Journal of Turkish Studies
Vol. 30/III, 2006. pp. 147-174
DENSITY OF WESTERN LOAN-WORDS IN TURKISH
INTRODUCTION
Whether for assessment of the present situation or for satisfaction of academic curiosity,
whether for understanding problems and propose solutions, it is necessary to obtain consistent
ideas and put forward correct diagnoses on the state of Turkish language. As in all other fields, it
is necessary to depend on data and analysis that is the common characteristic of all branches of
science in order to reach sound inferences and avoid subjective discussions that lead nowhere. As
it is not possible to reach correct results by the use of common sense without applying Statistics
and mathematical formulae to the data obtained by suitable methods, it is also impossible to
substitute only a skilful manipulation of data relying on statistical methods for common sense.
Therefore it is essential to choose the appropriate data for clarification of the subject and
representation of the population interested. On the other hand one must apply the most
appropriate analytical methods on them and must adhere to common sense and logic in the
process of inference.
There are former works carried out by various authors who rely on numerical evaluations.
But most of them are oriented to prove the success of purification efforts of the language and
generally overlook Western loan-words. Moreover, these studies contend with giving tabular and
percentage representations of data and do not attempt hypothesis testing and statistical
evaluations in interpretation of results. By methodological errors of sampling procedures texts
chosen by some researchers belong to different fields and forms, therefore their comparison leads
to unreliable results.
This study deals with the density of Western loan-words in Turkish with respect to time
based on numerical data. For this aim a long etymological study is carried out, and later on at the
end of investigations taking nearly thirty years text samples from 561 novels of 82 of our
novelists are studied. The analysis of a data of this volume has been feasible only by the use of
computer. At the end of this most comrehensive study in the area, the Western loan-words
obtained are coded in the IBM 4381 mainframe computer of Atatürk University Computer
Science Research and Application Center with respect to the year, author and novel of the sample
texts to which they belong. Words of different kinds are determined and ordered alphabetically
by our computer programs written in Fortran-77, furthermore by the use of statistical analyses the
increases and decreases of proportions of foreign words as a whole and different languages are
investigated respectively and represented by suitable equations as a funtion of time.
The study first deals with the historical trend of western loan-words by an overall
evaluation of the situation arised since our settlement in Anatolia. The period following
Tanzimat in which the concentration started to increase significantly is studied in detail and rates
foreign words in Turkish novel are described by tables and graphs. In these explanations
technical details are reduced to a minimum and contented with presentation of results.
HISTORICAL TREND OF WESTERN LOAN-WORDS IN TURKISH
In exploring the historical course of western loan-words in Turkish, it is necessary to study
various periods starting from the first era of settlement of Turks in Anatolia up to present days.
But the number of ancient texts is quite limited in our society where oral communication
prevails. Therefore it does not seem possible to go back to early periods in a study aiming
comparative numeric evaluations. This necessitated using only some descriptive expressions
about these periods. It may be said that only the use of printing eased the analytical works. Hence
in recent periods, it is possible to determine which foreign words appeared and which foreign
words disappeared in certain years. Alienation process of our language in Western direction may
be summarized under three headings: The First Era, Ottoman Time After Stationary Period and
Republican Era.
FIRST ERA
The language of every nation had been in a continous interaction with other languages
during the history. After the conversion of Turks into Islam, the effect of Arabic and Persian
increased in the language. After the adoption of Anatolia as the homeland, it had not been
possible to avoid effects of languages of local nations and people.
As summarized by Özön (1962) and Korkmaz (1995) with the settlement of Turks in
Eastern Anatolia in eleventh century, a lot of words started to enter to Turkish from the Greek
and Armenians situated within Byzantine Empire. Names of several objects and concepts which
did not exist in nomadic life entered to Turkish. In the following centuries, in addition to words
related to architecture and environmet of settled life-style, several names of newly met fruits,
vegetables and other foods were adopted. After the emergence of Ottoman Empire in the
fourteenth century, by passage to Rumeli and in following centuries Serbs, Slavs, Hungarians,
Germans and Romens, and by reaching to Black Sea and Mediterranian coasts Genoese,
Venetian, Portugese and Spanish were met. From languages of all these people and nations words
entered to Turkish. Several words related to sailing and commerce were transferred from Italian
through relations with Genoese and Venetians.
Among these words, the operative ones were assimilated and adapted to the sound
structure of the language through centuries to such an extent that they can be identified as foreign
words only after etymologic inspection. In this context the following examples may be
mentioned related to construction and housing: anahtar, avlu, badana, bodrum, iskemle, kalas,
kanepe, kerevet, kiler, kilit, kiremit, kodes, kulube, kümes, manastır, mandıra, masa, mazgal,
mermer, mertek, mobilya, moloz, salaş, temel, tente, tuğla. Examples of plant, vegetable fruit and
food names are: ahlat, ananas, bezelye, boğaça, cacık, çağla, çemen, çerez, defne, fasulye, fındık,
fidan, francala, havyar, ıhlamur, ıspanak, ıstakoz, karanfil, kaşar, kenevir, kestane, kiraz,
kumanya, lahana, lapa, leylak, limon, lüfer, marul, midye, muşmula, palamut, pancar, papara,
papatya, peksimet, pırasa, pide, pirzola, portakal, reçine, salça, simit, somun, uskumru. While the
following were taken related to dress and finery: çuha, elmas, fanila, kanaviçe, kopça, kundura,
patik, pırlanta, şayak, takunya, tela, uruba; the following names were taken for various tools and
objects: baston, bavul, billur, cendere, cımbız, cıvata, çapa, çelenk, fener, fıçı, fırça, gocuk, haç,
halat, harita, huni, ığrıp, ısgara, kama, kandil, kasatura, kerata, kınnap, kukla, kulp, kumbara,
kutu, lamba, mandal, mancınık, manivela, masura, mengene, mıknatıs, misket, olta, pulluk,
pusula, sabun, sini, soba, susta, sünger, tabaka (for tobacco), tabla, tapa, tasma, tela, teneke,
tırpan, tulumba, üsküf, varil, varyos, vida, vinç. Some of these loan-words, such as: billur, çerez,
çuha, elmas, fener, fırın, tavla, tavus reached to Turkish from Greek and Latin via Arabic and
Persian. Thus, their etymology is disputed.
Following the Jewish immigration from Spain to Ottoman Empire, several Spanish and
Italian words entered after the 16th century related to semantic fields of medicine and commerce.
In the same century a serious French influence on Turkish started to emerge as a result of
friendly relations established with France through capitulations. Even after Tanzimat the general
perception of West consisted of France. Several educated and noble people were closely
acquainted with the culture and language of France. Even today most of the Western loan-words
are used according to their pronunciation in French. Only after the emergence of a dense
American influence this rule began to be violated recently.
