The Turkish Language Association (, TDK) is the

regulatory body A regulatory agency (regulatory body, regulator) or independent agency (independent regulatory agency) is a government authority that is responsible for exercising autonomous jurisdiction over some area of human activity in a licensing and regu ...

for the

Turkish language Turkish ( , , also known as 'Turkish of Turkey') is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages, a member of Oghuz languages, Oghuz branch with around 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and one of two official languag ...

, founded on 12 July 1932 by the initiative of

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Mustafa Kemal Atatürk ( 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish field marshal and revolutionary statesman who was the founding father of the Republic of Turkey, serving as its first President of Turkey, president from 1923 until Death an ...

and headquartered in

Ankara Ankara is the capital city of Turkey and List of national capitals by area, the largest capital by area in the world. Located in the Central Anatolia Region, central part of Anatolia, the city has a population of 5,290,822 in its urban center ( ...

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

. The Institution acts as the official authority on the language, contributes to linguistic research on Turkish and other

Turkic languages The Turkic languages are a language family of more than 35 documented languages, spoken by the Turkic peoples of Eurasia from Eastern Europe and Southern Europe to Central Asia, East Asia, North Asia (Siberia), and West Asia. The Turkic langua ...

, and is charged with publishing the official dictionary of the language, ''Güncel Türkçe Sözlük''.

Origins

A Language Council ( Turkish: ''Dil Heyeti'') which was established in March 1926 following approval of a draft bill presented by

Education Minister An education minister (sometimes minister of education) is a position in the governments of some countries responsible for dealing with educational matters. Where known, the government department, ministry, or agency that develops policy and deli ...

Mustafa Necati in the Turkish parliament. In 1928 it was tasked with the latinization of the

Turkish alphabet The Turkish alphabet () is a Latin-script alphabet used for writing the Turkish language, consisting of 29 letters, seven of which ( Ç, Ğ, I, İ, Ö, Ş and Ü) have been modified from their Latin originals for the phonetic requirements o ...

. The Language Council would be put under the supervision of a Central Bureau, in which also

Ahmet Cevat Emre Ahmet Cevat Emre (1876–1961) was a Turkish journalist and linguist. He was a member of the Turkish Language Association (TDK) and involved in the latinization of the Turkish alphabet. He also served as a deputy for Çanakkale in the Grand Natio ...

, later the head of the Grammar and Syntax commission of the TDK would take a seat in. Upon request of Prime Minister Ismet Paşa (Inönü) the Language Council attempted to translate the French dictionary ''

Petit Larousse ''Le Petit Larousse Illustré'', commonly known simply as ''Le Petit Larousse'' (), is a French-language encyclopedic dictionary published by Éditions Larousse. It first appeared in 1905 and was edited by Claude Augé, following Augé's '' D ...

'' into Turkish.Aytürk, İlker (2008).p.283 The council then assigned certain words from the new Turkish dictionary to popular Turkish authors and professors of the

Istanbul University Istanbul University, also known as University of Istanbul (), is a Public university, public research university located in Istanbul, Turkey. Founded by Mehmed II on May 30, 1453, a day after Fall of Constantinople, the conquest of Constantinop ...

, the only Turkish university at that time. The professors refused the use of the proposed neologisms which caused some protest by the Language Council to Ismet Paşa. The language council was dissolved in July 1931, after the Turkish parliament canceled their funds over the lack of results.Aytürk, İlker (2008).pp.291–292 Also years after having been tasked to translate the French Larousse, there was no Turkish translation of it.

History

Foundation

The TDK was established on 12 July 1932, initially under the name ''Türk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti'' (Society for Research on the Turkish Language) by the initiative of Atatürk, president of the

Republic of Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, Samih Rıfat, Ruşen Eşref Ünaydın, Celâl Sahir Erozan and Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu, all prominent names in the literature of the period and members of the

Grand National Assembly of Turkey The Grand National Assembly of Turkey ( ), usually referred to simply as the GNAT or TBMM, also referred to as , in Turkish, is the Unicameralism, unicameral Turkey, Turkish legislature. It is the sole body given the legislative prerogatives by ...

