The Place of Suffix -IcI in The Formation of Turkish as a Written Language
Mustafa BalcıThe expansion of Oghuz Turks into larger lands under the Seljuk dominion, and their adoption of a new religion as large masses, took place in periods that are quite close to each other. Although the Persian language continued its influnce in the state apparatus as the official language, the writing of the religious sources to provide large masses of Oghuzs with the proper guidelines for religious practice in Turkish was also an expanding need. The predomination of religious content in the early period writings has been an indicator of this need. The enthusiasm of medrese students who wanted to inform other people about religion whenever they came back to their own communities, stimulated their desire to produce written texts in their spoken language. The endeavours to express the main source of Islam, the Quran, in Turkish also originated from such needs. The comprehension of the Quran in the most correct way brings such a serious responsibility. Therefore, the absence of a written Oghuz language resulted in greater worries about the Quran, for it was never an ordinary text.
It seems to be the case that the Turkish expression of certain types of words that were often used in Quran, and were formative of divine attributions, necessitated a special effort, particularly in those Quranic translations. Certain peculiar elements in the Arabic language, such as ism- fail (present participle), sıfat-ı müşebbehe and the exaggerative present participle forms are all alien to Turkish. In this article, we will be examining the endeavours to produce the correspondent Turkish elements with the suffix (-IcI), for these Arabic forms that were not in common use in Turkish.
Türkiye Türkçesinin Yazı Dili Olarak Kuruluşunda -IcI Ekinin Durumu
Mustafa BalcıOğuzların Selçuklu hâkimiyeti ile birlikte geniş bir coğrafyaya yayılmaları ve kitleler hâlinde yeni bir dini kabul etmeleri birbirine yakın zamanlarda olmuştur. Bölgede yaygın olarak kullanılan Farsça devlet dili olarak kullanılmaya devam etse de geniş Oğuz kitleleri için ihtiyaç duyulan din bilgisine cevap verecek kılavuz veya kaynak kitapların Türkçe ile yazılmasını gerektirmiştir.
İlk dönem metinlerinde dinî muhtevanın ağır basması da bu ihtiyacın bir göstergesidir. Medreselerde okuyan genç Oğuzların toplumlarına geri döndüklerinde çevreye dinlerini anlatma istekleri, konuştukları dil ile metin üretme arzusunu da beraberinde getirmiştir. İslam dininin temel kaynak kitabı olan Kur’an-ı Kerim’in de Türkçe ile ifade edilme çabası da böyle bir arzu neticesinde ortaya çıkmıştır. Kur’an’ın en doğru şekilde anlaşılması ciddi bir sorumluluk getirmektedir. Bu itibarla Oğuzcanın yazı dili olmaması, Kur’an-ı Kerim’in de sıradan bir metin olmaması hassasiyetini yükseltmiştir.
Kur’an’da çok sık kullanılan ve Allah’a ait sıfatların da yapısını teşkil eden bazı kelime türlerinin Türkçede ifadesi özellikle Kur’an tercümelerinde özel bir çabayı gerektirdiği anlaşılmaktadır. Arapçanın kendine has unsurlarından olan ism-i fail, sıfat-ı müşebbehe ve mübalağalı ism-i fail yapıları, Türkçenin büyük oranda yabancısı durumundadır. Bu makalede, söz konusu Arapça yapıların Türkçede yaygın bir kullanım alanı olmayan (-IcI) ekiyle oluşturulan yeni unsurlarla karşılanma çabası işlenmektedir.
Translation, though concerning quite many scientific disciplines such as medicine, pharmacy, mathematics, physics, philosophy, history, linguistics etc., and many other areas concerning practical lives like politics, trade, literature; for the most part, deals with interlinguistic connections.
The interactions between Arabic and Turkish started to flourish after the Turks’ adoption of Islam. The translations from Arabic to Turkish stemmed mainly from the need to learn about the religion of Islam. Oghuz Turkish, in its formation process as a written language, was also fulfilling such a demand. Hence, the texts with religious content seriously predominated the ones that were produced in the early periods.
