 35)
  39. ^ Trompoukis, Constantinos; Lascaratos, John (2003). "Greek Professors of the Medical School of Constantinople during a Period of Reformation (1839–76)". Journal of Medical Biography. 11 (4): 226–231. doi:10.1177/096777200301100411. PMID 14562157. S2CID 11201905. - First published November 1, 2003. - Cited: p. 226 (PDF p. 1/5).
  40. ^ a b c d Strauss, "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire" (ISBN 9781317118459), p. 121.
  41. ^ a b c Garnett, Lucy Mary Jane. Turkish Life in Town and Country. G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1904. p. 206.
  42. ^ Kevorkian, Raymond (2008-06-03). "The Extermination of Ottoman Armenians by the Young Turk Regime (1915-1916)". Sciences Po. Retrieved 2020-07-12. [...]these Turkish and Armenian elites —both francophone—[...]
  43. ^ a b c d e Strauss, "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," (ISBN 9781317118459), p. 122.
  44. ^ a b c Strauss, "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," (ISBN 9781317118442), Google Books PT192.
  45. ^ Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 26-27 (PDF p. 28-29)
  46. ^ Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 27 (PDF p. 29)
  47. ^ Turkish Yearbook of International Relations. Ankara Üniversitesi Diş Munasebetler Enstitüsü, 2000. (head book says 2000/2 Special Issue of Turkish-American Relations. Issue 31, Page 13. p. 13. "Chambre des Conseillers Légistes de la Porte as was their title in French, which had, after the Crimean War become the official working language of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry."
  48. ^ Trompoukis, Constantinos; Lascaratos, John (2003). "Greek Professors of the Medical School of Constantinople during a Period of Reformation (1839–76)". Journal of Medical Biography. 11 (4): 226–231. doi:10.1177/096777200301100411. PMID 14562157. S2CID 11201905. - First published November 1, 2003. - Cited: p. 228 (PDF p. 3/5).
  49. ^ Strauss, "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire," (ISBN 9781317118442), Google Books PT194.

Further reading

  • Strauss, Johann (November 1995). "The Millets and the Ottoman Language: The Contribution of Ottoman Greeks to Ottoman Letters (19th - 20th Centuries)". Die Welt des Islams. Brill. 35 (2): 189–249. doi:10.1163/1570060952597860. JSTOR 1571230.
  • Strauss, Johann. "Diglossie dans le domaine ottoman. Évolution et péripéties d'une situation linguistique". In Vatin, Nicolas (ed.). Oral et écrit dans le monde turco-ottoman (in French). pp. 221–255. - Compare Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Méditerranée [fr] nos. 75-76, (1995).
  • Fredj, Claire. "Quelle langue pour quelle élite ? Le français dans le monde médical ottoman à Constantinople (1839-1914)". In Güneş Işıksel; Emmanuel Szurek (eds.). Turcs et Français (in French). pp. 73–98.

February 05, 2023
languages, ottoman, empire, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor,. This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Languages of the Ottoman Empire news newspapers books scholar JSTOR March 2013 Learn how and when to remove this template message 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 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 4 Languages of the Ottoman Empire1911 Ottoman calendar in Ottoman Turkish Arabic Greek Armenian Hebrew French and BulgarianOfficialOttoman TurkishRecognisedArabic 1 2 Persian 1 2 MinorityAlbanian Armenian Aromanian Assyrian Neo Aramaic Suret Western Neo Aramaic Berber Tamazight Bulgarian Cappadocian Greek all the Caucasian languages Coptic Chagatai Turkic Crimean Tatar Crimean Gothic Croatian Domari Gagauz Georgian German Greek Hebrew Hungarian 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 BosnianForeignFrenchThe Ottomans had altogether three influential languages known as Alsina i Thalatha The Three Languages that were common to Ottoman readers Ottoman Turkish Arabic and Persian 2 Turkish 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 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 and was also spoken regionally mainly in Arabia North Africa Mesopotamia and the Levant 5 Throughout the vast Ottoman bureaucracy Ottoman Turkish language was the official language a version of Turkish albeit with a vast mixture of both Arabic and Persian grammar and vocabulary Some ordinary people had to hire special request writers arzuhalcis to be able to communicate with the government 6 The ethnic groups continued to speak within their families and neighborhoods mahalles with their own languages e g Jews Greeks Armenians etc In villages where two or more populations lived together the inhabitants would often speak each other s language In cosmopolitan cities people often spoke their family languages 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 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 Ottoman Turkish during the period gained many loanwords from Arabic and Persian Up to 88 of the vocabulary of a particular work would be borrowed from those two