The Armenian Who Helped Create Today’s Turkish Language

Uzay Bulut

 

“Turkey’s president wants to purge Western words from its language,” reported The Economist on June 15.

[Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s] latest purge has a more abstract target. Mr. Erdoğan wants to rid Turkish of unsightly Western loan-words. Turkey faces a mortal threat from foreign “affectations”, Mr. Erdoğan declared on May 23rd. “Where do attacks against cultures and civilisations begin? With language.” Mr. Erdoğan started by ordering the word “arena”, which reminded him of ancient Roman depravity, removed from sports venues across the country.

Hidden Truths or Lies

Raffi Bedrosyan

 

In a matter of years beginning in 1915, an entire people was wiped out from its homeland of several thousand years. But how can you wipe out the remnants—its creations, assets, traces, its very existence—from the collective memory of those who remained in that country, or, for that matter, from the collective memory of the rest of the world? This has been an immense challenge for successive Turkish governments, a mission that was mostly successful for almost four generations. And yet, here and there the lies or the hidden truths kept coming out with increasing frequency, especially in recent years.