Musings from Anatolia, Part One: On Arabic and Turkish scripts
Turkish is a language of Persian-Arabic family… it has borrowed a large number of sounds and grammar from the two great languages. However today, if you were to visit Turkey… you would find that Turkish written in Latin alphabets…
After the formation of new Turkey… the father of modern Turkey Kamal Ataturk introduced a new script for Turkish language… this script was different to the Persian script being used during the Ottoman period… Ataturk saw the Ottoman period as dark ages, and wanted to usher Turkey into the modern ages.
He met a few problems in the way of doing so… firstly the Turkish language is as different to Latin based languages… as chalk to cheese… therefore a mere transliteration wouldn’t have solved his problem. (Arabic speakers transliterate Arabic in English in a very different fashion… for instance Arabic has two “H” sounds… one deep and one soft… they represent the deep one with a 7 and the soft one with ‘h’... now unlike these transliteration methods, where numbers like 3 and 7 are used… Ataturk was looking at a method to write Turkish with the help of Latin alphabets only). Not only this, in Arabic there are 3 long vowels and 3 short vowels- a, aa, e, ee, u and uu; plus there are no vowels called sukoons… but the short vowels and sukoon are not written in Arabic… they are merely understood by a native speaker (for example if I say “I m gng fr dnnr”… those who are familiar with English and the context… would read it as “I am going for dinner”… despite lack of vowels… same is the case with Arabic script).
To bridge this problem, Ataturk modified the Latin script by introducing a few new alphabets… a ‘c’ with an appendage, an ‘s’ with an appendage, a ‘g’ with an appendage and an ‘i’ without a dot. These new alphabets were able to express all the Turkish sounds effectively…
The second big problem was spreading this script… Kamal Ataturk took this responsibility on to himself… he traveled far and wide inside Turkey to teach and convince people about the new script… he faced many problems… widespread illiteracy, people considering Arabic script as sacred, people not willing to learn… but Ataturk was able to face all these challenges and spread the new Turkish script in his lifetime.
His feat is sometimes considered second most stunning modern achievements in the area of linguistics… the first being revival of Hebrew language in modern Israel. The revival of Hebrew was no mean feat too… considering the Hebrew has always remained a language of Torah, and that’s it… it was not developed or added to for thousands of year… and suddenly it was required to match the demands of modern life… have a word for car, television, satellite etc.
Nevertheless, I consider Ataturk’s achievement bigger than the revival of Hebrew language. Ataturk was fighting many odds… people didn’t have any motive to learn new Turkish script, the new script was pitched against a tried and tested Persian-Arabic script- often considered sacred… in contrast, Hebrew was regenerating in a vacuum… Israelis were motivated enough to learn it… as it galvanized their claim for “Promised Land”.
However… Ataturk’s achievement is not without a sense of irony.
It is often said that the holy Quran was revealed in Mecca, recited in Cairo and written in Istanbul.
The Ottoman and Seljuk Turks promoted the art of Islamic calligraphy with such a vigour that it became an institution in itself… but for the Turks, Arabic wouldn’t have become a calligraphic language that it is now.
And Ataturk snatched the same script from the Turks.
Arabic script was very rudimentary when the holy Quran was revealed… the script during that time was written in Maliki font … most of early copies of Quran were written in Maliki script. Along the same time Hazrat Ali, the fourth Caliph of Islam was secretly writing all the verses of Quran, as and when it were revealed to the Prophet… in his own calligraphy, called Kufi calligraphy, having square, knotted and flowered way of calligraphy. (In fact, it is said that when the holy Quran was finally compiled in the form of one book, after corroboration and counter-corroboration among few dozen closest friends of the Prophet (PBUH)… it was finally taken to Hazrat Ali, and it was found that it matched his compilation… and thereafter, holy Quran was accepted as without having any human misinterpretation… divine and pure)…
Thereafter, the Arabic calligraphy remained static for another 500 years… while modifications were made to the Kufi and Maliki calligraphy. Ibn-e-Muql combined the Kufi and Maliki fonts to create Sulus and Nesih forms; Ibn-e-Bawwab created two more fonts called Rehani and Muhaqqeq… he also created rules and thus science of further developing Arabic Calligraphy.
It was left to Turks… the Seljuks… to give another dimension to the Arabic Calligraphy… a person called Yakut Amaysa created a huge number of innovative fonts for Arabic… the prominent being Tewki and Rikaa. In fact, it is often said that before Yakut, there were only six fonts… and after him more than 60… and he created most of them single handedly.
Sheikh Hamdullah picked up from where Yakut had left… armed with royal patronage… he started a revolution of sorts… when Islamic Calligraphy became a national passion… the calligraphy reached its zenith during his times… when he created a number of beautiful fonts… and set up workshops after workshops of pupils who created more and more fonts. Sheikh Hamdullah is often termed as Qiblet-ul-Kitab (the foremost writer) for his achievements.
I remember that one of my Arabic teacher Jean (a French priest) said that Arabs are mad about fonts… perhaps they inherited this madness from Turks.