Because of their subjects, Popular, Divan and Sufistic literatures were not suitable for the
usage of Western origin words. For example in Yunus Emre, a few well assimilated and familiar
words of Greek origin were found such as kandil, mermer, poyraz, Rum, sınır and badya which
closely resembles to the Persian word ‘bade’. As a poet dealing more with worldly subjects,
Karacaoğlan has more Western words: Ağustos, avlu, billur, çerez, efendi, elmas, fener, fındık,
fırtına, furun, fidan, firenk, hoyrat, kandil, karanfil, kıral, kiraz, kutu, mermer, Nemse, patrik,
portakal, poyraz, tavla, tavus, tül. Except the French word tül all others are of Latin, Italian,
Greek and Slavic origin.
RETROGRESSION ERA AND AFTERMATH
By the start of retrogression era, the admiration feelings towards Western civilization
caused the consideration of the foreign language knowledge and usage of words from these
languages as a merit. The Ottoman Empire, which formerly remained indifferent to European
countries, later started to send ambassadors. Ambassadorial chronicles narrating France,
Germany and Russia contain numerous foreign words. Among these chronicles those of
Yirmisekiz Mehmet Çelebi, Resmî Efendi and Nahifî Efendi must be mentioned. Şimşir (1992)
gives general information on these relations which started at political field and gradually shifted
towards culture: Ottoman Empire, having only five embassies at foreign countries until
Tanzimat, opened nine more in this period and sent ambassadors to almost all European capitals
and the United States of America. The number of these embassies flourishing rapidly, reached to
48 in the Islands of Great Britain and to 52 in Italy. Even on a single island, Sicily, 9 Ottoman
consulates were open. In Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ottoman foreign envoys Latin
alphabet was used. Our diplomats began to use French not only in their correspondence with
foreigners but also among themselves. The official language of Foreign Affairs became French.
As 1956 Paris Treaty declared that Ottoman Empire would benefit from European law, Empire
was officially and juridically accepted among European states. From that time on Ottoman
representatives began to attend to almost every meeting in Europe. Western languages are being
learned, students are sent, technicians are being accepted from there. By these frequent relations
French spreads as a second language in Ottoman Empire.
Until 1727, foundation date of printing houses, word tranfers were mainly in spoken
language and remained local. Possibilities provided by printing houses, enabled written language
to play a more prominent role in introduction of foreign words to the language and their
propagation. The effect of written language started to be felt more strongly by orientation of
several state institutions and intellectuals to the West. Shortly before the declaration of Tanzimat,
a Traduction Office was established in Bab-i Ali and western works of thought and litterature
started to be translated into Turkish. Through these works, words having no correspondent in
Turkish were introduced. New litterary types such as novel, play and critics were bringing
different ideas and thoughts with them. Since 1831 our society became familiar with newspaper.
During the 1870’s these litterary types, in conjunction with the rising interest in society towards
Western culture, caused a new speedy alienation in language as they were published and spread
via newspaper serials and books.
AFTER THE REPUBLIC
During the period of Republic, the relations with West increased in all areas such as trade,
culture, education and defense. New discoveries arose by the fast advent of science and
technology and were imported with their Western names. Teaching of foreign languages spread,
the number of primary, middle and higher institutions giving education in foreign languages
increased. Relative weight of Western languages increased in scientific terminology. Even the
adoption of Greek and Latin as source languages instead of Arabic and Persian was defended.
During the language reform, some words of Western origin replaced several Arabic and Persian
words discarded, during the activity of collection from local dialects several foreign (mainly
Greek and Armenian) words were introduced into the language inadvertantly. Meanwhile the
frequency of travels out of country for education and tourism, and the ratio of Turkish citizens
residing in foreign counties increased also. The number of foreigners coming to the country
increased consistently as well as the number of international and multi-national companies. The
majority of loanwords in this period are of French origin. However after the 1950’s, entrance of
English words has accelerated due to American influence. After 1980’s American influence
became more apparent, radio and television broadcasts in English increased, and foreign names
given to trade offices became popular
Investigating the increase of the relative frequency of Western origin words in Turkish within
time and presenting objective data on this subject is a difficult task. Language exhibits variations
depending on different classes and environment. The foreign words circulating among lawyers
are different than those of doctors or merchants. Therefore changes in social structure,
industrialization, urbanization, migrations, differentiations in education system, enhanced the
differences in the society with respect to language.
EVALUATION OF FOREIGN WORD DENSITY
One way to assess the number of words that entered to the language in different time periods
is to scan dictionaries prepared in those periods. By inspecting only the letter “A”, Ünver (1991)
stated that there were 120 Western origin words in İmla Lügati prepared by Dil Encümeni in
1928 whereas in Türkçe Sözlük following this with 30 year intervals had 320 and 515 foreign
words in 1958 and 1988 reprints respectively. But these evaluations relying on dictionaries have
some drawbacks. First of all, etymologies stated by these dictionaries designed for foreign words
depend on the knowledge and opinions of authors on the subject. In addition, since all
dictionaries are not equally detailed, while some of them cover rare words others have a very
restricted scope. Finally, since the usage frequencies of words are not equal, there is a substantial
discrepancy between proportions calculated from dictionaries and those calculated from samples
representing written or oral language
Western loan-words in Turkish are shown in some dictionaries. As etymologies of several
words are not well known, there are disagreements between these dictionaries. Lehçet-ül Lügat
of Mehmet Esat Efendi printed in 1811, considers several Greek words as Turkish. The TurkishEnglish Dictionary by Sir James Redhouse gives more reliable information on this subject. This
is followed by Lehce-i Osmanî of Ahmet Vefik Paşa and Lugat-i Ecnebiye İlaveli Lugat-i
Osmaniye of Dr. Hüseyin Remzi published in 1880 which contained around 500 foreign words.
Şemseddin Sami, the author of Kamus-i Türkî also reported origin of several words. The
dictionary of Ahmet Hamdi named Lugat-i Ecnebiye and published in Trabzon in 1907
assembled about 750 words. Kerestedjian (1912), in etymology dictionary published at London,
pointed out about 350 foreign words. In Ali Seydi’s work Lisan-i Osmanide Mustamel Lugat-i
Ecnebiye, printed in Matbaa-i Reşadiye, about 1300 foreign words are presented. In addition to
the formers, the dictionary edited by M. Baha at 1923 shows words of Western origin entered to
written language after 1910.
