The Turkish language reform (), initiated on 12 July 1932, aimed to purge the Turkish language of Arabic and Persian-derived words and grammatical rules, transforming the language into a more vernacular form suitable for the Republic of Turkey.
Under the leadership of president Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the reform commenced and persisted with varying degrees of intensity and momentum until the 1970s, following the most profound period of transformation between 1932 and 1938. The closure of the former Turkish Language Association in 1982 was officially recognized as the end of the language reform. Aligned with the alphabet reform in 1928, the language reform stands as one of the fundamental pillars of the significant structural alterations undergone by the Turkish language in the 20th century.
History Karamanid era In 1277, Mehmet I of Karaman issued a firman making the Old Anatolian Turkish the official language in an attempt to break the dominance of Persian. The former later developed into Ottoman Turkish language.
Ottoman era During interactions with Arabic and Persian-speaking nations, Turks adopted words not present in their own language. Alongside these absent words, however, Turkish words gradually lost their functionality over time, yielding to Arabic and Persian vocabulary. For instance, the Turkic-origin word "od" meaning "fire" gave way to the Persian-origin word "ateş". Not only words but also grammatical rules and constructions were borrowed from both languages. Nevertheless, at the core, Turkish inflections and grammar rules were still used. The Ottoman Empire was governed from the Sublime Porte ("Bâb-ı Âlî" in Ottoman Turkish, borrowed from Arabic الباب العالي "Bab Al-A'li"), where "bâb" meaning "door" in Arabic combined with the Persian-origin possessive suffix (ezāfe) "-ı" and the Persian word "âlî" meaning "high" to form a new word in Ottoman Turkish. There was a gap between written and spoken language to the extent that newspapers, not understood by large segments of society, struggled to sell, leading journalists to seek ways to simplify their language. For example, they found it more comprehensible to use "Tabii İlimler" (natural sciences) instead of the Arabic term "Ulûm-i Tabiiyye" and resorted to such simplifications in their writings.Geoffrey Lewis, the Turkish Language Reform: A Catastrophic Success, 2002, Oxford University Press
The issue of simplifying the written language by purging it of complex Arabic and Persian expressions and bringing it closer to spoken Turkish had concerned Turkish writers since the Tanzimat period. The trend toward simplification, which began with İbrahim Şinasi and Namık Kemal, made significant progress with Ahmet Mithat and reached its peak during the Second Constitutional Era with writers like Ömer Seyfettin and Mehmet Emin Yurdakul.
The 1910s witnessed the rise of Turkist and Turanist views within organizations such as the Turkish Hearths and the Committee of Union and Progress. During this period, new ideas began to be incorporated into the simplificationist perspective. Among these, the most influential was the idea of borrowing words from other Turkic languages, particularly the ancient written languages of Central Asia, besides the Istanbul Turkish. The publication of French orientalist Abel Pavet de Courteille's Chagatai Dictionary in 1870, the deciphering and publication of the Orkhon inscriptions in 1896, and the printing of Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk in 1917 provided abundant resources for this approach.
There was also a tendency circa 1914 to derive new words from existing Turkish roots to express new concepts.
Republican era
Views on language modernization receded during the period of the War of Independence and the early years of the republic. Prior to 1931, there was no clear stance on this matter from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. However, with the establishment of the Turkish Language Association in 1932, the language reform gained momentum. In the opening speech of the parliament in 1932, Atatürk expressed caution regarding the language reform by stating, "We will ensure the rise of national culture by opening up all avenues. We expect all our national organizations to be cautious and engaged in enabling the Turkish language to regain its essence and beauty".
One of the primary interests of Atatürk was history, while the other was language. Like many intellectuals, he recognized the problem with the Turkish language. In 1932, he founded the "Turkish Language Research Society" (). Within this society, various subcommittees were established, each assigned with different aspects of the language under what seemed like a "military" organization (linguistics, etymology, grammar, terminology, lexicography, etc.).Bernard Lewis - The emergence of modern Turkey Royal Institute of International Affairs London 1961 sayfa 433 (Religion and Culture)
" The work was planned like a military operation, and a series of committees appointed to organize and direct the assault on the various sectors—linguistics, etymology, grammar, terminology, lexicography, and the like. " One of the tasks of this society was to research words in the language and find Turkish alternatives for foreign loanwords. Word search operations were initiated under the chairmanship of governors in every province. Within a year, a source of 35,000 new words was created. During this time, scientists also researched 150 old works and collected words never before used in the Turkish language. In 1934, the 90,000-word search dictionary was compiled and published. Suggestions for alternative words used in local dialects were proposed instead of the Arabic-origin word "kalem" (pen), such as "yağuş, yazgaç, çizgiç, kavrı, kamış, yuvuş" and for the word "akıl" (mind), 26 suggestions were received, while for "hediye" (gift), 77 suggestions were made. Eventually, the Turkish-origin word "armağan" was chosen in place of the word "hediye".