languages 5 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 Armenian and in the east and southeast Kurdish and Aramaic languages were also spoken In Syria Iraq Arabia Egypt and north Africa most of the population spoke varieties of Arabic with above them a Turkish speaking elite However in no province of the Empire was there a unique language 8 Contents 1 Translations of government documents 2 Alsina i Thalatha 2 1 Ottoman Turkish 2 2 Arabic 2 3 Persian 3 Non Muslim minority languages 4 Foreign languages 4 1 French 4 2 Others 5 Gallery 6 Sources 6 1 Notes 7 References 8 Further readingTranslations of government documents EditAs a result of having multiple linguistic groups the Ottoman authorities had government documents translated into other languages especially in the pre Tanzimat era 9 Some translators were renowned in their language groups while others chose not to state their names in their works 10 Documents translated into minority languages include the Edict of Gulhane the Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856 9 the Ottoman Penal Code Ceza Kanunnamesi the Ottoman Commercial Code Ticaret Kanunnamesi the Provincial Reform Law Vilayet Kanunnamesi the Ottoman Code of Public Laws Dustur 11 the Mecelle 12 and the Ottoman Constitution of 1876 13 Alsina i Thalatha EditOttoman Turkish Edit See also Ottoman Turkish language This section needs expansion You can help by adding to it September 2021 Throughout the empire s history Turkish enjoyed official status 1 having an important role as the Lingua Franca of the multi lingual governing elite throughout the empire 14 Written in Perso Arabic script the Ottoman variant of Turkic language was replete with loan words from Arabic and Persian 15 The 1876 Constitution of the Ottoman Empire stated that Ottoman Turkish was the official language of the government and that in order to take a public office post one had to know Ottoman Turkish 16 Vekayi i giridiyye a newspaper published in Egypt after 1830 was the first newspaper in the Turkish language in the empire there was a version in both Turkish and Greek 9 Arabic Edit Arabic was the liturgical and legal language of the empire 1 being one of the two major languages for Ilm Ottoman Turkish ulum along with Ottoman Turkish 1 17 Being the language taught in the Madaris 18 the Ottoman legal apparatus in particular relied on old Arabic Hanafi legal texts that until the late empire remained untranslated and the Ottoman jurists would also continue to author new jurisprudential works in the language 19 20 21 Indeed Arabic was the major language for the works of the Hanafi school 22 which was the official Maddhab of the empire 23 However some Arabic legal works were translated into Turkish 24 The Arabic newspaper Al Jawaib began in Constantinople established by Faris al Shidyaq a k a Ahmed Faris Efendi 1804 1887 after 1860 It published Ottoman laws in Arabic 25 including the Ottoman Constitution of 1876 26 Several provincial newspapers vilayet gazeteleri in Turkish were in Arabic 25 The first Arabic language newspaper published in the Arab area of the empire was Ḥadiqat al Akhbar described by Strauss also author of Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire as semi official 27 Published by Khalil al Khuri 1836 1907 it began in 1858 28 There was a French edition with the title Hadikat el Akhbar Journal de Syrie et Liban 29 Others include the Tunis based Al Raʾid at Tunisi and a bilingual Ottoman Turkish Arabic paper in Iraq Zevra al Zawraʾ the former was established in 1860 and the latter in 1869 Strauss said the latter had the highest prestige at least for a while of the provincial Arabic newspapers 30 During the Hamidian period Arabic was promoted in the empire in the form of Pan Islamist propaganda 31 The Dustur was published in Arabic 10 even though Ziya Pasha wrote a satirical article about the difficulty of translating it into Arabic suggesting that Ottoman Turkish needs to be changed to make governance easier 32 In 1915 the Arabic medium university Al Kuliyya al Ṣalaḥiyya Ottoman Turkish Salahaddin i Eyyubi Kulliyye i islamiyyesi was established in Jerusalem 33 Persian Edit This section needs expansion You can help by adding to it September 2021 Reprint of year three January 1877 January 1878 of Akhtar The Star a newspaper in Persian Persian was the language of the high court and literature between the 16th and 19th centuries 1 There was a Persian language paper Akhtar The Star which was established in 1876 and published Persian versions of Ottoman government documents including the 1876 Constitution 25 Strauss stated that some writers stated that versions of the Takvim i Vekayi in Persian existed 9 Non Muslim minority languages EditThere was a Greek language newspaper established in 1861 Anatolikos Aster Eastern Star Konstantinos Photiadis was the editor in chief 34 and Demetrius Nicolaides served as an editor 35 In 1867 Nicolaides established his own Greek language newspaper Kōnstantinoupolis Johann Strauss author of