In all branches of science the way to reach correct results passes through obtaining
reliable data. Since the collection of the complete set of relevant data on the subject interested
takes extremely long time and is very costly, it is not feasible. Nowadays by using powerful and
reliable statistical methods and by conducting suitable sampling studies with a small proportion,
research workers are able to reach correct decisions. In order to get reliable results from
sampling, the frame of the subject of interest must be drawn correctly. The main-body expressed
by the word “language” and consisted of words, exhibits an extremely complex structure.
Demographic factors such as education, settlement, gender, age and profession brings about
differences in language characteristics in different sections of society. On the other hand the
subject of interest renders functional words from certain semantic fields. There is great difference
between sports page and economy page or between news and editorials of a newspaper. There is
also language difference between various literary types. There is a great difference in the
languages of various literary types such as poetry, story, novel, play, essay or article even when
they treat the same subject. The same issue is valid for written and oral languages. The texts of
science, art, entertainment and various communication areas cannot have the same language.
Because of all these reasons the meaning of “language” must be clearly stated in order to avoid
ambiguity in the concept of “Foreign words in the language”. The best approach in this context
is to obtain an intersection common to languages of all social sections of the society. But this is
the definition of living language. It is reasonable to argue that novels and stories reflect the living
language very effectively. Therefore in our work samples are taken from novels.
Although in a modest scale, some authors interested with purification of Turkish resorted
to sampling. But it can not be said that these are qualitatively and quantitatively sufficient. These
researches, contented with some enumerations and percentages, did not use any hypothesis
testing or mathematical model. In a forum, by comparing two issues of Akşam newspaper
published in 1925 and 1962 respectively, Konur Ertop tries to explain the purification of the
language (TDK, 1962). By studying samples of size 3000 words each from works of various
authors, Aksoy (1973) also argues that foreign words are decreasing in written language, because
the proportion of Turkish words was 33% in Şinasi, 34% in Ziya Paşa, 38% in Namık Kemal,
35% in Atatürk’s Nutuk, but it rose steadily over time to reach 59% in Faruk Kadri Timurtaş,
62% in Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Falih Rıfkı Atay and Peyami Safa, 66% in Yakup Kadri, 67% in
Sait Faik, 73% in H. Veldet Velidedeoğlu, 80% in Yaşar Nabi, 81% in Salah Birsel and Asım
Bezirci, 84% in Tahsin Saraç, Yaşar Kemal and Samim Kocagöz, 91% in Adnan Binyazar and
Emin Özdemir. But the reader must be reminded that since the samples of moderate sizes
evaluated in Aksoy’s study are drawn from different fields and literary types, they are not
comparable. By conducting a large and systematic quantitative research and giving percentages
on issues of five newspapers printed in 1930-1965, five magazines, eleven novels and stories,
İmer (1973) presents tables showing the decrease in Arabic and Persian word and increase in
Turkish words. In this work too the situation of western words is overlooked. Because everything
except Arabic, Persian and Turkish are classified under the name of “Other foreign languages”.
ETYMOLOGY
In order to reach valid results in our research, it was necessary to identify the etymologies
correctly. Therefore a long time was devoted to this stage and the necessary care was given. Over
time, the information was revised continuously using new etymology resources. The references
used are as follows:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
Büyük Türk Lügati, Hüseyin Kâzım Kadrî
Türkçe Yabancı Kelimeler Sözlüğü, Mustafa Nihat Özön
Türkçe Sözlük, Atatürk Kültür, Dil ve Tarih Yüksek Kurumu
Kamus-i Türkî, Şemseddin Sami
Meydan Larus, 14 volumes,
Okyanus, Ansiklopedik Sözlük, Pars Tuğlacı, 6 volumes,
Redhouse, Yeni Türkçe-İngilizce Sözlük, Sir James Redhouse
Türk Dilinin Etimolojik Sözlüğü, Hasan Eren
But the sources giving information on foreign words are not restricted to these. There are
different lists in Korkmaz (1995), Dankoff (1991), Dankoff (1995), Muallimoğlu (1999) and many
other researchers.
SOME DIFFICULTIES
It must be stressed that etymology is one of the most difficult aspects of this study. First
of all, there is not a complete consent between sources. There has been a continuous interaction
between languages throughout history. Although various sources agree on the words borrowed
recently, they disagree on those entered long time ago. Moreover, several words in English,
French or German were taken from the colonial languages and originated from aboriginal
populations of America, Australia and Africa or Eskimos: alpaka, ananas, anorak, domates,
hamak, kanguru, kakao, kauçuk, koka, lama, mokasen, maun, patates, puma, samba, sigara,
şempanze, totem are some examples. These are counted as form the mediator languages. Some
words were taken from Latin or Greek through Arabic. On the contrary there are Arabic, Persian,
Indian, Japanese even Turkish words passed to Western languages and after taking a different
form returned to our language. Especially several words belonging to Persian, an Indo-European
language, can be confused with their Western similar. The following words starting with letters A
and B are some examples: abanoz, afyon, alay, Avrupa, balet, bergamut, bilet, billur, bora, borda,
bukalemun. There is not a complete agreement on the etymology of these words. In preface of his
dictionary, M. N. Özön states that his work has not any scientific claim and aims to be a
reference book for interested readers and a source of material for researchers. In treating the
historical developments, he identifies ‘kaldırım’ as a foreign word. While Özön states that
‘kabak’ is derived from the Italian word ‘capoccia’, Eren (1999) by comparing with other
Turkish dialects identifies it as a Turkish word. In Özön About thirty words such as çanta, çiriş,
çomar, davlumbaz, hırızma, kabara are considered as foreign of unknown origin. Muallimoğlu
(1999) who presents foreign word lists, considers ‘felsefe’ and ‘musiki’ as Arabic and ‘fışkı’ as
Turkish. On the other hand, ‘kambur’ is listed among both Arabic and Turkish words. ‘Demet’,
‘omuz’ and ‘boru’ are counted as Greek in the text but were not included in the list. ‘Tedavi’ was
claimed as a Greek word and alçı, biber, çelebi, çerçi, testi and uğur as Latin. ‘Peçe’ is included
both in Greek and Italian lists. According to Okyanus ‘sıra’ is from Greek. Some writers
considered ‘örnek’ as Armenian after Kerestedjian (1912). These demonstrate that etymology is a
very difficult branch. Eren devoted a large space to this subject in foreword of his etymology
dictionary and pointed out several mistakes in works of Bedros Kerestedjian, İsmet Zeki
Eyuboğlu and Martti Rasanen. Under the light of these information obtained from different
sources, sampling technique was applied in compliance with the principles presented below.
Later, the foreign words found were arranged as a list, their origins are written at their front and
constructing a file with two columns necessary counting and calculations were carried out by
using a computer.
