Turkish Language Olympics
With a Turkish eye: Reconstructing Turkish as a meta-language
Recurring events tend reveal their importance in the flux of history. Likewise, growing events reveal their significance in the finalization of growth. The Turkish Language Olympics (TLO) is both a recurring and growing event in that is has already achieved institutionalization.
Russian philologist Mikhail Bakhtin disapproved of literary conclusions for unfinished lives and processes. The completeness of any dynamic reality can only be perceived, recognized and represented upon the finalization of its lifecycle. We may never know what good can come out of the TLO in the future and it is anybody's guess what impacts this organization will have on participants and represented countries. "The final word is always there to be said," wrote Bakhtin. "You can only approach the absolute truth. Interpretation goes on forever and ever."
We are living in a world of interrelatedness. Everything is related and "every word is uttered as a response to some previous statement and in expectation of some following," as Bakhtin would say. The TLO is an utterance within this unending story of human history -- it has certainly been conditioned on what already was written and it will definitely influence what is to be written in this "book of life." For this reason its importance and potential cannot be realized without referring to the totality of the book. We must consider the facts that Turks never attempted a linguistic imperialism in their history and that Turkey is a mosaic of nations and crossroad of cultures and religions. We must also bring in observations about the growing civil society in Turkey that is actively engaged in building this country. Similarly we cannot forget Turkey's long march toward the West and healthy roots in the East. Finally, we must acknowledge the Gülen Movement that has internalized and internationalized the dreams of the Turkish-speaking peoples of the world. Only after all of this will it be possible to grasp the message of the TLO in its totality.
Bakhtin introduced the neologism of "meta-language" into the study of literature and linguistic anthropology. Meta-language refers to the Bakhtinian belief that there is more to language than linguistic expressions. Bakhtin believed, as do I, that words are living entities with memories -- memories that never fade away -- keeping record of all occasion during which they have been uttered. These words present not only their meaning, but also the feelings, contexts, ambitions, hopes and fears accompanying their histories. Every word is a complete world in itself.
The TLO is an attempt to reconstruct Turkish as a universal meta-language. English has already lost its meta-linguistic aspects for those speaking English as a second language. It has turned into "Globish" -- a language with no history, no Shakespeare and no future. While the organizers of the TLO may not be aware of it, the Olympics are not the end of a process but the beginnings of a meta-language.
It would be best to close with a single word; "bariş," meaning peace. This particular word is of Turkish origin and has connotations of activeness and mutuality. It is more than the lack of war or a truce or cold peace. As their motto, the organizers of the TLO have adopted "Language of Bariş -- Turkish." Additionally the theme for the finals was also "bariş." Here the Olympics participants formed the Bariş Chorus with the opening show being focused around "bariş." For the participants, the fact that their songs were applauded by over 5,000 spectators has particular meaning. During the finals the children of 102 countries and thousands of clapping onlookers redesigned the meaning map of the word "bariş." This is not because the word has always been special, but because it was made to be special during the TLO finals. For the people involved, "bariş" cannot be translated into other languages, because no peace has ever been applauded as enthusiastically, no peace is as universal and no peace as sweet.
A 10th century philosopher of Turkish origin, Al-Farabi, asserts that words with philosophical depth from one language should not be translated to other languages if the corresponding word in the second language does not possess the same depth. "Better to keep the original word, or to create a meaningless word in the second language and load it with new meanings," says Al-Farabi. In that sense, "bariş" cannot be translated into other languages. Not, at least, for the participants of the TLO. The reconstruction of certain Turkish words and the Turkish language as a meta-language is an ongoing process. Who knows? The world may well join the Bariş Chorus in 10 years' time to sing the "Sevgi" (love) Song, chant the "Kardeşlik" (brotherhood) March and hum the Hymn of "Hoşgörü" (tolerance).
The significance of a link in a chain is equivalent to the significance of that whole chain. The TLO 2007 was a wonderful event, but its real greatness is in the fact that has paved the way for the Turkish Language Olympics 2057. (Kerim Balci, Ankara)
With a British eye: Great expectations of a world language
The end of May and beginning of June this year saw the fifth edition of the Uluslararasi Türkçe Olimpiyatlari (International Turkish Language Olympics), an annual event that has grown from rather humble beginnings in 2003 to the -- literally -- all-singing, all-dancing show that arrived in Ankara May 25 and rolled on to İstanbul for the finals on June 2.
Regular readers of this newspaper will have heard much about the event, both before during and after, and its young participants -- school-aged children from around the world with something in common: the Turkish language. One word appeared again and again in these articles, reviews, reports: love. Turkish is a "language of love," they stated; furthermore, the event aimed to promote the tongue as one of "universal love, dialogue, science and culture." The competition sent "messages of peace, tolerance and love from the Turkish people" to the world. Admirable stuff indeed. Hand in hand with "love" went the concept of Turkish as an international language; a lingua franca a la Turca, if you will.
