Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
Osmanli Medeniyeti Arastirmalari Dergisi, cilt.2024, sa.22, ss.333-349, 2024 (Scopus)
The history of teaching Turkish, one of the oldest languages of the world, is quite recent as far as it has been determined. Until about two centuries ago, Turkish children could reach to a level of Turkish language reading, speaking and grammar proficiency as much as they could acquire from their families or social surroundings. Having a closer look at the works of Turkish language education published until 1850s, it is found out that most of the works were written with the aim of teaching Turkish to foreigners. Sultan Abdulhamid II’s acceding to the throne and attempts on creating a constitution (The Ottoman Basic Law) raised the Turkish language question back to the agenda to be discussed by the officials. In the article 18 of the Ottoman Law, it was stated that Turkish is the official language of the Ottoman Empire and the officials serving the government must be proficient in Turkish (1876). These provisions were formalized before and during the Tanzimat Era by the chamber and intellectual’s efforts on reforming the Turkish language. Sultan Abdulhamid II declared Turkish as the official language of the government, which changed the course of the Turkish language in history. The fact that Turkish was accepted as the official language, Turkish grammar books were published, and Turkish language lessons were integrated in the curriculum at schools, motivated Turkish people to learn their mother tongue and foreigners to give more importance to Turkish as a foreign language. In this paper, teaching Turkish-to-Turkish children during Sultan Abdulhamid II Era is discussed. Since the duration of the presentation is limited, practices of teaching Turkish at minority schools and practices of teaching Turkish by foreigners in their own communities are not included.