national geographic magazine (turkey goes to school)

8/6/2019 National Geographic Magazine (Turkey Goes to School)

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; OLD AND The ; NewW TURKISH WRITING

This Constantinople shop displays its name in Old Turkish (Arabic script) above and then

repeats its name in the recently adopted New Turkish (Latin letters). Both proclaim the fact

that this is the "New Book Store." The shop is one much frequented by Turkish schoolboys,and its proprietor has been conducting a thriving business in the sale of new alphabets and

primers during the last few months.



TURKEYGOES TOSCHOOL

BY MAYNARD OWEN WILLIAMS

EUROPEAN STAFF CORRESPONDENT; AUTHOR OF "SEEING 3,000 YEARS OF HISTORY IN FOUR HOURS,"

"UNSPOILED

CYPRUS,""IN THE BIRTHPLACE OF CHRISTIANITY,"ETC., IN THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE

With Illustrations from Photographs by the Author

IF THE pen is mightier than the sword,

Turkey is on her way to new victories.The entire nation is relearning its A-

B-C's, having discarded the 482-lettercombinations of the Arabic script andadopted in their stead 29 characters (in-cluding those with diacritical marks) fromthe Latin alphabet, in use throughout theWestern World.

When the schools closed for vacationlast spring, there was little thought that

the adoption of the "New Turkish alpha-bet" would delay their fall opening untiltextbooks could be prepared, so that all in-struction would be in Latin characters.But the "New Turkish," no longer a joke,has been taken so seriously that a new hu-morous weekly, the Khahahathek issilent-which appeared in September, wasthe first periodical to be printed entirely inthe new characters. On December i, all

newspapers were compelled to appear inthe new alphabet, else suspend publication.The Government had to assist some papersto buy new type.

ARABIC SCRIPT BEAUTIFUL, BUT DIFFICULT

The Arabic script, apt medium for Mos-lem art, presented tremendous difficultiesto the student; so that more than four-fifths of the Turkish people were illiterate.

Time and again I have found culturedSyrians, Arabs, and Turks unable to de-cipher the calligraphy which was both lit-erature and art throughout Islam. Is itany wonder that the nearly 500letter com-binations of the Arabic script have longdaunted worker and peasant?

In front of the highly revered tomb of Eyoub Ensari, standard bearer to Mo-hamm ed the Conqueror when he took Con-stantinople, there is a beautifully carved

grill, bearing a wonder-working Arabicinscription. M others, pressing their palmsupon it and then rubbing the faces of theirchildren, keep its surface b rightly polished.Yet few can read it and I have found non e who can translate it (see illustrations,pages 99 and 6

Cultured Americans who have lived for

decades in Turkey cannot read the namesof the landing stages on the way to theirhomes on the Bosporus. Men who canconverse fluently in several languages can-not read the street signs in the land inwhich they have lived for years. Butwithin the last few weeks a vast changehas come.

Early in August, on what seemed frivo-l ous occasions, at one of which he praised

Western music and Western dancing, thePresident of the Turkish Republic. spokein behalf of the new alphabet, whose adop-tion, like the coming of the millennium, wasthen something to be considered, but notworried about. As if by magic, however,names in Latin characters appeared on adozen or so Turkish steamers in the har-bor. As I passed along the quay of GalataBridge, on August 2I, a whole set of names

was there, ready to be fastened to theprows of local steamers. I longed for mycamera, which was miles away.

On the bridge itself, boys were sellingcopies of the new alphabet. On thesteamer, with a ten-cent primer in hand,I learned more Turkish in an hour than Ihad known after a year in the country.

Although the popular enthusiasm is greatand opposition negligible, it was a changeimposed from the top-not enforced bylaw, but inspired by the President. At a

banquet, while making a speech, he wouldhand his manuscript, written in "NewTurkish," to some sluggish bureaucrat whofelt secure in his job, and ask him to readit . Sweat glands were overworked lastsummer. One such application was enoughfor that officeholder. The morrow foundhim feverishly studying his A-B-C's.

GOVERNMENT MINISTRIES ADOPT NEWALPHABET

One after another, the ministries areadopting the new alphabet for all officialcorrespondence and none seems eager tobe the last. The lowliest functionary mustknow how to read and write Latin char-



The new system of writing in Turkey has affected not only the cheaper signs, but imposingand costly brass and bronze inscriptions in Arabic script are being discarded and replaced withnames in the Latin alphabet.

acters or be booked for dismissal. In a

country where even college graduates con-

sider a "Government job" a worthy prize,

this method makes inertia seem less or-ganic.