Leaving aside the matter of 550 or so international teenagers conversing in the "language of love" -- one assumes their chaperones were suitably vigilant -- did the event succeed in its aim; that is, quite apart from the competition itself, did Turkish emerge as the victor, as a true international language? Not quite; or perhaps more accurately, not yet.
In fact the competition did not always aim for such giddy heights. Its original incarnation was the Yabancilar İçin Türkçe Yarişmasi (Turkish Language Competition for Foreigners), at which attendees from around the world -- albeit in rather smaller numbers -- gathered in Turkey to display their Turkish language skills. However there was one major difference: All the competitors were Turks. This element is retained in several sections of the "Olympic" version, although by no means promoted; understandable since it has become somewhat off-message in the evolution of the event, nonetheless it is a shame that it has been rather swept under the carpet. "Turkish for Turks abroad" may be rather more difficult to sex up in terms of "international ties of love and peace," but in terms of providing a great incentive to expat kids to maintain proficiency and even panache in their mother tongue, it seems invaluable. I was reminded of the weekend classes attended by some of my friends at school, the children of high-powered Japanese businessmen. There they would mix with other Japanese kids, stay in touch with Japanese culture and maintain or improve their skills in their mother tongue. This once-weekly tune-up left them fully integrated into British society, but kept them in touch with "home," too. Many have used this cultural bilingualism with great success, rapidly climbing the corporate ladder in big businesses such as Sony. But I digress.
The Olympics' aim of placing Turkish among those revered languages that merit the "international" is both commendable and reasonable. With Turkic languages in use over a vast area by some 180 million native speakers, Turkish itself is off to a good start. My own native tongue, English, currently has the status of being recognized as the international lingua franca of diplomacy, business, aviation and science. The factors contributing to this are numerous and largely historical. Certainly the spread of English during the time of the British Empire may take some credit, particularly in places such as India, where today tens of millions speak it fluently. With the country's constitution listing 22 official "scheduled languages," let alone myriad local dialects and less well-known tongues, English has often acted as a lingua franca.
The adoption of English as one of the two official working languages of the United Nations, and in practice often the sole working language, further secured its place on the global stage, usurping French as the international language of diplomacy -- an irony indeed, since it was for French, or Frankish, that the original Italian term lingua franca was so named. And of course a nod must go to world superpower the US for its considerable role in the post World War II global ascendancy, some might say hegemony, of English.
However, English as a language of love? With its distinctly colonial whiff and the not altogether unjustified charges of its being a vehicle for cultural imperialism, I think not.
Back to the 180 million Turkic language speakers; their number today might have been far greater if the Ottoman Empire had taken a similar approach to its subjects to that of the British Empire. However the Ottoman "culture of tolerance," and more importantly the heftier taxes it could impose on its subjects of non-Ottoman-origin, meant that distinct cultural identities continued to flourish in each new region it encompassed within its boundaries.
Thus Turkish today, reinvented from Ottoman Turkish much as the republic was from the ashes of the empire -- superficially similar but definitely different -- can at least hold its head up as one of the Turkic languages, the spread of which was not unduly lubricated by spilt blood or eased by injustice. For me, after viewing the competition, the question became whether these Olympics truly aim at furthering the spread of the Turkish language or are more concerned with its culture.
Certainly the various ethnic identities of the competitors were evident in the colorful array of national costumes on stage, but these separate cultural identities were almost washed away in a wave of Turkophilia. This stretched beyond proficiency in Turkish; the children wowed the crowds with performances of Turkish folk dances and, at several stages of the competition and during tours of the country, impressed audiences with a rendition of the Turkish national anthem. With its talk of blood shed in the name of the crescent and the star that "belongs solely to my nation," one wonders where this sense of Turkish national pride and military ability fits in with the message of "peace, love and understanding." Surely the intrinsic beauty of diverse nations united by a common language can be celebrated with more depth and sincerity than merely by reciting poetry while clad in antelope skins? Seemingly a forked path lies ahead for the Olympics: Just how much Türk do they want to include in their interpretation of Türkçe?
At the risk of being accused of Orientalism, I'd like to include some words here by Maureen Freely, translator and friend of Orhan Pamuk. "Turkish is lean and double-jointed, arching effortlessly from the active to the passive voice, delighting in nuances, dispensing with definite articles, stringing suffix to suffix to create sparkling mots juste that would need eight or nine or even a dozen words in English." Back at the Olympics a phrase used by more than one speaker at the finals was "bu muhteşem tablo" (this magnificent picture). Although the Türk Dil Kurumu (Turkish Language Society, TDK) might not approve of this flagrant use of a word of French origin, provided the Olympics can learn to embrace more fully its participants' own cultural identities, then this event in honor of both the supremely flexible Turkish language and young linguists from across the world may well present a picture upon which all involved can gaze in pride. And with care and perseverance, perhaps this could help herald a larger role for Turkish in the international arena. (Helen Southcott, Ankara)
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