The language of an empire that the common people could barely understand
In short: For centuries, Ottoman Turkish served as a sophisticated imperial register, heavily infused with Persian and Arabic. Yet, this elegant courtly tongue was largely unintelligible to the rural populations, who spoke a much simpler, 'raw' version of Turkish that forms the basis of the modern language today.
The evolution of Ottoman Turkish is a story of three distinct eras. It began as Old Ottoman Turkish, which remained closely tied to the traditions of the Seljuk Empire and Anatolian beyliks until the 16th century. This was followed by the Classical period, the language of administration and poetry, and finally New Ottoman Turkish, which emerged in the 1850s, shaped by Western-oriented literature and the rise of journalism.
The language's unique character was driven by imperial policy. During the reign of Mehmed II, the language was intentionally promoted as a courtly register and heavily Persianized. This created a massive linguistic gap between the elite and the peasantry, who spoke 'kaba Türkçe' (raw or vulgar Turkish). While the elite used complex Persian and Arabic loanwords and intricate compound grammar, the rural population used a version with far fewer foreign influences.
The linguistic divide was finally bridged by the radical reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk following the fall of the empire after World as I. In 1928, the state replaced the Perso-Arabic script with a Latin alphabet and began stripping away foreign loanwords in favor of Turkic equivalents. While the grammar of the two eras remains fundamentally similar, the modern language has abandoned the complex Arabic and Persian grammatical constructions that once defined the Ottoman era.
Today, the legacy of this transition remains a point of cultural significance. While modern Turkish is a streamlined, nationalized version of its predecessor, the historical 'Ottoman' style is still studied. In 2014, the Turkish Education Council even decided to introduce Ottoman Turkish as an elective in schools to ensure younger generations maintain a connection to their cultural heritage.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Ottoman Turkish
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