A STUDY OF TURKISH VOWEL HARMONY AND THE POWER OF LANGUAGE A thesis submitted to the Kent State University Honors College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for General Honors by Hannah Selin Hunter August, 2013 ! Thesis written by Hannah Selin Hunter Approved by ________________________________________________________________, Advisor _______________________________________________, Chair, Department of English Accepted by ___________________________________________________, Dean, Honors College ""! ! TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES.............................................................................................................v LIST OF TABLES..............................................................................................................vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...............................................................................................vii CHAPTERS I. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………….…....1 II. VOWEL HARMONY…………………………………………………….…..6 III. TURKISH VOWEL HARMONY………………………………….………...9 IV. CAUSES OF DISHARMONY 1. WRITING SYSTEMS a. ORKHON RUNIC SCRIPT.....................................................18 b. ARABIC ALPHABET.............................................................19 c. LATIN ALPHABET.................................................................24 2. DIALECT DIFFERENCES...............................................................25 3. INVARIABLE SUFFIXES................................................................27 4. COMPOUND WORDS.....................................................................28 5. BORROWED WORDS.....................................................................29 V. HIGH VS. LOW TURKISH...........................................................................36 VI. ATATÜRK AND THE LANGUAGE REFORM...........................................42 VII. THE NEW ALPHABET.................................................................................56 VIII. LOOKING TO THE FUTURE.......................................................................65 """! ! WORK CITED...................................................................................................................69 APPENDIX 1. EXPLANATION OF CD................................................................................71 2. ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES OF TURKISH VOWEL HARMONY………73 3. OVERVIEW OF OLD TURKIC....................................................................77 4. OVERVIEW OF OTTOMAN TURKISH......................................................87 ! "#! ! LIST OF FIGURES CHAPTER II. VOWEL HARMONY FIGURE 1. IPA Chart of Vowels..........................................6 CHAPTER III. TURKISH VOWEL HARMONY FIGURE 1. Turkish Vowel Cube...........................................9 ! #! ! LIST OF TABLES CHAPTER II. VOWEL HARMONY TABLE 1. Turkish Vowels.................................................10 TABLE 2. Front Vowel Harmony......................................11 TABLE 3. Back Vowel Harmony......................................11 TABLE 4. The Genitive Case............................................12 CHAPTER IV. CAUSES OF DISHARMONY 1. WRITING SYSTEMS b. ARABIC ALPHABET TABLE 1. Arabic Alphabet..........................................19-21 APPENDIX I. CD EXPLANATION TABLE 1. CD Tracks...................................................71-72 II. ADDITIONAL EXAMPLES OF TURKISH VOWEL HARMONY TABLE 1. Front, Unrounded............................................73 TABLE 2. Back, Unrounded............................................73 TABLE 3. Front, Rounded...............................................74 TABLE 4. Back, Rounded................................................74 TABLE 5. Long Turkish Word...................................75-76 ! #"! ! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The first person I want to thank is my advisor, Dr. Howard. When I initially asked Dr. Howard to be my thesis advisor I had no confidence that she would agree. I had taken one class with her the year before, but even if she remembered me I was not sure that she would have the time or the interest to be my advisor. I am grateful that she did agree because I cannot imagine working with anyone else on this topic. I know that she was very busy during the year that I wrote my thesis and I appreciate the time she set aside to work with me. I also appreciated her enthusiasm about my topic and her guidance. Without her guidance my thesis and I would have fallen apart many times. It was genuinely a joy to work with her. I left every meeting wanting to do nothing but work on my thesis for hours and hours. It was a privilege sharing my thesis experience with her. Next I would like to thank the rest of my thesis committee. When I asked Dr. Palmer and Dr. Bindas to be on my committee, they had never met me before, but they were willing to take a gamble and I appreciate that. Professor Dauterich already knew me from my Freshman Honors Colloquium, however I only asked him to join my committee a couple of weeks before my defense. I appreciate his willingness to jump in at such short notice. I would also like to thank everyone at my defense for having such insightful comments and questions. The discussion during my defense was challenging and exciting because of the thoughtful questions presented by the committee members. I left my defense confident that I had ended up with the best combination of people I could have hoped for. Thank you all for making time to be on my committee. ! #""! ! I also have to thank my dad, David Hunter, for his constant willingness to bounce ideas back and forth with me. His insight into the history and politics of Turkey was always thought provoking and guided me in directions I might not have taken without him. I can say with confidence that my thesis would not have ended up the way it did without his comments. Thank you dad for your patience and your seemingly never- ending knowledge of everything Turkish. While I am thanking my dad, I must also thank my aunt, Susan Bohanan. She was kind enough to read through my rough draft and help me with my final editing. Reading through my entire thesis, especially as a rough draft, is not something that everyone would be willing to do, so I acknowledge and appreciate her contribution to my final paper. Lastly, I want to thank my friend Remona Dowell. She was the first person to tell me about an Honors Thesis and encourage me to write one. It took a full year for her suggestion to bear fruit, but eventually it id. Throughout the thesis writing process she instilled in me the perfect mixture of confidence and terror. She kept me responsible by asking me periodically how my thesis was going and gave me advice when I was lost. If she had not encouraged me to write a thesis, I can honestly say I never would have. ! #"""! ! $! Chapter I INTRODUCTION Before introducing the birth and development of the thesis, a few general notes will be helpful. This thesis includes many Turkish words and sounds as well as some Arabic words and sounds. These words and sounds are represented either in an alphabetic form or in a phonetic form. When a Turkish word is given, as it is spelled in Turkish, it is italicized and the English translation is put in parentheses, for example the word el (hand). When an Arabic word is given it is not italicized, but the English translation is still provided in parentheses. If, however, the word is written phonetically with the International Phonetic Alphabet, the word will be put in forward slashes and again the English translation will be provided in parentheses if it had not already been provided, for example the word /el/ (hand). When a letter is referred to it is put in angle brackets, for example the letter <a>. If instead of a letter a sound, or a phoneme, as it is officially referred to, is given, then simple brackets are used, for example the phoneme, [a]. If the reader does not know the International Phonetic Alphabet, or if they simply want to hear the words pronounced, there is a CD in the back of the thesis that includes the pronunciations of most of the Turkish words. There is also an explanation and guide to the CD given in the Appendix. The inspiration for this thesis came from the Kent State University course, “The History of the English Language,” taught by Dr. Howard. This course did not immediately lead to the idea of a thesis, but when combined with an interest in the ! ! %! Turkish language became the initial thesis proposal titled “The Morphological History of the Turkish Language.” The interest in the Turkish language stemmed from my childhood, which was spent in Turkey. My background in Turkish also aided the research as it would have been much more difficult without my fluency in the Turkish language. The initial idea was very broad, the only clear direction was to study the history of the Turkish people and their language as far back as it could go. Through initial research, this broad idea quickly led to the more narrow idea that Turkish has remained remarkably similar throughout the centuries. This was based off of a comparison to the English language. In the course, the History of the English Language, Dr. Howard had pointed out how English has changed significantly in the past centuries. In comparison to English, Turkish has not changed nearly as significantly in a similar time frame. This argument was to be proven or disproven through research throughout the following year. Research on Old Turkic led down two roads, first, research on vowel harmony, and second, research on Ottoman Turkish. The research