Karamanlı Turkish ( tr, Karamanlı Türkçesi, el, Καραμανλήδικα, Karamanlídika) is a dialect of the

Turkish language Turkish ( , ), also referred to as Turkish of Turkey (''Türkiye Türkçesi''), is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, with around 80 to 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and Northern Cyprus. Significant sma ...

spoken by the

Karamanlides The Karamanlides ( el, Καραμανλήδες; tr, Karamanlılar), also known as Karamanli Greeks or simply Karamanlis, are a traditionally Turkish-speaking Greek Orthodox people native to the Karaman and Cappadocia regions of Anatolia. Th ...

. Although the official Ottoman Turkish was written in the

Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and th ...

, the Karamanlides used the

Greek alphabet The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BCE. It is derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and was the earliest known alphabetic script to have distinct letters for vowels as ...

to write their form of Turkish. Karamanlı Turkish had its own literary tradition and produced numerous published works in print during the 19th century, some of them published by the

British and Foreign Bible Society The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply the Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world. The So ...

as well as by Evangelinos Misailidis in the Anatoli or Misailidis publishing house. Karamanlı writers and speakers were expelled from Turkey as part of the

Greek-Turkish population exchange The 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey ( el, Ἡ Ἀνταλλαγή, I Antallagí, ota, مبادله, Mübâdele, tr, Mübadele) stemmed from the "Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations" signed at ...

in 1923. Some speakers preserved their language in the diaspora. The written form stopped being used immediately after

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula ...

adopted the

Latin alphabet The Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet is the collection of letters originally used by the ancient Romans to write the Latin language. Largely unaltered with the exception of extensions (such as diacritics), it used to write English and the ...

. A fragment of a manuscript written in Karamanlı was also found in the

Cairo Geniza The Cairo Geniza, alternatively spelled Genizah, is a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the ''genizah'' or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, ...

Sample Text

The following sample text displays the text written in Greek & Latin script from the folk song Konyali, traditionally sung by the

Cappadocian Greeks Cappadocian Greeks also known as Greek Cappadocians ( el, Έλληνες-Καππαδόκες, Ελληνοκαππαδόκες, Καππαδόκες; tr, Kapadokyalı Rumlar) or simply Cappadocians are an ethnic Greek community native to the ...

. :''Χάνι για τ̇α π̇ένιμ έλλι τ̇ίρεμ παστηρμάμ, παστηρμάμ; Κονιαλήτ̇αν τ̇ασ̇κασήνα π̇άστηρμαμ, βαι, βαι! Κονιαλήμ, γιο̇ρο̇! Γιο̇ρο̇ γιαβρούμ, γιο̇ρο̇! Ασλάν γιάρημ, γιο̇ρο̇! Αλτ̇ατήλαρ σένι, βερμετ̇ίλερ π̇ένι!'' :''Hani ya da benim ellide dirhem pastırmam, pastırmam? Konyalıdan başkasına bastırmam vay, vay! Konyalım, Yörü! Yörü yavrum, yörü! Aslan yarım, yörü! Aldattılar seni, vermediler beni!'' :''Hey, hey, where is my 50

Dirhams The dirham, dirhem or dirhm ( ar, درهم) is a silver unit of currency historically and currently used by several Arab and Arab influenced states. The term has also been used as a related unit of mass. Unit of mass The dirham was a un ...

of my

pastirma Pastirma or basturma, also called pastarma, pastourma,, basdirma, or basterma, is a highly seasoned, air-dried cured beef that is found in the cuisines of Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Egypt, and Greece, Iraq and North Macedonia. Etymo ...

, pastirma; I won’t let anyone prepare it (the

) but my Konyali lover! Go on, my Konyali lover! Go for it baby, my beloved lion! You are deceived, they didn’t let you marry me!''

Orthography

Media

There was a Karamanli Turkish newspaper, ''

Anatoli Anatoli ( el, Ανατολή) is a town and a former municipality in the Ioannina regional unit, Epirus, Greece. Since the 2011 local government reform it is part of the municipality Ioannina Ioannina ( el, Ιωάννινα ' ), often call ...

'', published from 1850 to 1922, made by Evangelinos Misailidis. Other publications in Karamanli were ''

Anatol Ahteri Anatol is a masculine given name, derived from the Greek name Ἀνατόλιος ''Anatolius'', meaning "sunrise". The Russian version of the name is Anatoly (also transliterated as Anatoliy and Anatoli). The French version is Anatole. A rarer ...

