Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 19.djvu/655

* TURKISH LANGUAGE. 565 TURKISH LANGUAGE. continued from the tenth century to the end of the seventeenth, enlarged the meagre Turkish vocahiilarv. The tribes which invaded India, now known under the name of Mof;iils. lost their lansruage: but those which coni|uercd Persia and overtlirew the Byzantine Empire came under the literary inlluence of Persian at first, then of Arabic, and finally of Greek and the European languages. The consequence was that the Otto- nuin Turkish (Osmanli). as the Western branch of the language is called, adopted into its literary vocabulary Persian words for poetry and liistory, Arabic words for religious and legal writings, Greek words for the winds and currents and fishes of the sea, Italian words for all that relates to sailing vessels, and, later on. English terms for steam, the steamboat and its manoeuvres, and French words for many of the terms of diplo- macy. The language of the Turkish tribes left in Central Asia and Persia and Southern Russia after the centre of the Turkish power had been transferred to Constantinople ceased its develop- ment at that point. That language is what is now known as Eastern Turkish. What it was at the end of the fifteenth century, that it is now. The dividing line between Eastern and Western Turkish is the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea, and the western frontier of the Persian Province of Azerbaijan. Beyond the Caspian Sea the dif- ference of dialect is so great that a Turk from Bokhara, though able to make his simpler wants known in the streets of Constantinople, requires an interpreter for satisfactory conversation. The general characteristics of the Eastern Turkish, called Jagatai by the Turks of Constantinople, Hre a broader and harsher vocalization, a very confusing substitution of consonants, as m for b, b for w, j for y, etc., and a preservation of those ancient tense and case words which in the Western Turkish have become mere arbitrary particles added to the root to indicate tense or case forms. For this reason study of the Eastern Turkish in its purest form, as found, for in- stance, in Chinese Turkestan to-day, reveals the processes of evolution of the Turkish grammar. The grammar is practically the same in Turkes- tan as in Turkey, but in the East its forms have lost little by attrition. At the same time the unity of the two dialects is clear. Eastern Turkish has many dialects. The lan- guage of some of the Kirghizes and that of the Yakuts of the river Lena is strongly tinged with Mongolian, and some Finnish affects the speech of theTchuvashes of the Upper Volga. On the other hand, the Nogai triljes of the Caucasus and the Crimea use a dialect so nearly like the Ottoman Turkish that newspapers published in the Crimea have regular subscribers at Constantinople. The Kiptchak is the only one of these Eastern Turkish dialects Aviiich has literary life at present. It is the one, too, which most nearly approaches to the pure t.vpe of old Turkish found in the so- called Jagatal or Uighur of the East. TURKISH LITERATURE. Turkish literature is a term which at present implies the literature of the Western or Ottoman Turkish language. It may he regarded as fall- ing into three periods: (!) The early period. when writers were from the region of Central Asia, and when the Persian was the model and often the instrument of their highest expression. (2 I The middle period, beginning about the mid- dle of the sixteenth century and extending well into the nineteenth, when .Arabic dominated the Turkish literary world, having replaced Persian as model except in poetry. (3) The modern period, dating from about the time of the Crimean War (18.5.3-56). In it the tendency of Turkish writers is to copy French, rather than either Persian or Arabian models, and to bring back into the language half-forgotten Turkish expressions. The earliest literary remains of Turkish writ- ers are the inscriptions mentioned above, de- ciphered by Thomsen. collected by Radloff, and their relation to the Chinese pointed out by Hirth. One of the earliest books of the early period, celebrated for its pure Turkish, is a genealogical history of the Tatars by Abul Ghazi of Khwarezm, dating from the twelfth century. The judge Burhaneddin of Sivas, a descendant of Genghis Khan, an adventurer, ruling over two provinces, who lost his life in trying to conquer another in 1398, has left some poems written in good Turkish, although after the Persian school. Another of the early poets was Suleiman EfTendi (died 1410), chaplain to Sultan Bajazet, whom Tamerlane carried off. He wrote a poem in honor of the birth of the Prophet Mohammed which has been read throughout Turkey on public occasions in each year during nearly 500 years, and still retains its power to move its hearers. Another of the poets of the early period was Amudeddin, who wrote under the name Nesinii. Like the others of these early poets, he was under the infiuence of Sufiism (q.v. ). and so incensed the more orthodox JIussulmans that he was flayed alive at Aleppo in 1417. Sheikhi, whose real name was Sinan (died 1420), was a doctor as well as a poet. His fame rests mainly upon his poem, the Khar-name, or Donkey Book, in which he classifies his enemies according to the difl'erent types of asses found in the East. Nevayi, whose real name was Ali Shir (died 1500), is the great representative of Turkish poetry in this period. He was Prime Minister for a time to Sultan Hussein of Herat, but re- tired early that he might write. He was a master in both Turkish and Persian. The thor- oughly human quality of his writings appeared from the fact that one nuiin source of our knowl- edge of the old Eastern Turkish language is a dictionary written by a Persian in order that Persians might profit by Nevayi's writings. The greatest prose writer of this period was Babcr, great-grandson of Tamerlane, and 'Mogul' con- queror of India in 1525-26. His annals of his campaigns are written in plain Turkish. Arabic and Persian words being used to eke out his vocabulary. Of the" middle period of Turkish literature Saadeddin (died 1500) offers a type. He was a warrior of great renown, and afterwards Chief Ju.stice of the Turkish Empire (Sheikh ul-Islam) under Sultan Mohammed III. The work on which his literary fame rests is a history of the Ottoman Empire, called Tajet-Tevarilch. The style is of the most ornate Persian order and there is hardly any Turkish in the book except those auxiliaries essential to the binding of the sentences. Saadeddin followed the principle, which ruled literature throughout the middle