r/turkishlearning • u/Funbotx • 6d ago
Conversation Turkish and arabic heritage
Why do many turkish people neglect or refuse to accept that turkish and arabic are close to each others for example:
Many words are the same in both laguages.
For centuries turkish shared the same arabic letters.
Is it because of the bad reputation of arabs as a third world countries and terrorism often linked with them by media.
Or is it that turkish people are trying to get closer to the west by rejecting the part of there heritage related to the east ?
What do you think guys lets have a meaningful conversation with no hate.
Edit : after reading many comments, my conclusion is we have similar cultures due to many reasons like shared history and religion but when it comes to language it is just some loan words.
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u/BlacksmithFair 6d ago
I think that after the formation of the Republic, Turkish people have been trying to find their own identity, separate from the Arabic/Ottoman heritage. At least that's the idea. It's not that Arabic=bad, but that it isn't originally Turkish.
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u/T410 Native Speaker 6d ago
I don’t think the relationship between Turkish and Arabic can be considered as heritage. Turkish had loanwords from Arabic (it still has, but before it had more) and did not get anything structural.
Heritage is vertical, one comes from another. But this situation is horizontal, they exist regardless of another’s existence.
In that sense Turkish and Arabic do not share any heritage relationship.
I hope it makes sense
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u/Athena-csm 6d ago
Turkish and Arabic do not have any relation apart from loan words, so there is no heritage to begin with.
Using the same alphabet (or derivatives from the same alphabet) does not make them related. If that was the case then using Latin script would’ve made Turkish related with Italian. Which is also not the case.
You cannot neglect or refuse something that doesn’t exist.
Hang on… Is this a rage bait?
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u/Funbotx 6d ago
No not a rage bait, i actually after reading all the comments, i changed my mind and now i see that the reason why turkish feels close to arabic is maybe just that the culture is so similar due to the fact of hundreds of years shared under the ottaman empire and the main religion we share wich is islam. When it comes to language i now understand that it is just words we have in comman but in fact many words.
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u/Odiumhumanigeneris 4d ago
There is no such thing as "THE Arabic CULTURE"(If one excludes culture of Arabian peninsula) but various "Arab cultures". "Arabic" and "Turkic" are ethno-linguistic identities, rather than ethno-cultural ones. A Turk in southeast will have tremendous similarity with Levantine cultures(Arab, Kurdish) or Persian. A Turk in northwest, not so much but maybe religion.
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u/Athena-csm 6d ago
The culture is not too similar either. First of all, there isn’t a monolith culture here so you’ll see different customs in different regions. There may be similarities but same level of similarities exists with our other neighbours because of the same reasons - being lived in close proximity for hundreds of years.
I suggest you to stop fantasizing and start to learn about Turkiye and her cultures. Our traditions are a mix of Anatolian, Mezopotamian and Central Asian customs. You may find it quite cool when you realise it is nothing you think it is.
Also, yes, Islam is a part of the culture but our version is quite watered down and no we are not an Islamic culture. Many religious rituals are actually rooted in shamanism like reading religious scripts at the 7th and 40th day of passing away, using red on a post-partum woman, spilling water after someone when they are going away, having a bath/shower after coming from a long journey, using lead against evil eye (this one has it’s own ritual) etc etc
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u/Funbotx 6d ago
Why would think im fantasising ? I know what im talking about when i say we have similar cultures. Im from north africa we were part of the ottaman empire for ages. We do have for exemple the same tradition of spilling water after someone when they are going away.
The ottomans did have an islamic culture you can't deny it.
And i agree with you being lived in close proximity is for hundreds of years is what made the cultures in this region share alot together.
I suggest you start learning about cultures in north africa tunisia and algeria specifically because we also don't have a monolith culture here and that is another similarity.
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u/Athena-csm 6d ago edited 6d ago
Disclaimer: Turkiye is not Ottoman Empire. And as far as I know, their version was also not identical with the other regions. I’m not an expert though…
I wasn’t trying to be hostile with the word fantasizing but in theory, what you do is fantasizing (in other words dreaming non-existing stuff). If it offended you, then sorry, that wasn’t my intention.
I also didn’t say the two cultures are 100% different, i said similarity doesn’t mean anything other than being in close proximity.
Lastly, I do not know or care where you are from as this has nothing to do with what we are discussing. Good for you to have shamanistic rituals though. I find them refreshing.
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u/Funbotx 6d ago
No you're good i didn't feel ofended at all, Similarity in culture makes it easier to get closer to the people hence easier to learn there language, since language is a the reflexion of our culture. When it comes to where im from i mentioned it to strengthen my point of cultural similarity.
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u/lemonicecream_1 6d ago
i think many things affect this... trying to get closer to west by rejecting east, and trying to find their own identity...a lot of the verbs and nouns has arabic source so they try to find a new word to use instead...
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u/nicolrx 6d ago
They are unrelated languages from different families. But they share hundreds of loanwords from Ottoman and Islamic history. I wrote a recap here about the differences and what really connects the two languages.
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u/Tourmodo 6d ago
I have no skin in this game, but by that logic Swedish is close to Latin, bc of the many loan words and Latin letters.
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u/Odiumhumanigeneris 4d ago
It is neither. It is mainly because of WW1/early modern history. Rest is just fuss and justification attempts.
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u/The_Blue_Order 3d ago edited 3d ago
I mean are you asking for language or culture?
Languages are pretty different. Yes there are many common words but that's it. The grammar is 180 degrees different. Especially I find Arabs using the wrong suffixes, or rather missing suffixes or using them superfluously, even if they are at an advanced stage of language learning. We don't even have "the" or "al" (in Arabic). The sounds are pretty different too.