In the foreign-language newspapers a

section on the adoption of the new char-

acters soon became as much of a fixture

as a comic strip or sporting page in the

United States, only that it is "first-page

stuff." In the Turkish papers and maga-

zines columns or entire pages were printedin Latin characters weeks in advance of

the official order for their use exclusively.

The new alphabet was "news," not for

amusement but for study

Advertising columns have become prim-

ers, picturing well-known objects whose

Turkish names begin with the "new" let-

ters. Window displays show the entire 29new characters as initials for various ob-

jects chosen from stock and mounted on

the same card with the initial and the full

name in the new characters (see illustra-tion, page 105) .

THREE FAMILIAR LETTERS ARE MISSING

On the street cars the old bilingual signs

in Arabic-script Turkish and Latin-let-

tered French have given way to clearer

signs in New Turkish, which is equally

f th f i t d if th



"d" and "t" and the "b" and "p" seem tobe juggled somewhat and cedilla and um-laut markings are added.

There is no "q, " no "w," no"

x"

in thenew alphabet adopted by the Turks. The

left-hand edge of the typewriter is thehardest hit. One does not go to the

"Maxim" Restaurant, but to the "Mak-sim."

The most revolutionary change I noticedwas the "BURSA," on the name plates of Broussa automobiles, and when I askedwhy, my informants assured me that"BURSA" came closer to the phonetics of the one-time capital than does the French

form "Broussa."

TURKISH SECTION OF NEW MAP OF EUROPE

MUST BE RELETTERED

Until the new dictionary appears, therewill be some variations. One telegraphoffice proclaims itself "TELGIRAF" ; an-

other only five minUTES away calls itsself

"TELGRAf . " But such trifling matters maysoon be righted.

Ten months ago the aid of several ex-perts in Angora was enlisted to obtaindata for the New Map of Europe beingprepared by the National Geographic So-ciety, on which each nation is to have itsown place names. A partially satisfactorytransliteration was the result. With thenewly adopted alphabet, however, the placenames of Turkey will be standardizedwithin a few weeks.*

In the post office my registry receiptsare now made out in legible New Turkish,but receipts written three months ago were

unintelligible not only to me, but to myTurkish-speaking assistants.Foreign firms in Turkey have hitherto

been forced to keep their books in both

* The entire Turkish section of the New Mapof Europe, to be issued shortly as a supplementwith the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, isbeing relettered in accordance with these recent



forms of numerals and in two languages.Books can soon be kept in one language,only a few Turkish trade words beingnecessary for the foreigner in order tomake his records conform to Governmentrequirements.

Although the change is not made withan eye to the foreigner, travel for us hasbecome vastly simpler, and Turkey hastaken on a less forbidding air, as stationnames in Arabic script disappear.

Travelers on the Orient Express or theAnatolian Railway were formerly forcedto judge their position by consulting awatch or a sextant. They can now read

the station signs. On the sides of theTurkish cars, as well as on the Interna-tional sleeping cars, the names of the ter-mini are marked so plainly that even hewho runs to his train may read and catchthe right one (see illustration, page 97).

To the foreigner some of the changesseem to have been made wrong end to.The name on his steamer has been paintedi n Latin characters, and the number on thefunnel is the un-Arabic "Arabic" numeral,to which the West is accustomed. But theti me-table and the list of stops made bythat particular boat are still in the oldcharacters. Meanwhile the correspondence



of the shipping company is being done inthe new characters, and the Turks areonly awaiting the arrival of typewriterswith the newly adopted Latinized key-board before business correspondence willbecome legible, if not understandable, toall.

PROGRESSIVE FOREIGN FIRMS WERE

CAUGHT NAPPING

One striking feature of the revolution-ary change in alphabet was the way itcaught the foreign firms napping, so thatthey now lag rather than lead. Sewingmachines, automobiles, oil and gasoline,breakfast foods, and cleansers still retainthe Arabic script in their advertising andon their products. An "ESSEKS" adver-tisement is the only one of its kind that

I have so far noted.Although one moving-picture theaterhalf-heartedly uses Arabic script for itstitles and every week flashes a funny storyin the new alphabet on its screen, thusstarting such a course in concerted titlereading as "movie" fans have always hadto endure, the cinemas have largely adopted

the new alphabet (see page loo).The "interior," as Anatolia is called by

the Constantinopolitans, is outspeeding theformer capital, and Stamboul seems to bemore affected than Pera (the Europeanquarter), where bilingual signs in oldTurkish and French, English, German, orRussian were common.