However, this process of "purging the language of foreign loanwords" only affected words from eastern-origin languages (Arabic, Persian, etc.) while foreign loanwords of western origin were not subjected to this process to the same extent. Moreover, many loanwords from Western languages were added to Turkish to fill the gaps left by the purged words.Bernard Lewis - The emergence of modern Turkey Royal Institute of International Affairs London 1961 page 434 (Religion and Culture)
"It is significant that the hue and cry after alien words affected only Arabic and Persian—the Islamic. Oriental languages. Words of European origin, equally alien, were exempt, and a number of new ones were even imported, to fill the gaps left by the departed."
The work of the "Language Council", initiated in 1929, culminated in the establishment of the "Turkish Language Research Society" founded by Atatürk in 1932. This society had two main objectives. First, to liberate the Turkish language from the domination of foreign languages and return it to its essence, thereby eliminating the distinction between spoken and written language and enabling all citizens, not just the educated elite, to write and read in their own spoken language. This would be achieved by replacing structures and grammar rules borrowed from Arabic and Persian with correct Turkish equivalents. Terminology accumulation would be achieved through surveys of local dialects. The second objective was to compare and reveal dead languages.
The simplification of the Turkish lexicon over time led to Turkification, and attempts to replace foreign-origin loanwords used in literary works with sometimes conditioning words that did not even conform to Turkish language rules, posed a risk of the language being disconnected from its cultural and historical sources.
Turkish Language Congresses The reform was shaped in large part through a series of congresses () convened between 1932 and 1936, which served both as scholarly forums and as vehicles for state-directed language policy.
First Turkish Language Congress (1932) The First Turkish Language Congress was held shortly after the founding of the Turkish Language Research Society (Türk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti, TDTC). The congress was chaired by the speaker of the Grand National Assembly, Kazım Paşa. Its opening address was delivered by Samih Rıfat, who framed the language reform as part of the broader Westernization process. A defining feature of the congress was that its proceedings focused exclusively on purging Arabic and Persian loanwords, while loanwords of Western origin were not addressed.Şavkay, pp. 118. The congress also established the charter and central committee of the TDTC.Şavkay, pp. 112. Jacob M. Landau characterized the congress as an explicit break with the Ottoman and Islamic past.
Second Turkish Language Congress (1934) In preparation for the Second Turkish Language Congress, the organizers adopted two notable procedural decisions. First, under article 11 of the congress rules, titled "The Course of Discussions at the Congress", it was stipulated that since the congress was in principle devoted to presenting scholarly theses, debate and disagreement would not form part of the proceedings. Second, under article 6, participation in discussions was restricted to government officials, scientists, and members of the society.Şavkay, pp. 160.
The congress opened with a speech by Education Minister Abidin, who situated the reform within the Kemalist history thesis, asserting that major turning points in world history were created by the Turkish character and that Turkish civilization was the origin of human civilizations.Şavkay, pp. 161–163. A prominent topic at the congress was the alleged relationship between Turkish and Indo-European and Semitic languages. The newly elected Secretary-General İbrahim Necmi stated that comparing Turkish with Indo-European languages would require years of research, and cited Sami Ali's etymological comparisons between Turkish and Celtic languages.Şavkay, pp. 168.
Between the congresses, the central committee devoted much of its effort to finding Turkish equivalents for Arabic and Persian words, producing the Cep Kılavuzları ("pocket guides") published in 1935 by the TDTC. The preface of the guide acknowledged that not all words it contained were the product of the institution's own research—where no existing equivalent could be found, new words had been coined.Şavkay, pp. 175–179.
Third Turkish Language Congress (1936) The Third Congress was convened in the summer of 1936 with international participation. Before the congress opened, foreign representatives, the organizing committee, and members of the language and history institutions were received by the President at the palace, where the discussion focused on the newly advanced Sun Language Theory. The theory dominated the congress programme; Western representatives refrained from criticizing it openly, instead presenting their papers on different topics.Samoyloviç, pp. 90, 95.
In his address, the Secretary-General İbrahim Necmi Dilmen reported that 6,075 words had been replaced between 1934 and 1936. With further replacements in subsequent years, the total number of changed words reached 32,316.Şavkay, pp. 180–181.
Word derivations
Most of the new Turkish words are derived from other words with thematic suffixes. For example:
is the root of the verb , which means "to sink" or "to set". The derived word means "west" or the cardinal direction in which the sun "sinks". Another example would be , which means "salary" as well as . This is derived from the word , which means "moon, month".
Here are some other examples of derivations:
means "day" → means "agenda", means "current", means "current events and news", means "to update", means "date", means "south", means "sun", means "diary" or "daily", means "daytime" (opposite of night) or "morning",