Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Journal of Turkish Studies, cilt.13, sa.20, ss.845-853, 2018 (Hakemli Dergi)
Turkish was acknowledged as a colloquial language since the
foundation of the Ottoman Empire in 1342 up till the Reformation period
in 1839. Accordingly, the main questions of this paper can be enlisted as
follows: first, why Turkish language has not been considered appropriate
for scientific language; Next, what stages Turkish colloquial language has
gone through in developing into a scientific language in terms of
translation activity in history, and finally what was the impact of
translation activity in terminology formation after the long ages of the
supremacy of foreign languages. During the reign of Ottoman Empire the
official and scientific language was maintained in Ottoman Turkish,
which was mainly composed of Turkish, Arabic and Persian words, or
terms. The medium of education especially in madrasas, which were
institutions of higher education during the reign of Ottoman Empire, was
mainly Arabic since Arabic scientific knowledge was assumed as a basis
in shaping the curriculums of madrasas. However, the military and
economic decline of the Empire compelled the Ottoman intellectuals to
orientate towards the Western knowledge to keep with the times, and
survive amongst other nations. Accordingly, this paper studies in what
way Turkish colloquial language develop into Turkish scientific language
within the coverage of translation activity in Ottoman science history. The
three factors that laid the foundations of Turkish terminology formation
as well as Turkish scientific language is subsumed under three
categories. They are newly founded imperial or civil colleges, state run or
civil scientific academies, and publications in the form terminological
studies as an extension of the textbooks and scientific journals issued by
Ottoman scientific academies, respectively.