A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire Translations of the Kanun i Esasi and Other Official Texts into Minority Languages wrote that the publication was long to remain the most widely read Greek paper in the Ottoman Empire 35 Nicolaides also edited Thrake Thrace August 1870 1880 and Avgi Aurora 6 July 1880 10 July 1884 36 There was a bilingual Turkish Greek version of Vekayi i giridiyye Krhtikh Efhmeris in Greek 9 The Edict of Gulhane and the Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856 were published in Greek 9 The Dustur was published in Armenian Bulgarian Greek and Judaeo Spanish as well as Turkish in Armenian characters 10 The Mecelle was also published in Greek with Photiadis and Ioannis Vithynos as co translators 37 A version of the Dustur also appeared in Karamanli Turkish 10 The Ottoman Constitution of 1876 was published in multiple non Muslim languages including those in Armenian Bulgarian Greek and Judaeo Spanish Ladino 13 There was also a version in Turkish written in Armenian characters 38 Regarding the Romance languages Romanian was spoken in Dobruja parts of Wallachia Brăila Giurgiu and Turnu Măgurele and Moldavia Budjak annexed by the Ottoman Empire the Danube shores Yedisan Transnistria and the Temesvar Eyalet Megleno Romanian was spoken in Moglena while Aromanian was spoken all over the Balkans but south the Romanian speaking parts Foreign languages EditConstantinos Trompoukis and John Lascaratos stated in Greek Professors of the Medical School of Constantinople during a Period of Reformation 1839 76 that beginning in the 1600s many Christians took up certain educational professions as many Ottoman Muslims did not focus on foreign languages 39 French Edit A 1901 postcard depicting Galata in Constantinople Istanbul showing signage in Ottoman Turkish French Greek and Armenian However French in particular became more prominent during and after the Tanzimat era 40 as Westernisation increased and since at the time it was a major language of the philosophical and diplomatic fields along with sciences 7 It was the sole common language of European origin among all people with high levels of education even though none of the native ethnic groups in the empire used French as their native language 28 Lucy Mary Jane Garnett wrote in Turkish Life in Town and Country published in 1904 that within Constantinople Istanbul The generality of men in official circles at least speak French 41 Among the people using French as a lingua franca were Sephardic Jews which adopted French as their primary language due to influence from the Alliance Israelite Universelle 13 Two factions opposing Sultan Abdul Hamid the Ottoman Armenian and Young Turk groups both used French 42 Strauss also the author of Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire wrote that In a way reminiscent of English in the contemporary world French was almost omnipresent in the Ottoman lands 43 Strauss also stated that French was a sort of semi official language 44 which to some extent had replaced Turkish as an official language for non Muslims 13 Strauss added that it assumed some of the functions of Turkish and was even in some respects capable of replacing it 44 As part of the process French became the dominant language of modern sciences in the empire 17 Laws and official gazettes were published in French 40 aimed at diplomats and other foreign residents 28 with translation work done by employees of the Translation Office and other government agencies 44 The employees were nationals of the empire itself 45 Strauss stated that as Ottoman officials wished to court the favour of people in Europe the French translations were in the eyes of some Ottoman statesmen the most important ones and that due to the features of Ottoman Turkish without the French versions of these documents the translation into the other languages would have encountered serious difficulties 28 Such translated laws include the Edict of Gulhane the Ottoman Reform Edict of 1856 9 and the Ottoman Constitution of 1876 38 Strauss wrote that one can safely assume that the original drafts of the 1856 edict and some other laws were in French rather than Ottoman Turkish 46 Strauss also wrote that the Treaty of Paris of 1856 seems to have been translated from the French 40 In particular versions of official documents in languages of non Muslims such as the 1876 Constitution originated from the French translations 40 French was also officially the working language of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the period after the Crimean War 47 In addition newspapers written in other western European languages had editions in French or editions with portions in French 43 The cities of Constantinople Beirut Salonika Thessaloniki and Smyrna Izmir had domestically published French language newspapers 43 In 1827 Sultan Mahmud II announced that the empire s first medical school the Imperial Military School of Medicine would for the time being teach in French that school and a civil medical school both