I read somewhere that they are the same in meaning in some cases, "il" meaning country (used to day for "province," something we have many of - have we hit the 80 mark yet? I think so)but "Rumeli," "Türkeli," etc., meaning country of blah blah blah... Reason why: we actually have nine vowels in Turkish instead of the customary eight: one additional "e" which is "thinner"... For comparison, refer to the sounds in "el" (hand) and "erkek" (male)... Retain the shape of your mouth and substitute the sounds; you will see that something is wrong.
Also, "yaban eller" - what is the connection, if any?
(Am I asking for too much, as always?)
You could not pick up a better topic. I looked into this a while ago. It is even bookmarked on my dictionary. Anyway, now I got to keep myself busy with some other posts. I will come back to it as soon as I am done.
‘El’ (the hand) was not originally what it is today. The hand, ‘el’, was ‘elig’; in medieval period it became ‘el’ the hand. The original meaning of ‘el’ was, on the toehr hand, ‘a political unit organized and rules by an independent ruler’, like ‘realm’ of English. And, a few more words in this regard: ‘budun’ is people, although not necessarily what we understand from ‘nation’ today, ‘ulus’ is the geographical area that is occupied, ‘öge’ is the chief administrative officer, and ‘töre’ is the unwritten law used in administering.
‘El’ became ‘il’ in time, meaning province, country, state, community, and one’s own people as opposed to foreigners.
There is also this term ‘elkün’ or ‘elgün’, which means people. I am sure you have heard the expression ‘ele güne rezil ettin beni’. Well, I heard it a lot from my mother, when I was a kid. I could never understand what the ‘gün’ part was for. Now I do. It means you made a fool out of me to all these people or something like that.
I guess ‘yaban eller’ now becomes obvious: the foreign realm, one that is strange, not familiar.
It was originally Winston's idea to invite you... I did eventually get to contact MJ (yes, Martin from Ararat's) and ask him if I could invite you... And he said OK... Said I could invite anybody I wanted, in fact. Maybe he has liked those I have invited already and trusts my judgement or doesn't really care, as they know how to deal with people who do not behave.
A superficial knowledge of modern-day Turkish and Turkey may make one to think that "il" is the abbreviation (or synonym) for "vilayet." There is some truth to this in the sense that "il" is like the modern or purer equivalent for the "vilayet" of the olden language. This change, that is, "il" (pretty much, but not entirely) replacing "vilayet" in the commonplace vocabulary, should, I guess, be traceable as having occured in the republican era. Otherwise, the two have their own etymological stories. As Timucin explained in part. "Vilayet" is clearly Arabic while "il" is Turkish. Note also that "vali (governor)," also Arabic, is related to "vilayet" (derived from the same root, whatever this root is). Maybe, if we were saying something like "ilbashi" instead of "vali," you would not fall for the abbreviation thought that easily
Anyways, I hope you don't take my message for a dogged piece of interference to an ongoing conversation. Well, I kind of suggested you have "superficial" knowledge of Turkish and/or Turkey. (Hence the explanation.) In fact, you are not supposed to be perfect in this matter. Who is perfect after all? For all I know, an average Turkish guy living in Turkey may well think that "il" is an abbreviation for "vilayet." Would you be kind enough to tell about your interest in and experience about Turkish/Turkey? (I take that you are Filiz's Steve in her Kayseri episode. Correct?) Thanks.
I posted the above message also to indicate that I am alive and around. Though I have been quite busy lately. There seems to be noticeable silence in the forum. I hope the "spinning" discussions of Artun and Timucin's will continue. It's been quite interesting and insightful, I think.
Also, Timucin, I am not sure your explanation for "ele gune rezil olmak/etmek" was fully convincing. "El" alone, without having to be qualified by "yaban," means "strange ones" or "the others." For all I know, "gun" here may be a simple fill-in that somewhat rhymes and strengthens the meaning. Not an unusual scheme/technique of Turkish language.