In the 70’s when this study started there were no scanners yet. Today’s tools made
sampling and counting operations easier. But the usage of scanners can not be justified due to
several reasons. First of all for correct scanning, pages should not contain ink spots or other
traces and printing errors. The scanning of books printed before the adoption Latin alphabet
creates a great problem by itself. This task requires test recognition software for the Arabic
alphabet. Moreover, the research worker must read the samples to be inspected thoroughly and
must understand contextual meanings of words clearly. Otherwise etymological evaluations
based on the lists obtained by scanning a text using a computer may give misleading results. This
situation arises because of words with the same spelling but different meanings. Most of these are
names as root words, but there are also verbs, adjectives and other types such as: alay, arş, as,
atak, aya, bar, bas, bazen, bek, bere, bluz, bol, bot, boy, cin, çek, dalya, dam, din, diyet, don, duy,
fars, felek, firengi, fit, fon, fors, funda, gam, getir, gine, gönder, gurup, hal, halat, harp, havlu,
her, humus, hoyrat, inbat, kalite, kanun, kap, kaput, karga, karine, kart, kast, katır, kaval, kazak,
kent, kerte, kırat, koç, kok, koli, kot, koz, kundak, kur, kurs, kuş, küp, lak, lavta, leh, levend,
manda, mani, manti, masif, mat, mayıs, meç, metro, meze, mi, mil, mis, misket, ortanca, palan,
palas, pas, pat, pens, pirinç, pişti, plak, prova, pul, punt, pus, pusula, put, safra, saka, sal, salta,
sandal, sari, sen, ser, seri, set, sol, somun, sör, spor, step, şan, şap, şık, tabaka, taç, tambur, tavla,
teskere, tez, toka, tuba, üre, yat, yeke. There are also examples gained similarity by suffixes or
abridgements: aksa, aksan, alman, astım, banka, barka, batman, benzin, bora, boru, boyar,
çapa, dama, dara, delir, desen, dikiz, dolar, dona, ekip, ekler, eksen, file, filim, fonda, fondan,
forma, forsa, gama, kalası, kana, kanca, kaptan, karta, kasa, kaşa, katana, koka, kola,
korsan, korta, kupa, kura, kurda, kurun, kursa, kursun, kuru, küfe, küre, maça, malta,
marka, martı, nota, parka, parsa, pasa, pata, pisin, pota, pulluk, rampa, reye, seren, rota,
sele, sivilce, sonda, taksa, taksim, tarasa, terim, tipi, toka, tuğla, tura, volta, tel (iplik) –
tel(graf) are some examples. Further examples from each class can be enumerated. In studies
relying on automatic evaluation of texts, these factors must be taken into account.
Another factor posing difficulty in the usage of scanners is the ongoing chaos in the
spelling of foreign words. Several words are written differently by different authors or in various
times. For example the word ‘pantolon’ was in the form ‘pantalon’ earlier. Still there are
hundreds of words with different spellings. In these, letters with similar sounds replace each
other or they are adapted to their pronunciations in foreign languages such as: Ciklet - çiklet,
şimendifer – şömendifer – şümendüfer, istimbot-istinbot, izgara – ızgara – ıskara, ancüez –
ançuyez – anşuva, candarma – jandarma, cip – jip, sigara –sıgara, egsos – egsoz – egzos – egzoz
– eksos – eksoz – ekzos – ekzoz, diretnot – drednot - dretnot – dritnavt. Sometimes letters are
swapped like: şartel – şalter. There are words preserving their foreign spelling such as: jip – jeep,
Şevrole – Chevrolet, Cemse – GMC, Doç – Dodge, fit – feet, grizet – grisette, restoran –
restaurant – restorant, naylon – nylon. These writings sometimes go beyond a spelling problem
and change the source language from which the word is taken. Such as: Santimetre – santimetro,
kopya – kopye, dantel – dantela, gitar – kitara, minor – minör, pandomim – pandomima, peruk –
peruka. Some authors write the foreign words as in popular language, like cıgara – cigara –
cuvara, caket – çeket, pevlika.
Compound words too create a difficulty in counting. Differences are observed in
concatenated words depending on writers and periods. These are counted as a single-word during
enumeration such as: Birkaç, herhalde, delikanlı, suikastçi, berhayat, gökyüzü, robdöşambr,
şezlong, kartpostal... On the other hand compound words may be hybrids of two languages, one
belonging to a Western language: hanımefendi, başgardiyan, başkomiser, başkumandan,
beyefendi, birahane, borazan, gazocağı, gazyağı, havagazı, karaborsa, konsoloshane,
marangozhane, musikişinas, ortahaf, pastane, postane, sporsever and telgrafhane. These are
treated as coming from the Western language from which they contain a word. Since borsa is
Italian, karaborsa is also considered so. Another set of words creating difficulty consists of
abbreviations. These are counted from the language of the words abbreviated. But main problem
is that some letters may not represent foreign words, as in AP, CHP, DİSK, RTÜK, TRT. In the
first two abbreviations Parti is French. Hence these abbreviations are counted as French.
Evaluation of proper names deserves special attention too. In this work not proper names
indicting a person, city, river, mountain but those indicating a continent, sea, country, nation,
race or language are considered foreign. For example, not the words George, Paris, Ren, Etna…
but, Avustralya, Atlas Okyanusu, İngiltere, Fransız, German, İspanyolca... are considered as
foreign.
Despite of all these evaluations, there remained about 500 words difficult to determine the
origin. Some of these are patented words or abbreviations derived from Greek and Latin roots
and are mostly used in pharmacy and chemistry such as: eternit, vinileks, losonil, mogadon,
neskafe, alujel, kardilat, nuvokain, nidilat, pentatol, mergal, diyazem, lyosol, mitol, DDT, DNA,
DDVP. Several words are being used as trade marks although they are person, place, institution,
or object names: Nacar, Hanomak, Ford, Nagant, Ronson, MAN, Montofon, Movado,
Serkldoryan, Zenit, Kodak and Brovning are some of these. There are even such trade marks
settled in our language that replaced the genuine names of the objects such as jilet (Gilette),
cemse (GMC), reo, kaleşnikof, cip (Jeep). The solution for trade marks is to consider them from
the language of their names. In spite of all these classifications some words still remain obscure,
such as: Mansila, komparsita, agaragora, lolotya, digustrin, oçiçorniya, külverine, şakulta,
kantalup. Their number is around 200 and they are coded under the name ‘foreign words of
unknown origin’. As they are very few in number, they do not have a significance to influence
global results of our research.