The expansion of Oghuz Turks into larger lands under the Seljuk dominion, and their adoption of a new religion as large masses, took place in periods that are quite close to each other. Whereas the need for written correspondence in the state hierarchy was being fulfilled via Persian, it is obvious that Arabic or Persian would fall short of such a proper function in the case of spreading religious knowledge. For this reason, a small number of literate Turks went into the effort of producing texts in Turkish, which was the common spoken language among Oghuzs and other clans. One may argue that the endeavour to write in Turkish gradually spread towards the west, beginning in the Horasan region. The adoption of Islam by the Oghuzs, and the formation of a large state organization in a simultaneous way, both came into play in the flourishment of the Oghuz language in the written form. Though the need for an official language was met by correspondences that were being written in Persian, it was not sufficient for the learning of the new religion, and in corresponding the demand for knowledge, which came forward in various strata of society in differing proportions. The fact that Arabic was the language of the main religious source, and the official language being Persian was leading to a shortage of communication for the larges masses of Oghuzs, with both the state and religion. Though the official language, being Persian, did not constitute a serious problem for the people who did not have grave concerns about the state mechanism, their disconnection with religion was quite of an inconvenience.
Firstly expanding to the Horasan region, and up to the inlands of Anatolia afterwards, Oghuz settlements necessitated their meeting with the new religion, and re-organizing their lives in accordance with the two motives, along with adapting to a new geography. Except for the migrant settler masses, religious knowledge had become a necessity for the Oghuzs, who adopted a sedentary life in their daily practices. The fact that it was religious motives behind the transmission of knowledge from Arabic to Turkish aggravated the responsibility of the translators who shouldered it. Any mistake that was to be made in the translation of a literary text would at worst vitiate the aesthetic flavour of the text. However, the translation of a religious text obviously requires much more sensitivity. Hence, one should admit that it requires a very special effort in the translation of such issues as the faith and the attributions of Allah, which also shape one’s conception of God. The Quranic translations that were produced with such a sensitivity as much served for the formation of the written Turkish as for the comprehension and teaching of the religion.
The young Turkish scholars, who did not know any other written sources other the Arabic ones, must have used Arabic as a guide during their translations. We should admit that the translation of Arabic expressions to a language that had been used in written form before, must have been very difficult. Especially, the translation of some peculiar Arabic phrases to Turkish correctly, required the utmost prudence, so as to understand the source of religion in the most correct way.
The underline translation method which was commonly used in the early periods, despite being a poor method for the phrases, was successful in producing comprehensible Turkish written texts. In the course of these translations, there were some peculiar elements in Arabic, such as ism-i fail (present participle), sıfat-ı müşebbehe and the exaggerative present participle, which were alien to Turkish to a great extent. Building the conception of God in accordance with the understanding of oneness (and unity), the Quran presents the idea of God as almighty andbenevolent, by often making use of the aforementioned peculiar expressions. It also uses those word structures in order to explain the condition of men in the face of orders and prohibitions to which it appeals in regulating human life. The suffix -IcI in Oghuz Turkish virtually seems to have taken on a very special task, so as to meet the peculiar expressions of Arabic in question. The suffix IcI, which did not usually come forward in the early years in Old Turkish and the Anatolian region, is now one of the most common elements, and it is one of the indicators of verb performers.
We know that the suffixes -GlI and -GAn were being used for certain verb performers of Arabic in the Karakhanid and Khorezmian regions. Such a differentiation indicates the rising sensitivity in the Anatolian geography with regard to the translations of these aforementioned structures. It also shows that the written language in Anatolia developed quite separately from the Turkistan region. Although the Quranic translations that were written in Karakhanid and Khorezmian Turkish contain some occasional instances of the suffix -IcI (=ĠUçI), it seems to have been used far less in proportion to the Anatolian region.
Besides the historical dialects such as Karakhanid and Khorezmian, there are some examples that it was from time to time corresponded by the suffixes -IcI (küçi and Kuçi) in Afghanistan Uzbek Turkish and Kazan Tatar Turkish.