The blackboard and copy book have be-come major equipment in post office, policestation, store, and bank. But the class-room is wider than that. Miles out from

Broussa, while waiting for the CapeTown-Stockholm Motor Expedition, I was askedto read an entire column printed in thenew alphabet and was assured that what Iread made sense, though not to me. Cafes,ferries, and street cars are all improvisedclassrooms of this nation at school.

An American moving-picture man, witha flair for the dramatic, found a group of turbaned Moslems studying Latin char-

acters on tombstones in the English ceme-tery.

PROFESSIONAL SCRIBES ARE ASSISTING

BACKWARD GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS

In the porch of Yeni Djami the pro-fessional scribes have mastered the newscript and are ready to save backward

bureaucrats from downfall. Near at hand,but facing starvation, are the seal engrav-ers, whose involved inscriptions, like abanker's signature, are models of studiedillegibility, but who will find it hard tomake even a monogram as attractive in thenew characters (see illustration, page 99).

What the effect on Moslem art will benone can say. There are rumors that thegreat decorative inscriptions by TekhedjZade Ibrahim and others will be changed,which is a little like making over a Raphaelor a Michelangelo on a typewriter. Manyof the mosque inscriptions are in the Ara-bic language as well as Arabic script, andhence have no direct relation to the pres-ent problem.

Iconoclastic enthusiasm for the wonder-

working "New Turkish," which is toawaken a nation from illiteracy and back-wardness, may even touch some Arabici nscriptions whose beauty in a house of worship has seldom been equaled andnever surpassed. But if one fears that, hecan go out to Stamboul's Sistine Chapel-the one-time Church of St. Saviour, nowthe Kahrieh Mosque-and see Christianmosaics and frescoes in an edifice rebuilt

by Justinian. As Moslems come to prayerthey cross a vestibule on whose ceiling themiracles of Christ are still pictured, al-though human figures on wall bracketshave been destroyed by iconoclasts.

As yet there is no indication that thismovement toward enlightenment througha more easily understood alphabet will re-sult in the destruction of art treasureswhose fame is worldwide. If the splendid

calligraphy which so dominates Moslemart from ceramics to architecture nowceases, existing treasures may be valuedmore than ever.

ABANDONED FEZZES, VEILS FOR WOMEN,

AND OLD ALPHABET INDICATE TUR-

KEY'S CHANGING VIEWPOINT

New Turkey is definitely stepping awayfrom other lands where the Arabic script

still prevails, just as she slid when sheabolished the fez and tried to free womenfrom the veil. But this may prove a link rather than a breach. Persia and Afghan-istan are already following the superficialchanges which Turkey recently adopted.Second-hand Prince Alberts may find aswide a market as did second-hand hats and



caps when the fez was removed. Safetyrazors are pushing their conquests farthereast on a wave of Turkish nationalism.

Only a few years ago Turkey was nomi-nated as an American mandate. She isnow eagerly adopting changes which noforeign tutor would dare impose, and iswinning a cultural leadership far beyondthe Ottoman boundaries.

That an eastern land is now modern-izing and westernizing the Near hast at a

pace such as no Western nation or nationsever set is just one of those paradoxes inwhich history delights. Suffering fromno oppression psychosis, the Turks freelyaccept what no outsider could impose.

With the adoption of the New Turkishalphabet, a nation is going to day school

and night school. Having withdrawn hiscapital into the heart of Anatolia, theTurk has not only retreated from the in-trigues and indignities of the past, but hascarried Western modernism-for better orfor worse-into regions little touched byOccidental culture.

Yet, in making his fight for the NewTurkish alphabet, the President of Turkeyinvaded the foreign-language, foreign-press, foreign-thinking city of the Sultans.

The tool he uses is not the sword, but thepen-that and the stub of a pencil thatthe grizzled mail messenger grips in hiscramped fingers, as he sits on the lowerdeck on a Bosporus "chirket" and pain-fully learns to write a script which willtake a letter to any country in the world.

national geographic magazine (turkey goes to school)

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