At last, it must be stressed that there is still a long way to go in etimology studies. The
emergence dates of words must be determined by depending on old texts. In this respect as a
researcher using the etimology only as it is determined by experts, I would like to express my
doubst on several words. For example the words parlak and parlamak are given as onomatopés.
But other dialects and tongs of our language must be evaluated carefully in this respect. Because
the resemblance with words pırlanta or brillant causes some doubts. The same argument is valid
for mini mini minnacık and minik. What is their relation with the words minima, minimum,
minimal? What is the familiarity of words bebe and bebek with pupa and pup? The similarity
between reis and roi draws attention. Similarity of the word “pars” which is claimed in sources as
Persian, and the Latin word “felis pardus” invokes doubts. These examples may be increased.
SAMPLING
It is necessary to take samples from various texts in order to determine the density of
Western loan-words. But since different sources will make the comparison difficult, the samples
must belong to the same literary type. On the other hand novel and story are the closest written
works to living language. Being the language used and understood by the majority of the people
in their daily life, living language may be considered as the intersection of vocabularies of
different sections and groups. Novel and story target large reader populations. For the popularity
of the writer and profit of the publisher this is unavoidable. Although there are examples
addressing to narrow sections, these are exceptions compared to other literary types. As it
contains larger texts, novel was considered a more appropriate material compared to story for
sampling purposes and, in our present study a period longer than a century was investigated
starting from the years of 1870’s where the first novels emerged in our language. The oldest
novel included in this sampling was the work Taaşşuk-i Talat ve Fıtnat of Şemsettin Sami. The
most recent ones are dated 1999. In order to demonstrate the transformation process in the
language and to explain the future results of alienation accelerated with Tanzimat, our sampling
covered a large slice of time. To exhibit contributions of different authors, 560 novels of 82
writers are studied by executing counts on samples of 500 words each taken from randomly
chosen pages to account for one-tenth of the text. In order to be able to assess the variations in
the language of each writer, a special care spent for conducting the sampling from works written
in different years.
This study started at 1972 and sampling efforts continued until the end of 1999. In the
statistical sense of the word, the texts from which the samples are drawn constitute a multi-strata
population. The main strata are the writers. The sub strata are the novels of particular writers.
The choice of writers and novels was not accomplished according to a completely random
design, since care was given to choose novels of 82 writers printed in different years. The first
print of each novel was studied. When the first print was not available, later prints were
investigated provided they were stated to be identical to the first printing, and the results were
confirmed with the first prints found later. Almost all of the books printed in Arabic letters were
found in Seyfettin Özege Library of Atatürk University, and the rare books printed in Latin
alphabet were found in National Library and Adnan Ötüken Library in Ankara. The choice of
text samples from a novel is accomplished according to systematic sampling. The result was a
multiple-stratified systematic sampling (Cochran, 1962). Application of systematic sampling to a
novel requires non existence of periodical style fluctuation parallel to sampling intervals. There
seems no reasonable cause for violation of this assumption.
Sampling density is 1/10. Therefore from a novel of 400 pages, for example, 40 pages are
read on the average. When the text was read, all words of Western origin are written down and
arranged in alphabetical order for each sample. The first sample was drawn from the beginning
pages of the novel. After examination of a text containing 500 words, its length was measured
and multiplied by 10 in order to decide on the number of pages to skip and page to start the
second sample. For example the text of novel Karnaval of Ahmet Mithat Efendi published at
Tercüman-ı Hakikat printing house at year1298 Hegira was sampled starting from page 15. As
the first 500 words covered 1.6 pages, the second sample started from the page 31 (=15+10x1.6).
The second sample was 1.7 pages long therefore the third text started from page 48. By this way,
from this work of length 255 pages 15 samples are taken starting at the beginning of pages 15,
31, 48, 64, 80, 97, 114, 130, 147, 164, 181, 201, 217, 235, and 253. In this case total sample
length summed up to 25.6 pages, which is approximately 1/10 of novel. In fact, the conventional
method in systematic sampling is to enumerate the sampling units first, then make selection
among them with definite intervals. But since this procedure would require reading the whole
novel and counting the words before sampling, the profit and ease expected from sampling would
not be realized, since the number of words may change in every page, depending on the number
of paragraphs and lengths of sentences. The procedure applied here destroys the dependence of
all texts on the first sampled piece and secures the randomness to a greater extent in particular for
large novels.
By that way, a very rich sample material scattered to various points over more than a
century was obtained. In order to give an idea on the scale of the study, we indicate that there
were a total of 3,150,000 words in 6300 samples, corresponding to approximately 16,000 book
pages when calculated 200 words per page in average. Such an immense material deserves to be
considered from several different angles, and evaluation of the files built in the computer will
continue in future.
Data obtained from 280 of these 560 novels are evaluated earlier and presented as a paper
in the Fourth International Turcology Congress (Sezgin, 1982), and was later published in the
book titled Dil ve Edebiyatta Bilgisayar ve İstatistik Uygulamaları (Sezgin, 1993). Still another
evaluation dealing with the results of 280 novels written before 1980 was interpreted from a
different point of view in Osmanlı Ansiklopedisi (Sezgin, 1999). Here the increase of Western
loan-words is assessed with respect to time. Graphs prepared for this purpose are presented in
figures 1 and 2. Figure 1 shows total words of Western origin seen in samples of size 500 words
taken from the novels. The same word (or words derived from the same root) may be repeated
several times in a text. Therefore it is informative to look at word varieties too. The increase of
word varieties is seen in Figure 2. In our statistical analysis the regression coefficients of total
words and word types against time were 0.068 and 0.045 respectively. These values correspond
to yearly increase rate of foreign words. This means before 1980 the total number of Western
origin words in text samples of size 500 words increased on the average 0.068. This, in turn,
corresponds to a 0.136 per thousand of yearly increase. In comparison to the life of languages,
this indicates a serious invasion. Another fact pronounced by graphs, is the stylistic controversy
observed in the language since Tanzimat. The points are almost situated in a fan constantly
enlarging rightward. While Before 1880 there were 6-7 kind of different western origin words in
a text of size 500 words using Western words excessively, this number rose to 10 in 1910’s, to 25
in 1920’s and 25 in 1950’s. As a matter of fact the distance taken by Western words is hidden of
sight to some extent by popularized trends of historical and rural novels after Republic, and in
particular after 1950’s. Therefore extreme values in graphs for each year bear a more significant
value.
When all numbers are evaluated globally, about 105 thousand foreign words of Western
origin are found. When these words are classified in five year intervals and the scatter of
averages against time is drawn the situation of Figure 3 arised. The equation of the line
representing the points on the figure is
Y = -309.3+0.175X
and these values indicate an increase of 1.8 per thousand per year.