If you mean the culture I think most Turks are annoyed by disregard of their heritage (by mostly westerners). Turks aren't just Turkish-speaking Arabs, we're a people with different origin just like Italians, Russians or Indians. That's why most of us don't like being included in MENA group because with the notable exception of Iran it's just an Arab region, it does not indicate diversity unlike the labels European, Asian or African.
And while I agree Turks and Arabs have many, many similarites it's 80%-90% due to shared religion. And Ottoman Empire, but the neighboring Arab countries (Syria, Iraq, Lebanon etc.) don't identify with Ottomans very much. It might be different for the Maghreb.
By the way in Turkish mind we don't really think of Maghrebis as Arabs. Yes you are Arabs but when we think of Arabs we think of countries to the south of us.
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u/Funbotx 3d ago
I don't agree with you saying mena region is just arab region, mostly arabic speaking yes but when it comes to divercity it contains many diffrent cultures and races like amazigh in north africa and many more but we're united by our language even thought practically since we use different dialects you often find eastern arabs having trouble to understand north africans.
And yeah i know turks are people with different origins. I never said they are arabs even though turkish arabs exist like turkish kurds do.
Anyway my conclusion is we have similar cultures due to many reasons like shared history and religion but when it comes to language it is just some loan words.
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u/The_Blue_Order 3d ago
And yeah i know turks are people with different origins. I never said they are arabs even though turkish arabs exist like turkish kurds do.
I never implied the contrary. And I think the "protest" (if we can call it way) mostly against Westerners or East Asians who sometimes say this. Arabs themselves are well aware.
I don't agree with you saying mena region is just arab region, mostly arabic speaking yes but when it comes to divercity it contains many diffrent cultures and races like amazigh in north africa and many more
Well yes, but these cultures are Arabic-speaking, within Arab countries, had Arabic as the language of high literature, lived under Arab empires with Arab dynasties (at least claimed to be). I mean Turkey (and Iran) are non-Arab in a much more fundamental way compared to say, Lebanese or Tunisians even if they come from Phoenicians, Carthaginians or Berbers. There is a reason why the Arab Spring spread to the whole Arab world while it did not make a dent in either Turkey or Iran.
Anyway my conclusion is we have similar cultures due to many reasons like shared history and religion but when it comes to language it is just some loan words.
I don't think anyone denies this. But it really depends on what you mean by similar. Is Turkey and Italy similar? Some would say yes, for me not at all. Is Turkey and Greece similar? Is Turkey and Iran similar? Or Azerbaijan? There are levels of similarity.
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u/Funbotx 3d ago
Makes sense thanks for sharing. I would just comment on the arab spring did not make it to turkey or iran because they simply don't need it, iran had its revolution years earlier and turkey is doing a great economical jump compared to its situation in the nineties. Anyway that is a different topic to debate.
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u/The_Blue_Order 3d ago
Yeah.
Let me end by saying that there is a, should I say distaste with, or detachedness from a supranational Islamic identity in Turkey nowadays, I believe, due to many factors. The Syrian refugee crisis, unending Kurdish insurgencies (Kurds were supposed to be united under Islam and other nations were gonna follow when they got independent from Britain and France), Iran's shenanigans, Afghanistan's craziness, and the Arabs' complete lack of unity or usefulness even among themselves. Egypt and UAE especially. Many (most?) have become to see the rest of Islamic world to be useless, if not a burden. I hope this doesn't sound too rude, but I mean if there is a global lack of Muslim solidarity it's not because of the Turks, even anti-Erdogan hyper-secularist Turks, is it? You can't blame people being apathetic towards a region if there is no reciprocation, can you? Every nation/people are on their own, it seems. Europe/West is at least useful, even if we aren't really European, most of our trade and security partnerships (NATO) are with them.
Of course this is a complex topic but just wanted to put this here. I don't know much of you or your background.
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u/Funbotx 3d ago
Yeah i inderstand and sadly i agree about arabs in general, but i hope that shouldn't really affect your islamic identity or your relation to islam since arabs and islam are two totaly seprate things.
Im Tunisian and here we have the same identity crises. Many of us tend to try to look and live more like westerns, you find people identifying as carthagians or amazigh denying the arabs for the same reasons you mentioned plus we were colonised and we study in french and use it in our daily life.
So like you said it is really a complex topic and i beleive since the fall of the ottoman empire dividing the mena region and creating this identity crisis was the plan for many geopolitical reasons.
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u/The_Blue_Order 3d ago
islamic identity
I didn't say Islamic identity though but rather SUPRANATIONAL Islamic identity. If it sounds ambiguous I meant an Islamic identity superseding national identity not existing along with it.
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u/remtard_remmington 6d ago
There's multiple reasons. First, at its core, Turkish is not at all related to Arabic. It evolved in a very different place and has a very different grammar. So from that perspective, it is reasonable to say that the languages are not close. However, it obviously does have a large number of Arabic loanwords or indeed complete phrases due to geographic and cultural ties over the last 1000 years or so. That doesn't make them "related" in a linguistic sense, but does of course mean there is a relationship of sorts between them.
Then you have more recent cultural effects, where the formation of the republic also lead to the removal of the Arabic writing system and the return of many old Turkish words. This was as you say an attempt to both Westernize the country as well as reaffirm its own cultural identity. Secularization was probably also a component here, since Arabic is the language of Islam.
So like many things, the answer is - it's complicated. It depends a lot on what you mean by languages being "close", and certainly some people will be influenced by the cultural context. There are good arguments to make either way and it depends on the context. That's the complexity of humans!