
Languages of the Ottoman Empire - keiferski
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_Ottoman_Empire
======
YeGoblynQueenne
In the French section, in the picture, the Greek and French in the two signs
on the left that are the easiest to read say:

ΜΕΓΑΛΗ ΑΠΟΘΗΚΗ ΕΠΙΠΛΩΝ Κ. ΦΙΛΙΠΠΑΚΗΣ

GRAND DEPOT DE MEUBLES C. PHILIPPAKIS

Which translates in English as: Big furniture warehouse C. Filippakis (judging
from the abbreviation's translation in French, C may stand for Constantinos).

ΞΕΝΟΔΟΧΕΙΟΝ ΕΣΚΗ ΣΕΙΡ ΓΚΤΑΒΤΖΙΑΝ

Which is: Eskişehir Hotel G. K. Tabtzian (it's unlikely the owner of the hotel
was called Gktabtzian so the first two letters are probably his and his
father's names' initials). It's interesting that the way the name of the hotel
is written sounds as "Se-eer" in Greek, whereas in modern Greek Eskişehir is
pronounced as "Eskee Seh-eer" with a strong "h". I'm guessing the correct
Turkish pronounciation is the one on the 1901 sign.

Another sign on the right has the name "ΚΥΡ. ΒΟΣΝΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ" (Kyr. Vosnopoulos,
Kyr. being probably short for Kyriakos, a common Greek name) and some other
text that I can't read and that also seems to be in two languages.

There's a third sign on the same side I can't read and that also seems to be
in Greek and another language.

Btw the street is Youksek-Kaldirim. You can find it on Google maps. I had a
look on street view and there is something that looks a lot like the ironwork
supports of the mashrabiya behind the Philippakis sign:

[https://www.google.com/maps/@41.024158,28.9750783,3a,75y,344...](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.024158,28.9750783,3a,75y,344.57h,99.6t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sbYIVTaV0QKe8Ccj1FM0rQA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656)

(The mashrabyia is that thing that looks like a protruding window).

Perhaps all that's left now from the Tabtzian hotel.

------
keiferski
Ottoman Turkish itself was a particularly interesting language, comprised of
Turkish base with abundant Persian and Arabic vocabulary laid on top:

 _It borrows extensively, in all aspects, from Arabic and Persian and its
speakers used the (Perso-Arabic) Ottoman Turkish alphabet for written
communications. During the peak of Ottoman power (c. 16th century CE), words
of foreign origin in Turkish literature in the Ottoman empire heavily
outnumbered native Turkish words, with Arabic and Persian vocabulary
accounting for up to 88% of the Ottoman vocabulary in some texts._

It's almost analogous to the story of English and words of Latin or Greek
origin. Just as the Arabic words in Ottoman Turkish were originally adopted
via Persian (and not directly from Arabic), most of the Latin-origin words in
English were adopted via French, Italian, and other European languages.

 _As in most other Turkic and other foreign languages of Islamic communities,
the Arabic borrowings were not originally the result of a direct exposure of
Ottoman Turkish to Arabic, a fact that is evidenced by the typically Persian
phonological mutation of the words of Arabic origin._

Funnily enough, Ottoman Turkish was also written with an alphabet woefully
unsuited to express its sounds and grammar, just like English.

 _The Ottoman Turkish alphabet is a Turkish form of the Perso-Arabic script.
Well suited to writing Arabic and Persian borrowings, it was poorly suited to
native Turkish words. When it came to consonants, Arabic has several
consonants that do not exist in Turkish, making several Arabic letters
superfluous except for Arabic loanwords; conversely, a few letters had to be
invented to write letters in Persian and Turkish that Arabic did not have
(such as g or p). In the case of vowels, Turkish contains eight different
short vowels and no long ones, whereas Arabic (and Persian) have three short
and three long vowels; further complicating matters was that in the Arabic
script, only long vowels are usually expressed._

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Turkish_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Turkish_language)

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_language_influences_in...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_language_influences_in_English)

\-
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Turkish_alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Turkish_alphabet)

~~~
delidumrul
> In the case of vowels, Turkish contains eight different short vowels and no
> long ones, whereas Arabic (and Persian) have three short and three long
> vowels;

Now, the alphabet of Turkish language is latin. This statement applies to
Latin alphabet as well. Latin alphabet does not contain all the vowels and but
Turkish version latin alphabet contains the necessary vowels. The problems are
solved just as done in Arabic alphabet.

The thing is that assuming these adjustments as a conflict is meaningless.
More, calling it funny is just an ignorance of linguistics. After reading this
passage, I would think that Turkish people cant write in Turkish during
Ottoman era because of the alphabet limitations. Then, millions of Ottoman
manuscripts would deny me.

Wikipedia is a practical source of information, but not necessarily a trustful
and truthful one. If anybody thinks that these are valid statements to achieve
a success on a language, just consider applying same revolution on English
language to achieve the same success. Catastrophic, right? What happened has
just happened. Just don't polish this move.

~~~
yorwba
> After reading this passage, I would think that Turkish people cant write in
> Turkish during Ottoman era because of the alphabet limitations.

Thy cwld wryt yn Twrkysh, bt thy had tw handl wrds wyth myssyng vwls, wr
ryprsntyng mltypl dyffrnt vwls wyth th sym arabyc lttr, cwsyng ambygwyty.
Rydbl, bt yt myns that wrytyng as yw spyk can prwdwc yncwmpryhnsybl txt. (Y
avwydd wsyng vry shwrt wrds yn thys txt, bycws yt wld by hrd tw rcwgnyz thm.)

~~~
lynguist
Excellent analogy.

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cenkozan
Well, we are taking about an empire that gave birth to 60 countries. Euro is
44 countries. USA is 50 states. I am afraid many other languages were also
lost in that amount of time ottomans were in power.

~~~
caiobegotti
I beg your pardon for the discordance on a tiny detail but "gave birth to 60
countries" is exactly the kind of arrogant imperial mindset behind "ottoman
empire" or any other empire for that matter. Those nations existed before such
empire, they were a combination of multiple things just loosely held together
(if held together at all of course), including their languages, which has a
heavy weight in national identities formation. The empire was simply comprised
of those already existing nations, it did not give birth to anything.

~~~
freddex
I agree up to a point: There were peoples with their distinct cultures that
the Ottomans conquered, the most prominent example being the Balkans. However,
"nation" is an 18th/19th century idea. The notion that distinct peoples should
form distinct and independent units of state called nations was no driving
force in the medieval and early modern period, in which we see the forming of
multi-national empires. I think you refer to this as well, I just wouldn't use
the word 'nation' in the same way.

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captain_price7
An interesting bit:

"Educated Ottoman Turks spoke Arabic and Persian, ...,with the former being
used for science and the latter for literary affairs"

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mobilefriendly
Of course Ottoman tolerance disappeared as the empire shrank, and they
systematically murdered millions of their Armenian and Greek speaking
subjects.

~~~
cateye
This red herring comment is automatically added in every online conversation
when the word Turk is mentioned and no ^((?!armenian).)*$

Completely irrelevant in the context here.