40
35
30
T 25
O
T
A
L 20
15
10
5
0
1870
1890
1910
1930
1950
1970
YEAR
Figure 1. The total number of Western loan-words in novels with respect to years
(Mean value within texts 500 words long each).
25
22,5
20
17,5
K 15
I
N
D 12,5
S
10
7,5
5
2,5
0
1870
1890
1910
1930
YEAR
1950
Figure 2. Kinds of Western loan-words in novels with respect to years
(Mean value within texts 500 words long each).
1970
50
45
Foreign words (per thousand)
40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
YEARS
Figure 3. The change in Western loan-word ratios during 130 years
in 560 novels inspected.
The number of foreign words with respect to most frequently met languages, their ratio
within the text and their relative share within the foreign words are summarized in Table 1. In
calculations the ratios are obtained as follows:
Per thousand in text = (Total foreign words from that language)*1000/(Total number of words in the text)
Percentage within foreign words = (Total foreign words from that language)*100/(Total number of Western
words in the text)
According to this 47026 French words have a ratio of 47026*1000/3150000 = 14.92 per
thousand in the total 3,150,000 words inspected. In a similar manner the percentage of French
in foreign words is 47026*100/104865 = 44.80 %.
Language
Number of
Words
47026
20452
19100
3613
2155
1208
1173
901
867
French
Italian
Greek
English
Spanish
Slavic
German
Armenian
Latin
Percentage within
foreign
44.8
19.5
18.2
3.4
2.1
1.2
1.1
0.9
0.8
Per thousand in
the text
14.92
6.49
6.06
1.15
0.68
0.38
0.37
0.29
0.28
Table 1. The number of loan-words from various Western languages, the space occupied by them
within the text and their inner percentages.
French
Italian
Greek
English
Spanish
Slavic
German
Armenian
Latin
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
Figure 4. The ratio of Western loan-words within texts (Per thousand).
Although not displayed in the table, 229 Hungarian, 84 Rumanian, 35 Bulgarian,
24 Portuguese, 24 Polish, 10 Swedish, 2 Danish, 2 Check, 2 Albanian and 1 Iceland
words were met. Although not considered as Western languages, we met 329 Syriac,
59 Malay, 51 Jewish, 27 Gypsy, 13 Sanskrit words which make a very small ratio as
0,15 per thousand as compared to the total volume of texts. Another set of words is
situated as pieces of texts written directly in foreign languages. These quotations
taken as poems, song words, idioms or conversation pieces have a total of 1600 words
which accounts for 0.51 per thousand of the text and 1.5 % of total foreign words.
There is still another set of words not included in the table that are in fact of Western
origin but are presented as if related to some Turkish roots. From time to time there
has been great discussions on these (Banguoğlu, 1981). Among them, evrensel
(universal), komut (commande), komutan (commandant), imge (image), egemen
(hegemon), okula –later became okul - (schola or école) may be mentioned. These
words occur 4661 times and constitute a proportion of 1.48 per thousand of the text.
These general ratios represent an overall evaluation of a long time section of 130
years and do not remain fixed at all periods. Hence it has been necessary to conduct a
detailed analysis with respect to time. For this purpose 560 novels are classified by their
printing years and the situations of each language in these intervals. Groupings are
organized to contain five years each, starting as 1870-1874, 1875-1879 ending as 19951999. The results are gathered in Table 2. In this table only the beginning years of periods
are indicated. In addition, by using the counts of this table proportions as per thousand in
the text and ratios as percentages within the foreign words are calculate and presented
separately for each language at Table 3 and Table 4 respectively. Word densities in each
period are calculated using these tables and presented in figures 5-15. Moreover in order
to see the trends in word densities with respect to time, denoting word proportions by Y
and time by X, the lines representing the points on the graphs are shown by a regression
equation of the form Y = a + bX. Here, the a and b coefficients obtained for per
thousands in the text and percentages within foreign words are summarized in Table 5
and Table 6 respectively.
Languages
French
English
Italian
Greek
Latin
German
Slavic
Spanish
Armenian
a
-215.1
-22.0
-29.2
2.78
-4.38
-4.95
-5.95
-10.87
-2.00
b
0.1178***
0.0118***
0.0183
0.0017
0.0024***
0.0027***
0.0032***
0.0059***
0.0012

0.000
0.000
0.069
0.785
0.000
0.000
0.002
0.000
0.216
R2
0.645
0.696
0.095
0.000
0.478
0.412
0.308
0.425
0.024
Table 5. Regression analysis results on the change of the Western origin foreign word volumes
within the text with respect to years.
Languages
French
English
Italian
Greek
Latin
German
Slavic
Spanish
Armenian
a
-310.9
-44.9
144.6
279.1
-5.9
-2.5
-9.2
-21.6
3.7
b
0.183***
0.025***
-0.063*
- 0.132***
0.004 *
0.002
0.005
0.012 *
0.001

0.001
0.000
0.033
0.000
0.049
0.528
0.183
0.014
0.726
R2
0.363
0.391
0.141
0.459
0.117
0.000
0.034
0.194
0.000
Table 6. The results of regression analysis of variation of the share of different foreign languages
within the total foreign words of Western origin with respect to years.
The coefficients deserving a special attention among those given in the tables are b
values. These correspond to the slopes of straight-line equations and represent the increase
during unit time (year). A minus sign in these numbers means a negative increase that implies a
decrease. But we see that sometimes these coefficients take values very close to zero.
Therefore it is not sufficient consider only the values of b’s taken in this research. Since a
sampling procedure is applied here, these must be considered as estimates of underlying true 
values that represent all novels written in our language. Because 82 novelists investigated
represent all novelists given works in our language and the novels taken from each writer
represent the novel language of that writer. Naturally text samples that are of 500 words each
and constitute one-tenth of the volume of a novel are representing that particular novel. In
statistical works of this kind depending on sampling, the b values may not exactlyequal . The
same situation is also valid for “a” values. This means that a different investigator conducting
the same research would find different a and b values. And this means that, although there is no
real change in proportions, it is possible to find a value larger or smaller than zero by chance.
In this case although  it may be concluded by mistake that > 0 or <0 and this is an error.
In Statistics this is called Type I error and denoted by . For reliability of results it is desired
that does not exceed 5 %. In Tables 5 and 6 Type I error values are given in column .
Another column in tables is R2 and is called coefficient of determination. This value measures
to what extent the model applied explains the variation in the data, and, as it approaches one
this is an indication that it explains almost the whole variation and the points in the scatter
graph are situated almost on the line drawn. On the contrary, values near zero mean a weak
association. Inspection of tables and the graphs drawn depending on them reveals the existence
of some outlier points in early periods. Obviously, since novels written in these periods are
scarce, excessiveness in one or two of them will influence the general average of these periods.