And hadn’t I been a pondering vagabond… I wouldn’t have realized.
After the formation of new Turkey… the father of modern Turkey Kamal Ataturk introduced a new script for Turkish language… this script was different to the Persian script being used during the Ottoman period… Ataturk saw the Ottoman period as dark ages, and wanted to usher Turkey into the modern ages.
He met a few problems in the way of doing so… firstly the Turkish language is as different to Latin based languages… as chalk to cheese… therefore a mere transliteration wouldn’t have solved his problem. (Arabic speakers transliterate Arabic in English in a very different fashion… for instance Arabic has two “H” sounds… one deep and one soft… they represent the deep one with a 7 and the soft one with ‘h’... now unlike these transliteration methods, where numbers like 3 and 7 are used… Ataturk was looking at a method to write Turkish with the help of Latin alphabets only). Not only this, in Arabic there are 3 long vowels and 3 short vowels- a, aa, e, ee, u and uu; plus there are no vowels called sukoons… but the short vowels and sukoon are not written in Arabic… they are merely understood by a native speaker (for example if I say “I m gng fr dnnr”… those who are familiar with English and the context… would read it as “I am going for dinner”… despite lack of vowels… same is the case with Arabic script).
To bridge this problem, Ataturk modified the Latin script by introducing a few new alphabets… a ‘c’ with an appendage, an ‘s’ with an appendage, a ‘g’ with an appendage and an ‘i’ without a dot. These new alphabets were able to express all the Turkish sounds effectively…
The second big problem was spreading this script… Kamal Ataturk took this responsibility on to himself… he traveled far and wide inside Turkey to teach and convince people about the new script… he faced many problems… widespread illiteracy, people considering Arabic script as sacred, people not willing to learn… but Ataturk was able to face all these challenges and spread the new Turkish script in his lifetime.
His feat is sometimes considered second most stunning modern achievements in the area of linguistics… the first being revival of Hebrew language in modern Israel. The revival of Hebrew was no mean feat too… considering the Hebrew has always remained a language of Torah, and that’s it… it was not developed or added to for thousands of year… and suddenly it was required to match the demands of modern life… have a word for car, television, satellite etc.
Nevertheless, I consider Ataturk’s achievement bigger than the revival of Hebrew language. Ataturk was fighting many odds… people didn’t have any motive to learn new Turkish script, the new script was pitched against a tried and tested Persian-Arabic script- often considered sacred… in contrast, Hebrew was regenerating in a vacuum… Israelis were motivated enough to learn it… as it galvanized their claim for “Promised Land”.
However… Ataturk’s achievement is not without a sense of irony.
It is often said that the holy Quran was revealed in Mecca, recited in Cairo and written in Istanbul.
The Ottoman and Seljuk Turks promoted the art of Islamic calligraphy with such a vigour that it became an institution in itself… but for the Turks, Arabic wouldn’t have become a calligraphic language that it is now.
And Ataturk snatched the same script from the Turks.
Arabic script was very rudimentary when the holy Quran was revealed… the script during that time was written in Maliki font … most of early copies of Quran were written in Maliki script. Along the same time Hazrat Ali, the fourth Caliph of Islam was secretly writing all the verses of Quran, as and when it were revealed to the Prophet… in his own calligraphy, called Kufi calligraphy, having square, knotted and flowered way of calligraphy. (In fact, it is said that when the holy Quran was finally compiled in the form of one book, after corroboration and counter-corroboration among few dozen closest friends of the Prophet (PBUH)… it was finally taken to Hazrat Ali, and it was found that it matched his compilation… and thereafter, holy Quran was accepted as without having any human misinterpretation… divine and pure)…
Thereafter, the Arabic calligraphy remained static for another 500 years… while modifications were made to the Kufi and Maliki calligraphy. Ibn-e-Muql combined the Kufi and Maliki fonts to create Sulus and Nesih forms; Ibn-e-Bawwab created two more fonts called Rehani and Muhaqqeq… he also created rules and thus science of further developing Arabic Calligraphy.
It was left to Turks… the Seljuks… to give another dimension to the Arabic Calligraphy… a person called Yakut Amaysa created a huge number of innovative fonts for Arabic… the prominent being Tewki and Rikaa. In fact, it is often said that before Yakut, there were only six fonts… and after him more than 60… and he created most of them single handedly.
Sheikh Hamdullah picked up from where Yakut had left… armed with royal patronage… he started a revolution of sorts… when Islamic Calligraphy became a national passion… the calligraphy reached its zenith during his times… when he created a number of beautiful fonts… and set up workshops after workshops of pupils who created more and more fonts. Sheikh Hamdullah is often termed as Qiblet-ul-Kitab (the foremost writer) for his achievements.
I remember that one of my Arabic teacher Jean (a French priest) said that Arabs are mad about fonts… perhaps they inherited this madness from Turks.
And hadn’t I been a pondering vagabond… I wouldn’t have realized.
2 comments:
Maan!!! so so so full of knowledge ... v impressive :)
Thanks Shadkam... sorry for being late in replying...
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