How about this impossible question that follows. Several of our native English-speaking friends, who are familiar enough with Turkish to know simple words like "anne" and "baba," noticed that we would sometimes call out to our son with "anneci(gi}m" and "babaci(gi)m." Puzzled, they asked what the heck was going on. We couldn't explain. Of course, saying that "-ci(gi)m" is a form of endearment is nowhere near an explanation for this peculiar riddle of Turkish. Any explanation that would satisfy the curious?..
on how 'annecigim' (my mother) and such are used in Turkey
August 5 2001, 9:04 PM
About ‘annecigim’ (my mother) and ‘babacigim’ (my father), I was puzzled with this usage too. As a father, I am supposed to say ‘kizim’ (my daughter), that is how I do it anyway, but in Turkey, it is usual practice that one can and does say ‘babacigim’ (my father) to one’s daughter. I think that this is because in Turkey, we can never really call our elders by their own names, as in calling my father by his name instead of the usual ‘daddy’ or my uncle, or even a stranger who is older than us, and because of this, we are simply trying to teach our kids about this system. But, I think this is not it.
I believe the reason for this practice is, according to some anthropological studies I read on this topic, very much related to that our society is not a children but parents oriented kind. That is, to use the concept of ‘centeredness’ developed in ‘Personality and Ageing – with Special Reference to Hospitals for the Aged Poor’ by Jules Henry, traditionally, the interest of the parents dominates in the Turkish society over the interest of the children. Most of us cannot even imagine putting our parents in the old people’s home. One’s parents come before anything else in Turkey, and it is still crucial in our society that we learn to respect our parents and elders.
Now, before anyone else gets the wrong idea, I am not saying that we do not love our children. I simply believe that Turkey is, like many other ones, the type of society in which the parents and elders are in the center; the emphasis is on the respect for parents and in ensuring their well being when they get old. That is, the children are expected to listen to and serve the parents in our society, not the other way around. This has of course started changing. Although more parents started ending up in old people’s homes, I think we will have to wait a little longer for the children to start coming to the center.
I would not say that ‘babacigim’ usage could be reduced only to what I have just said; and I am certainly not saying that whenever there is a parent-oriented society this is what we will get. What we have is probably one of many practices resulting from such a type of society, but not the only one. However, when it comes to the terminology about relatives, the kinship terms, we are a very complex society; we have terms for almost every relationship. For example, in English, they use the same word for both mother’s and father’s brothers, whereas we have a different word for each relationship. This is certainly something to think about.
Yep - I am "Filiz's Steve". My thought that "il" originated as an abreviation for vilayet came partly from the continuing existence of the term "vali" - if the non-Turkish "vali" had not been "cleansed" from the Turkish language then why should "vilayet".
Well, Steve, there are no shoulds or shouldn'ts in the business of language, are there? Besides, "vilayet" isn't cleansed. Not yet. Maybe a couple of generations later.
As was clarified by Cem, ‘vilayet’ has not been thoroughly ‘cleansed’ from our language, although its use is not very common anymore, especially among the younger generations, myself included.
I sometimes consider ourselves lucky that we have so many words; I do not really see any reason for cleansing our language other than inventing new words. I think there was never any cleansing in Turkey in the sense that people were forced to drop certain words in favor of others. There is a semi-official institution responsible for improving the Turkish language, but their findings are simply suggestions. Some of them make it to our spoken language, and some do not. ‘il’ and ‘vali’ business is something like this.
On the other hand, I think there is more to this small contradiction than the simple explanation that ‘vali’s replacement did not make it. Whose word is ‘vali’? It belongs to the Ottoman period, and more specifically to the modern period of the Ottoman period and the new changes this period brought in the Ottoman administrative system. The new concept of ‘vilayet’, the rest of the smaller units, the corresponding local assemblies that were made out of the local notables and the assigned government officials were the creation of this period (Ortayli, 1985; Ouataert, 2000). ‘Vali’ was one of these creations, which represented the power and control of the Ottoman state in the provinces with a different ideology behind it. That means, then, that the administrative tradition we have in our country today really originated in the Late Ottoman period. In association with the newly emerging modern principles in the empire, these were the first attempts to create a public space, which in my opinion turned out to be the strange hybrid of state-public space eventually.