Since in early periods foreigner heroes were taking part in novels quite frequently and Beyoğlu
or its environment -where levantens lived- or European cities were being adopted as scenes,
excessiveness of this kind were unavoidable. In Tanzimat novels, due to the structure of the
society of that period, heroines were chosen mostly among non-Muslim concubines, foreign
women, or non-Muslim Ottoman subjects (Gökçek, 2000). Examples of this are novels Demir
Bey and Hasan Mellah published in 1888 and 1874 respectively. They caused some deviations
in global means of these periods. In analyses executed by omitting these outliers, the rate of
increase in the proportion of foreign words is found slightly higher.
When the total space occupied within the text is taken into account, no significant increase was recorded in
Italian, Greek and Armenian. This may be explained from two point of views: The loan-words from these
languages belong to older periods and there had been no entrance of new words since Tanzimat. On the other hand
there was no increase in the usage of words already taken. Because if the usage of existing objects increases, the
density of words will increase too, in spite of no introduction of new words. There was however such a significant
increase in the densities of French, English, Latin, German, Slavic and Spanish words that could not be attributed
to chance.
When the shares of different languages within the Western origin words are examined, it will be seen that
shares of French and English are increased very significantly and shares of Latin and Spanish are increased
significantly. But the share of Italian fell significantly and the shares of German, Slavic and Armenian did not
have any significant change. When these languages are inspected in order, the following can be said about figures
5-13:
The ratio of
French
words
within the
whole
text
(per
thousand)
French (Per thousand)
25
20
15
10
5
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
YE AR S
70
The ratio of
French within
Western words
(Percent)
French (%)
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
YE AR S
Figure 5. The share of French words within the total text and within the
Western origin words only (As per thousand and percent respectively).
FRENCH: Figure 5 shows the developments in French words. But a point in the period 1885-1889
exhibiting an excessive deviation from the overall trend must be pointed out here. Such a deviation
was caused by the fact that sixteen of forty seven samples of size 500 words each representing this
period belong to Ahmet Mithat’s novel Demir Bey in which several heroes are French and events
pass in foreign countries. By excluding this extreme value an analysis was done, and the density
increase of French words reached up to a slightly larger value than found here. The ratio of French
words within the text, reached from three per thousand in early novels to 25 per thousand in 1999.
This steady rise was due, not only to introducing new words directly from this language but also to
adapting the pronunciation of words taken from other Western languages to French pronunciation.
The slope of line expressing the increase rate is 0,117 and this corresponds to a rise of one per ten
thousand per year. Word imports from this language continued up to present day without slowing
down. Korkmaz (1995) states that during the period following World War Two and extending until
present day, the density switched from French to English. This impression depends mainly to oral
language of some social groups, working-place names and some television programs, but this
increase not started yet to be felt fully in written language. The share of French within foreign
languages too rose steadily. This increase is around two per ten thousand a year. This share rose
from 20 % of early periods to 60 % at present.
English (per thousand)
2.5
The ratio of
English
words
within the
whole
text
(per
thousand)
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
1960
1980
2000
YE AR S
6
(percent)
English (%)
5
The ratio of English
Within the
Western words
4
3
2
1
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
YE AR S
Figure 6. The share of English words within the total text and within the Western origin words only (As per thousand and percent
respectively).
ENGLISH: Although the ratio of English words in early period texts was about five per ten thousand, it
reached two per thousand at present. The slope of the line in Figure 6 illustrating this is 0.0118, and
corresponds to an increase of one per hundred thousand per year. The ratio within foreign words, started
from approximately one per thousand and reached to five per thousand. One extreme point that takes
source from some English words of the novel Hasan Mellah of Ahmet Mithat Efendi in1870-1874 period
draws attention here. The graph reveals that English words exhibit a very steady and systematic increase.
The
share of
Italian
words
in the
Italian (per thousand)
14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
1960
1980
2000
YE AR S
(percent)
45
40
Italian (%)
whole
text
(per
thousand
)
The ratio of
Italian within
Western words
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
YE AR S
Figure 7. The place occupied by Italian words within the total text and within the Western origin words only (As per
thousand and percent respectively).
The share
of Greek
Words
within the
whole
text
(per
thousand)
Greek (per tousand)
ITALIAN: The trend of increase within the total text has the value 0.01 (per
thousand) which is statistically insignificant. Therefore it may be said that some
words were taken previously from Italian but there has been no significant increase
in their usage. Furthermore, first by expansion of French and later of English, some
Italian words are discarded from our language. Taraça was replaced by teras, urba
by rop, and lokanta by restoran. More examples may be enumerated: banka – bank,
salça – sos, şırınga – enjektör, metro – metre… The ratio of six per thousand of
early periods remains around the same value in the present. But inspection of the
second graph reveals that Italian has not been able to sustain its development
against the expansion of other foreign languages, therefore share of Italian in total
Western words decreased significantly, falling from about 40 % to 15 %.
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
1980
2000
YE AR S
40
35
The ratio of
Greek within
Western words
(percent)
Greek (%)
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
YEARS
Figure 8. The share of Greek words within the total text and within the Western origin words only (As per thousand and
percent respectively).
GREEK: The situation is similar to that of Italian. The Greek words had a ratio of
six per thousand within the text and this ratio did not increase significantly, so
Greek’s share within the Western words diminished steadily and fell from about 40
% to 15 %. Yearly decrease rate was about one per ten thousand and is statistically
significant. As in Italian, some French and English words replaced also Greek
equivalents: avlu - hol, panayır - fuar. The word panayır in the last example began
to be used for agricultural expositions of small scale by a restriction of meaning.
Latin (per thouasand)
0.6
The ratio
of Latin
words
within the
whole
text
(per
thousand)
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
1960
1980
2000
YE AR S
1.6
1.4
Latin (%)
1.2
The ratio of
Latin within
Western words
(Percent)
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
YE AR S
Figure 9. The share of Latin words within the total text and within the Western origin words only (As per thousand and
percent respectively).
LATIN: Latin, although an extinct language, by preserving its significance as an important source for terms
in Western languages, increased its proportion in texts approximately from one to almost five per ten
thousand. A significant increase was observed in its share in Western words too. The existence of
defendants of basing our scientific language to Latin caused a substantial enhancement in the share of this
language. This ratio found in novels would be found significantly higher if the works from different
scientific fields were examined.