. Following the establishment of the TDK,

called for the purification of the Turkish language, in order to remove the "yoke of the foreign tongues“. The first president of the association was Samih Rıfat, the first secretary general was Ruşen Eşref Ünaydın, the head specialist was Abdülkadir İnan and the head western languages specialist was Agop Dilaçar. The institution's name was changed to ''Turkish Language Research Institute'' in 1934, and it became the Turkish Language Institution in 1936.

Functions

The institution heads academic linguistic research in Turkey into the Turkish language and its sister

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. In the 1930s the Hittite and Sumerian languages were also included into the group of Turkish languages, while the origin of

Indo-European The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the northern Indian subcontinent, most of Europe, and the Iranian plateau with additional native branches found in regions such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives, parts of Central Asia (e. ...

and

Semitic language The Semitic languages are a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. They include Arabic, Amharic, Tigrinya, Aramaic, Hebrew, Maltese, Modern South Arabian languages and numerous other ancient and modern languages. They are spoken by mo ...

was disputed. At the same time, the Association led campaigns to replace the

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

s in the Turkish language. During the 3rd Congress the

Sun Language Theory The Sun Language Theory () was a Turkish pseudolinguistic, pseudoscientific quasi-hypothesis developed in Turkey in the 1930s that proposed that all human languages are descendants of one proto-Turkic primal language. The theory's promotion ...

was presented according to which the Ural-Altaic, Indo-European and Semitic languages had their source in the Turkish language. And since Turkish was the source of all languages, loanwords could further on persist and French loanwords were adopted more frequently. Recently however, the attention of the institution has been turned towards the persistent infiltration of Turkish, like many other languages, with English words, as a result of the globalization process. Since the 1980s, TDK campaigns for the use of Turkish equivalents of these new English loanwords. It also has the task of coining such words from existing Turkish roots if no such equivalents exist, and actively promoting the adoption of these new coinages instead of their English equivalents in the daily lives of the Turkish population. TDK claims it doesn't coin Turkish equivalent words for foreign words which are already rooted deep down in the language such as "kalem (pencil,pen rom Arabic,kitap (book rom Arabic, radyo (radio rom French, televizyon (television rom French" but recently borrowed words such as "computer (bilgisayar it. information counter, icetea (buzlu çay it. tea with ice, flash memory (taşınabilir bellek it. portable memory". Turkey currently doesn't have a legal framework to enforce by law the recommendations of TDK in public life (contrary to

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, for example). On the other hand, there is a bill that is in consideration in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey at the moment that would give TDK and the Ministries of Education and Culture the tools to enforce legally the labelling of Turkish equivalents of these words next to their foreign counterparts, particularly in the news media, advertising, and commercial communications. Several members of the TDK support the implementation of a pure Turkish for daily use.

Publications

In 1935 it published an

Ottoman Turkish Ottoman Turkish (, ; ) was the standardized register of the Turkish language in the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian. It was written in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet. ...

/Pure Turkish dictionary to show the improvements of the language reform. It publishes ''Türkçe Sözlük'', the official Turkish dictionary, and ''Yazım Kılavuzu'', the Turkish writing guide, in addition to many other specialized dictionaries, linguistics books and several periodicals. The institution, in addition to maintaining ''Güncel Türkçe Sözlük'' has published more than 850 linguistics related books, mainly consisting of studies on

, specialized dictionaries,

philological Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

books, and works of

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

. TDK also publishes ''Türk Dili'', a journal on Turkish literature, since 1951, ''Belleten'', the annual journal on Turkic languages, since 1953, and ''Türk Dünyası'', another periodical published twice a year on Turkish language and literature since 1996.

Controversies

The TDK allegedly changed the definition of the word "çapulcu" (plunderer) to "the one who acts deviant against the order, the one who ruins the order", after Erdoğan used the word against protesters in the Gezi Park events, this has caused controversy. The change has been criticized stating that the TDK was unsuccessful in finding the relationship between the word and its root "çapul" (plunder) along with other synonyms such as "plaçkacı" and "yağmacı", both meaning "looter". TDK rejected the claims that the word had been changed.

References

External links

Türk Dil Kurumu
the official site of the institution
Kitaplar
the list of published books by TDK
Süreli Yayınlar Listesi
the list of periodicals published by TDK {{authority control Turkish language Language regulators Mustafa Kemal Atatürk Organizations based in Ankara Organizations established in 1932 1932 establishments in Turkey Government agencies of Turkey