The language scar

Sunday, July 16, 2006

The project to form a language and a culture in Turkish political history has always been part of the larger nation-making project and, consequently, debates over language in Turkey are always political and ideological. Even if the topic of discussion is on slang words, the issue always becomes political. In this respect, the culture model in Turkey is closer to the French-Continental Europe tradition rather than the Anglo-Saxon one. The process led to centralization and homogenization, with an elite forcing it onto the public.

  The project to form a language and a culture in Turkish political history has always been part of the larger nation-making project and, consequently, debates over language in Turkey are always political and ideological. Even if the topic of discussion is on slang words, the issue always becomes political. In this respect, the culture model in Turkey is closer to the French-Continental Europe tradition rather than the Anglo-Saxon one. The process led to centralization and homogenization, with an elite forcing it onto the public.This week the Turkish Language Institute (TDK) launched a project to rid language of words and sayings that belittled women. According to reports in the newspapers, a seven-person team studied around 20,000 sayings to rid the language of any considered “unsuitable.” The TDK president, as he was explaining why they thought such an intervention was necessary, said: “How can we ignore the labor of our mothers and sisters?” The statement appeared to be extolling women. The purpose is to rid the language of sayings that are considered anti-female so that future generations forget about them. While I respect the good intentions behind this effort, I view the TDK project as deeply flawed. I believe words, just like humans, have a natural life and only die when they are meant to. Every lost word is a hole we can never fill again, a cultural hole. To forcefully rid a language of a word whose time hasn t come yet is just like murdering it. I take a contrary stance to my feminist friends who see this TDK initiative as a progressive and welcome measure.

  Why? Language is not a constant. It is an organic, breathing, evolving and living accumulation of knowledge. It is open to change. It carries words from the past but always faces the future.

  Language can never be controlled from above. No one, no group, no matter how knowledgeable they are, can own a language. Language has no masters.

  The way to fight sayings against women is not through removing them but to develop the awareness against the patriarchal ideology that feeds such sayings.

  The difference between the written and oral language should be seen. They are different from each other and their relationship with the authority is just as different. Written culture can be inspected up to a certain degree through course books, newspapers and books. However, how can the oral language, in other words what lives and breathes on the streets, be inspected?

  The TDK says its purpose it to ensure negative words and sayings are forgotten. We are a society that is good at forgetting. We can forget history just as easily as we forget the language. However, what we need is not more amnesia, but more memories.

  One characteristic of languages like English and German, which provide plenty of opportunities for literature and philosophy, is the fact that both was enriched and grew in time and has become layered with concepts. While rich languages find ways to develop new words, Turkey always did just the opposite throughout its history, removing words. There is no way we can grow through lessening, just like we can t enrich ourselves by becoming homogeneous. It s not us that shapes the language, but the other way around. Every language has a rhythm and a labyrinth. Instead of seeing it as a piece of clay we can shape, we should recognize its wise guidance.