The ratio of
German
words
within the
whole
text
(per
thousand)
German (per thousand)
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
YE AR S
3.5
The ratio of German
within
Western words
German (%)
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
(percent)
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
YE AR S
Figure 10. The share of German words within the total text and within the Western origin words only (As per thousand and
percent respectively).
The share
of Slavic
words
within the
whole
text
(per
thousand)
Slavic (per thousand)
GERMAN: Share of German rose from one per ten thousand to six per ten
thousand. Although small, this share has a significant slope. No significant change
was found in its share within other Western languages.
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
YE AR S
4
3.5
The share
of Slavic
words
within
Western
words
Slavic (%)
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
YE AR S
(percent)
Figure 11. Share of Slavic words within the total text and within the Western origin words only (As per thousand and
percent respectively).
SLAVIC: Ratio of Slavic words in texts rose from one per ten thousand to seven
per ten thousand. Although this is a significant increase, no serious change was
recorded in its share within Western origin words.
The ratio of
Spanish
words
within the
whole
text
(per
thousand)
Spanish (per thousand)
1.4
1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
1960
1980
2000
YE AR S
4
The ratio of
Spanish within
Western words
(percent)
Spanish (%)
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
YEARS
Figure 12. The share of Spanish words within the total text and within the Western origin words only (As per thousand and
percent respectively).
SPANISH: While the ratio of Spanish words was two per ten thousand, it approached to one per thousand
in recent years. It increased its share within foreign words too. But the observations obtained for this
The ratio of
Armenian
words
within the
whole
text
(per
thousand)
Armenian (per thousand)
language exhibits a very large variation, and this is due to the fact that semantic fields of Spanish words
cover only narrow areas such as navigation and commerce.
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
1960
1980
2000
1960
1980
2000
YEARS
The ratio of
Armenian within
Western words
(percent)
Armenian (%)
4.5
4
3.5
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
1860
1880
1900
1920
1940
YEARS
Figure 13. Share of Armenian words within the total text and within the Western origin words only (As per thousand and
percent respectively).
ARMENIAN: Armenian words entered to our language mostly in the early periods of
immigration to Anatolia and are related to agriculture, construction and household
objects. There have been no new additions on these. Many Armenian words live in
local dialects. Some of them were introduced to Turkish during language reform via
word collections. Its share in total words and within those of Western origin did not
change substantially.
OTHER EVALUATIONS TO BE DONE
Foreign word files of extremely large size obtained and recorded into computer during this research
will be evaluated later from many other aspects such as:

Stylistic characters and attitude differences of writers in word selection may be
investigated. While some writers do not go beyond familiar words, some others
prefer more odd and eccentric ones. It is necessary to appraise this attitude and
classify the foreign words according to their degree of assimilation. For example
many people may think that Peyami Safa is using more foreign words compared
to Sait Faik. The reason for this impression is the fact that Peyami Safa uses more
special terms from fields such as medicine, philosophy ad psychology.

By assessing the differences between works in detail, the reason of these
variations must be determined. For example, the novels taking place in different
environments use words of different density and kind. By classifying novels into
subsets such as rural, urban, historical, detective, psychological… etc, the words
used by these sections may be classified into semantic areas.

Words can be classified into semantic classes and the variation of each class may be evaluated
with respect to time.

Usage statistics of word types, such as name adjective and verb, may be derived.

Appearance and extinction times of words may be determined. By this way it may be possible to
see that once popular words are replaced by some others in time.

In enumeration obtained by computer, a total of about six thousand different loan-words are
recorded. Some of these are derived from a common root and some others are compound words.
Therefore word groups and families may be determined.

As a subject more relevant to linguists and foreign dictionary editors, sentence examples may be
chosen containing foreign words in order to demonstrate different usages.
CONCLUSION:
Closed systems taking no external effects are not met even in the inanimate world. And the nation,
which shows a very dynamical structure, interacts in every field with surrounding nations and cultures. The
Turkish language too had serious transformations depending to civilization circles to which it belonged and
came into contact. Due to its geographical position Ottoman Empire had been in continuous contact with all
main civilizations of its time from its foundation to its fall. While European languages were fed from Latin
and Greek sources, Ottoman Turkish was fed from Arabic and Persian, and inclined to take not only words
but also suffixes and grammatical rules.
The scientific accumulations and progresses of Western world in science and
technology however pushed Turks into the circle of attraction of a different civilization
especially in nineteenth century. While in early periods the loan-words, taken from
languages of local subjects or languages of other nations by military or commercial
relations, were limited to a few objects and concepts missing in Turkish, after Tanzimat
as new desires and trends rose towards a different civilization circle, the new way of life
and new thoughts carried new words with them. This situation in our language is in a
sense a reflection of transformations and controversies in our social life.
Although there had been some efforts to supply substitutes for Western origin
words from Turkish, Arabic or Persian, these did not accomplish the desired result in the
long run. Western loan-words not only discarded Arabic and Persian words; they started
to threaten the genuine Turkish words too. The role of admiration for West can not be
denied on this serious situation. But it is also necessary to accept the contribution of
perplexing developments in science and technology. Statistical evaluation of scientific
and technical developments reveals that accumulation of information in every field,
doubles at every 10 years. Hence number of patents, machines, tools, scientific papers,
journals and books increase as geometric progressions. This rate of increase started being
felt strongly in the nineteenth century, enriched the civilization languages of nations
accomplishing these discoveries by derivation of several new words from the source
languages.
Besides technical and scientific terms compulsorily taken since Tanzimat, the
words creating greatest peril are stylistic ones. Words corresponding to names of
concepts and objects already exist in our language. But the word is taken merely to create
a completely new style and aura. Similar situations arose for languages we are influenced
from. For example, British during the Middle Ages used French as official language.
Until 1731 French remained as the legal language in England. Therefore in the historical
process, English took 9 words in 12th, 134 words in 13th, 306 words in 14th centuries. In
subsequent centuries 164, 157, 98, 59 and 71 words were taken respectively. In this
respect English may be considered lucky for living and surviving this effect in a period
where the languages were more static and renovations were scarce. French, however,
having taken approximately a total of 100 English words till the end of 17th century,
received 134 new words in 18th and 377 words in 19th centuries. This trend reached to a
very dangerous dimension in this century. Moreover, since the situation gained a stylistic
character, French intellectuals started a campaign to save their language and issued a law
in 1994 named after Jacques Toubon, the Minister of Culture of the time. After the
expansion of American culture, now the same danger started to threaten German as well.
The reason for a greater destruction caused by alienation in our language since late
Ottoman era, is the coincidence of the admiration towards Europe with the period of great
explosions in the number of new discoveries and concepts. In our opinion the best
remedy for this situation is to reinforce our identity conscience.
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