taught in French By the 1860s advocates of French medium instruction and Ottoman Turkish medium instruction were engaged in a conflict Turks advocated for Turkish while minoritarian groups and foreigners advocated for French 43 Spyridon Mavrogenis employed in the imperial medical school as a professor advocated for the usage of French 48 The empire later made Ottoman Turkish the language of the two medical schools 43 Another French medium medical school was Beirut s Faculte Francaise de Medecine de Beyrouth The Turkish medium Sam Mekteb i tibbiyye i mulkiyye i sahane in Damascus acquired books written in French and enacted French proficiency tests 49 In 1880 the dual Ottoman Turkish and French medium law school Mekteb i Hukuk was established 33 Others Edit Garnett wrote that as of 1904 in regards to males of official circles within Constantinople many read if they do not speak English 41 In regards to foreign languages in general Garnett stated in all large towns there are quite as many Turks who read and write some foreign language as would be found in a corresponding class in this country meaning the United Kingdom 41 Gallery Edit 1896 calendar in Salonika now Thessaloniki a cosmopolitan city the first three lines in Ottoman scriptSources EditStrauss Johann 2010 A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire Translations of the Kanun i Esasi and Other Official Texts into Minority Languages In Herzog Christoph Malek Sharif eds The First Ottoman Experiment in Democracy Wurzburg pp 21 51 info page on book at Martin Luther University Strauss Johann 2016 07 07 Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire In Murphey Rhoads ed Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean Recording the Imprint of Roman Byzantine and Ottoman Rule Routledge ISBN 9781317118459 Start p 115 ISBN 9781317118442 Notes Edit In Republic of Ragusa which was under Ottoman protection References Edit a b c d e f g h i Saydam Y 2009 Language problems in the Ottoman empire Ekklesiastikos Pharos 91 1 pp 38 57 a b c Strauss J 2003 Who Read What in the Ottoman Empire 19th 20th centuries Middle Eastern Literatures 6 1 pp 39 76 The Rise of the Turks and the Ottoman Empire Archived from the original on 2012 06 28 Retrieved 2012 07 18 Language use in the Ottoman Empire and its problems 1299 1923 Archived 2012 12 24 at archive today a b Spuler Bertold de translated from German into English by Muhammad Ismail Marcinkowski de 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 Turkei 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 Kemal H Karpat 2002 Studies on Ottoman social and political history selected articles and essays Brill p 266 ISBN 90 04 12101 3 a b Kucukoglu Bayram 2013 The history of foreign language policies in Turkey Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences Elsevier 70 70 1090 1094 doi 10 1016 j sbspro 2013 01 162 From Akdeniz Language Studies Conference 2012 Cited p 1091 Imber Colin 2002 The Ottoman Empire 1300 1650 The Structure of Power PDF p 2 Archived from the original PDF on 2014 07 26 a b c d e f g Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 22 PDF p 24 a b c d Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 24 PDF p 26 Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 23 PDF p 25 Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 31 PDF p 33 a b c d Strauss Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire ISBN 9781317118442 Google Books PT193 Darling L T 2012 5 Ottoman Turkish Written Language and Scribal Practice 13th to 20th Centuries In Literacy in the Persianate World pp 171 195 University of Pennsylvania Press Korkut J Morphology and lexicon based machine translation of Ottoman Turkish to Modern Turkish The Ottoman Constitution Promulgated the 7th Zilbridje 1293 11 23 December 1876 The American Journal of International Law Cambridge University Press 2 4 Supplement Official Documents Oct 1908 367 387 1908 10 01 doi 10 2307 2212668 JSTOR 2212668 S2CID 246006581 ART 18 Admission to public office has a condition the knowledge of Turkish which is the official language of the State Translation inclosed in dispatch No 113 in the MS Records U S Department of State dated December 26 1876 PDF version a b Strauss Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire ISBN 9781317118442 Google Books 198 In the Ottoman Empire the scientific language for Muslims had been traditionally Arabic or Ottoman Turkish But this applied to the traditional sciences ulum Ihsanoglu E and Al Hassani S 2004 The Madrasas of the Ottoman Empire Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation Manchester Mathematics Education in the Balkan Societies Up To the WWI Panaite V 2019 Ottoman Law of War and Peace The Ottoman Empire and Its Tribute Payers from the North of the Danube Brill C Brockelmann Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur Leiden Brill 1937 1949 G II 583 S II 654 Ali Mohammed Farid Principles of issuing fatwa usul al ifta in the Hanafi legal school an annotated translation analysis and