Int'l Turkish Language Olympics to Host 110 Countries
The sixth International Turkish Language Olympics will host 550 participants from 110 countries from May 22-June 2, delivering messages of peace and brotherhood to the world.
Under the chairmanship of former Education Minister and current Parliamentary National Education Commission Chairman Mehmet Sağlam, the sixth International Turkish Language Olympics will unite students from 110 countries under the umbrella of the Turkish language. Students from high schools will compete in several areas including poems recitation, songs, story writing, presentations and basic knowledge of spoken Turkish.
The International Language Education Association organizes the Turkish Olympics, being held this year at the Asya Thermal Hotel in the town of Kizilcahaman, just north of Ankara. On May 24-25 there will be a cultural exhibition at Ankara's Altinpark wherein participants from each country will introduce their respective cultures to the Turkish people. The final competition at the Turkish Olympics — singing — will be conducted at Ankara's Anadolu Exhibition and Congress Center.
Olympics contestants will begin their language adventure in preliminary trials at the Asya Thermal Hotel on May 22; the competition's official opening is on May 24 at Altinpark. Last year 90,000 people visited the culture exhibition, which was organized in Istanbul's Feshane, and this year 200,000 people are expected to visit the cultural exhibition in Ankara's Altinpark.
The award ceremony for the Turkish Olympics will be held on June 1 with the participation of Parliament Speaker Köksal Toptan and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and will be live-broadcast by many national television channels.
In a first for Turkish Olympics events, this year some event activities will take place in various provinces around Turkey. The folk dancing preliminary trials, for example, will be held in the central Anatolian province of Kayseri and the poetry competition final will be held in Bursa. Students will participate in several activities in Erzurum, Gaziantep, Konya and İzmir as well.
Event sponsor Türk Telekom will also manufacture special telephone cards with scenes from the Turkish Olympics and distribute them across Turkey. This year Bank Asya is a platinum sponsor of the Turkish Olympics and Turkish Airlines (THY) is the event transportation sponsor. Gold sponsors of this year's events are İstikbal, Evyap, Romanson and Kumtel.
From 17 countries to 110 over last five years
Seventeen countries participated into the first Turkish Olympics in 2003, however the Olympics drew much attention from around the world, and 24 countries participated in 2004. This number reached 41 in 2005, 83 in 2006 and 100 countries participated in 2007. This year a total of 550 students and 250 teachers will participate in the Turkish Olympics in from 110 countries.
The students will compete in several areas; poems, songs, story-writing, grammar, general culture, presentations and basic knowledge of Turkish, and their final and semi-final performances will be evaluated by a scientific and popular jury. The successful students will be given both medals and a monetary award.
Aim is to make Turkish lingua franca
Professor Mehmet Sağlam, the chairman of the Olympics Organization Committee, said: "Our aim is to give Turkish the [standing] it deserves on earth, to help it become common in the world and also reward those who learn it well." Turkish Olympics Secretary-General Tuncay Öztürk said international participation in the Turkish Olympics broke a record this year with 110 nations sending delegates and added that students will introduce their cultures to Turks, in Turkish, at the event's cultural exhibit. Öztürk said that in this way, the Turkish Olympics played an important role in the integration of Turkish into many cultures.
This year's participants
This year's competition will welcome teams from 10 new competing countries. The countries to participate are: the United States, Finland, Northern Ireland, the autonomous Republic of Tatarstan, Afghanistan, France, Laos, Romania, Germany, South Korea, Latvia, the Russian Federation, Angola, Ghana, Liberia, Senegal, Argentina, Guinea, Lithuania, Serbia, Albania, South Africa, Hungary, Singapore, Australia, Georgia, Madagascar, Slovenia, Austria, India, Macedonia, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan, Holland, Malawi, Sudan, Iraq, Maldives, Syria, Bangladesh, Britain, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Iran, Mali, Chile, Belgium, Scotland, Mexico, Tajikistan, Benin, Spain, Egypt, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates, Sweden, Mongolia, Thailand, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Switzerland, Moldova, Taiwan, Brazil, Italy, Mauritania, Togo, Bulgaria, Japan, Mozambique, Turkmenistan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Myanmar, Uganda, Algeria, Cameron, Nepal, Ukraine, Chad, Canada, Niger, Jordan, Czech Republic, Montenegro, Nigeria, Venezuela, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Norway, Vietnam, Indonesia, Kenya, the Central African Republic, Yemen, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Greece, Ethiopia, Colombia, Pakistan, Zambia, Morocco, Congo, Papua New Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kosovo, Poland, The Philippines, Kuwait, Portugal and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. (Ibrahim Asalioglu, Ankara)
- Created on .