'', '' Angeliaforos'', '' Angeliaforos coçuklar içun'', ''

Şafak Şafak is a Turkish form of the Iranian name ''Shafaq'' (شفق). Notable people with the name include: Given name: * Şafak Edge (born 1992), Turkish basketball player * Şafak Pavey (born 1976), Turkish politician * Şafak Sezer (born 1970), ...

'', and '' Terakki''. The second and third were created by the

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most imp ...

. Demetrius Nicolaides also applied to make his own Karamanli publication, ''Asya'' ("Asia"), but was denied; he instead made an Ottoman Turkish newspaper called ''

Servet Servet is the Turkish and Albanian (name) People named Servet include: ;Given name * Ethem Servet Boral (1876–1956?), Ottoman officer * Servet Coşkun (born 1990), Turkish sport wrestler * Servet Çetin (born 1981), Turkish footballer * Servet ...

''. Evangelina Baltia and Ayșe Kavak, authors of "Publisher of the newspaper Konstantinoupolis for half a century," wrote that they could find no information explaining why Nicolaides' proposal was turned down.

Works and translations in Karamanli Turkish

Books and translations

Up to 500 works of literature are thought to have been printed in Karamanli. One of the largest distributors of these works was the

which published numerous editions of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (often abbreviated OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew writings by the Israelites. The ...

and the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Chris ...

. A Karamanli author named Anastasios Karakioulaphis translated

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of ...

's ''

Physiognomica ''Physiognomonics'' ( el, Φυσιογνωμονικά; la, Physiognomonica) is an Ancient Greek pseudo-Aristotelian treatise on physiognomy attributed to Aristotle (and part of the Corpus Aristotelicum). Ancient physiognomy before the ''Physi ...

'' from Greek to Karamanli. Other translations include

Confucius Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...

' works and Xavier de Montepin's novels. A great deal of books and works in the Karamanli dialect are preserved in the Centre of Asia Minor Studies in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

Inscriptions

Karamanli inscriptions have been found in many cemeteries in Turkey, most of them in Balıklı. Many of these inscriptions often talk about the humble origins of unimportant craftsmen from

central Anatolia The Central Anatolia Region ( tr, İç Anadolu Bölgesi) is a geographical region of Turkey. The largest city in the region is Ankara. Other big cities are Konya, Kayseri, Eskişehir, Sivas, and Aksaray. Located in Central Turkey, it is b ...

. According to historian

Richard Clogg Richard Clogg (born 1939 at Rochdale) is a British historian. Life Richard Clogg studied history at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated as Master in 1963. From 1969 on, he was teaching modern Greek history at King's College London ...

, these inscriptions offer a "glimpse of a long past world of

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

and Turkish symbiosis".

Sources

Evangelia Balta Evangelia Balta (born 24 July 1955, Kavala) is a Greek historian. Her researches focus on Ottoman socio-economic history, Rûm Orthodox culture in Anatolia, and Karamanlidika Studies. She is an honorary member of the Turkish Historical Society ...

, ''Karamanlı Yazınsal Mirasının Ocaklarında Madencilik'', 2019,

Yapı Kredi Yayınları Yapı Kredi Yayınları (''Yapi Kredi Publications'' in English) is one of the biggest publishing houses Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for f ...

. * —, ''19. Yüzyıl Osmanlıca ve Karamanlıca Yayınlarda Ezop’un Hayatı ve Masalları'' (prep.), 2019,

Libra Kitap Libra generally refers to: * Libra (constellation), a constellation * Libra (astrology), an astrological sign based on the star constellation Libra may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Libra'' (novel), a 1988 novel by Don DeLillo Musi ...

. * —, ''Karamanlıca Kitaplar Çözümlemeli Bibliyografya Cilt I: 1718-1839'' (Karamanlıdıka Bibliographie Analytique Tome I: 1718-1839), 2018, Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları. * —, ''Gerçi Rum İsek de, Rumca Bilmez Türkçe Sözleriz: Karamanlılar ve Karamanlıca Edebiyat Üzerine Araştırmalar'', 2012, Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları.

References

Agglutinative languages Medieval languages Ottoman culture Cappadocian Greeks Writing systems * Languages attested from the 19th century Turkish dialects Turkish language {{Turkic-lang-stub