‘Vilayet’ was shared by two groups: the state and the public. ‘Vali’, on the other hand, belonged to the State. It is my observation that our present State insists on using the old terminology is very resistant to replace these old words, as if the continuation of both this tradition and its power would be greatly damaged and/or limited with the introduction of the new terms. And, when one looks at the language our State uses in its proceedings, it is still very much Ottoman. It is the people, namely, the public, that embraces the new words, not our state. Especially our military seems to be very reluctant to start using Turkish words. It seems like that if ‘vali’ is replaced with another word that is more Turkic, the whole power structure may also be changed. How true this may be I do not know. But, my guess is that ‘vali’ will be changed when certain changes are made in our state structure.
In Turkey, words are very important. Just by looking at the words one is using one may reach quite a few conclusions about that person’s ideological leanings. For example, the words ‘devrim’ and ‘inkilab’ both mean revolution. But actually, they do not really mean the same thing, and especially not for our state and our military. For example, the words ‘ulusal’ and ‘milli’, they both mean national, but whereas the public is using more and more the word ‘ulusal’, the state and military are more into using the word ‘milli’. In fact, they managed to create a dichotomy in this. ‘Vali’ is one such word, and its use, I believe, will continue for a while. We will not create a word for ‘vali’ until ‘vali’ is ours.
I have a little booklet called "The New Turkish" written by H. C. Honey in 1947. He is the man who created the "Oxford Turkish dictionary" you can buy throughout Turkey. In it he protests at what was being done to the Turkish language in the name of reform, and he says that the Turkish Language Institute (Dil Kurumu) was anything but "semi-official" and its pronouncements a lot more serious and unavoidable than just "simply suggestions". and compares it to organizations produced in Nazi Germany.
But there is probably a lot of truth in the idea that it is the State that is holding on to some select words, despite its campaign to eradicate others. Often names give prestige, and if those names are removed, the prestige (and its associated power) may be removed as well.
It is certainly not an abbreviation of ‘vilayet’, but it is true we now use it in the place of the Arabic ‘vilayet’ (province). In the past, however, it meant ‘realm’ as in Turkish realm, or perhaps, the country of the Turks, where Turks can be found. This meaning does still survive in our Turkish in the word ‘el’ in our day-to-day expressions, although we do not really say, for example, ‘Alman (German) eli’ or ‘ili’, but ‘Alman ülkesi (country)’. I must admit it is a little confusing.
I agree that it was the Republican era that was responsible for this new usage.
About ‘ele güne’, this ‘gün’ here may also be the present day meaning of ‘day’; so the expression would be ‘to strangers and to the present’. Perhaps, the original expression was based on ‘elgün’ (people), and in time, it became what it is today. I also believe that ‘el’ (realm) of the past, due to the changes in our societal practices, from one based on the idea of tribal to the one based on family, took on this new meaning of strangers. Or perhaps, they used the same word for both meanings. This is a confusing matter as well. The original Turkic speaking groups were mainly tribal, but in the realm of the tribal also existed the individual units, tents, that is, two different spaces. How independent were these tents? For example, in the villages of Anatolia, although there are individual units as in individual houses and families, there are also commonly shared units as in public buildings. Was this the case with these nomadic groups or were they fully independent units? I go for the second option. However, since we are dealing with two different types of societies here, peasants versus nomads, I am perhaps looking at the wrong place for these publicly shared units. Even though they might not have had separate, let’s say, religious units, they definitely still had commonly shared pastures, places to put the animals in, and various other related things. So, the usage of ‘el’ as one’s own people and the other as in that which does not belong to the basic unit must have already existed. For example, we also have the expression ‘elin yabancisina (the stranger of ‘el’). ‘El’ is definitely one of those difficult words in Turkish. I checked my dictionary, the one for our Turkish, ‘el’ was six pages long.
Will keep that in mind...