edition of sharh uqud rasm al mufti of IbnAbidin Al Shami 2013 Taskomur H 2019 Books on Islamic Jurisprudence Schools of Law and Biographies of Imams from the Hanafi School In Treasures of Knowledge An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library 1502 3 1503 4 2 vols pp 389 422 Brill Peters R 2020 What Does It Mean to Be an Official Madhhab Hanafism and the Ottoman Empire In Sharia Justice and Legal Order pp 585 599 Brill Yildiz S N 2017 A Hanafi law manual in the vernacular Devletoglu Yusuf Baliḳesri s Turkish verse adaptation of the Hidaya Wiqaya textual tradition for the Ottoman Sultan Murad II 824 1424 Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 80 2 pp 283 304 a b c Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 25 PDF p 27 Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 34 PDF p 36 Strauss Johann Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire Chapter 7 In Murphey Rhoads editor Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean Recording the Imprint of Roman Byzantine and Ottoman Rule Routledge 7 July 2016 ISBN 9781317118442 Google Books PT192 a b c d Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 26 PDF p 28 Strauss Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire ISBN 9781317118442 Google Books PT192 and PT193 Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 25 26 PDF p 27 28 Chouinard A M 2010 A Response to Tanzimat Sultan Abdul Hamid II and Pan Islamism Inquiries Journal 2 05 Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 21 PDF p 23 a b Strauss Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire ISBN 9781317118442 Google Books PT 197 Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 32 PDF p 34 a b Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 29 PDF p 31 Balta Evangelia Ayșe Kavak 2018 02 28 Publisher of the newspaper Konstantinoupolis for half a century Following the trail of Dimitris Nikolaidis in the Ottoman archives In Sagaster Borte Theoharis Stavrides Birgitt Hoffmann eds Press and Mass Communication in the Middle East Festschrift for Martin Strohmeier University of Bamberg Press pp 33 ISBN 9783863095277 Volume 12 of Bamberger Orientstudien Cited p 37 Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 31 32 PDF p 33 34 a b Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 33 PDF p 35 Trompoukis Constantinos Lascaratos John 2003 Greek Professors of the Medical School of Constantinople during a Period of Reformation 1839 76 Journal of Medical Biography 11 4 226 231 doi 10 1177 096777200301100411 PMID 14562157 S2CID 11201905 First published November 1 2003 Cited p 226 PDF p 1 5 a b c d Strauss Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire ISBN 9781317118459 p 121 a b c Garnett Lucy Mary Jane Turkish Life in Town and Country G P Putnam s Sons 1904 p 206 Kevorkian Raymond 2008 06 03 The Extermination of Ottoman Armenians by the Young Turk Regime 1915 1916 Sciences Po Retrieved 2020 07 12 these Turkish and Armenian elites both francophone a b c d e Strauss Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire ISBN 9781317118459 p 122 a b c Strauss Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire ISBN 9781317118442 Google Books PT192 Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 26 27 PDF p 28 29 Strauss A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire p 27 PDF p 29 Turkish Yearbook of International Relations Ankara Universitesi Dis Munasebetler Enstitusu 2000 head book says 2000 2 Special Issue of Turkish American Relations Issue 31 Page 13 p 13 Chambre des Conseillers Legistes de la Porte as was their title in French which had after the Crimean War become the official working language of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry Trompoukis Constantinos Lascaratos John 2003 Greek Professors of the Medical School of Constantinople during a Period of Reformation 1839 76 Journal of Medical Biography 11 4 226 231 doi 10 1177 096777200301100411 PMID 14562157 S2CID 11201905 First published November 1 2003 Cited p 228 PDF p 3 5 Strauss Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire ISBN 9781317118442 Google Books PT194 Further reading EditStrauss Johann November 1995 The Millets and the Ottoman Language The Contribution of Ottoman Greeks to Ottoman Letters 19th 20th Centuries Die Welt des Islams Brill 35 2 189 249 doi 10 1163 1570060952597860 JSTOR 1571230 Strauss Johann Diglossie dans le domaine ottoman Evolution et peripeties d une situation linguistique In Vatin Nicolas ed Oral et ecrit dans le monde turco ottoman in French pp 221 255 Compare Revue du Monde Musulman et de la Mediterranee fr nos 75 76 1995 Fredj Claire Quelle langue pour quelle elite Le francais dans le monde medical ottoman a Constantinople 1839 1914 In Gunes Isiksel Emmanuel Szurek eds Turcs et Francais in French pp 73 98 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Languages of the Ottoman Empire amp oldid 1135961782, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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