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From: aolsz@ritz.mordor.com (aolsz)
Subject: Re: First Language Turkish?
References: <123662334.205464382@inform-bbs.dk>
Organization: Mordor International
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 1995 12:12:28 GMT
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Message-ID: <DCzr8s.2rF@ritz.mordor.com>
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OleStig Andersen (OSA@inform-bbs.dk) wrote:
: Background
: Around the turn of the century the Nationalist/Purist language movement
: reached Turkey. Turkish intellectuals purged the Ottoman language of its
: foreign, mainly Arabic and Persian elements, words and grammatical
: constructions in order to obtain a pure Turkish language.
: This development was intensified after the Turkish revolution in the
: beginning of the 1920'es under the leadership of Atatrk, who wanted to turn
: the face of Turkey away from Islam and the Orient and towards the West and
: Progress.
: So parallel to the purging of Arabisc and Persian elements  and lot of
: Western words, mainly French entered the language, leaving something to be
: explained. 
: Atatrk in 1935 put forth the theory of Sun-language to make it acceptable to
: keep loan-words of foreign origin in the otherwise purified Turkish language.

: According to the Sun theory Turkish is the mother of all languages. Where
: Turkish takes a loanword from a foreign language,  Turkish is in fact just
: taking back what rigthfully originated in Turkish. 
: Many fake etymologies were created, e.g. that the word French word tnel were
: in fact of Turkish origin, composed of tn (night) and el (land), i. e. a dark
: place! Greenlandic was another example, since kayak obviously is a corruption
: of the Turkish word kayik, also meaning boat. Niagara too was a Turkish word,
: from Ne yagara! (meaning "What a noise!").
: The "theory" is of course abandoned many years ago, but I find such attempts
: to rationalize nationalist language sentiments fascinating.

: Questions
: Can anybody tell me more about the Sun theory? 
: Who invented the theory? (An Austrian lingvist I have been told. Who?)
: What are the origibal arguments and context of the theory?
: Has it been used in Purist/Nationalist lanmguage mobements of other
: languages?
: Does anybody know of more fake etymologies of the tn-el, Niagara & kayik
: kind?


: Ole Stig Andersen
: Pedagogical Laboratory
: Nyvej 16 B,  1851 Frederiksberg C, Denmark
: tel  +45  33 25 34 94     
: fax  +45  33 25 16 52 
: e-mail   osa@inform-bbs.dk

: - 

I unerstand that the Turks could continue to refer to the NIAGRA FALLS, 
since NAH AGRA means BIG NOISE in Turkish.  QED, the American place name 
is derived from Turkish!
