Introduction
There is a strong connection between the culture that keeps humanity alive and the language that transmits culture to people. In the linguistics community, this bond has been described from various perspectives. There are many commentators who say that culture has an effect on language. It is an accepted view that the cultures are reflected on language and the lifestyle of societies affect the structure and vocabulary of the language. However, there are conflicts about the influence of languages on cultures.
While it is obvious that experiences affect language, it has not been proven that languages affect lifestyles. This situation is a matter of curiosity in the Turkish culture, which has settled down in a late period. The fact that Turks have experienced social and linguistic revolutions throughout history and that they have provided sharp turns in culture naturally and artificially draws attention to Turkish culture in language and culture interaction. First, a conceptual framework should be provided and the linguistic problem should be explained. Later, Turkish language will be exhibited as an example.
Ethnolinguistics deals with language as a means of expression of a culture. Establishes a relationship between language and worldview.[2] Also known as linguistic anthropology. Although it is used closely with linguistic relativity, ethnolinguistics is defined as the branch that studies the relationship between language and culture and the use of speech.[3] On the other hand, linguistic relativity is the current that argues that languages are separate worlds of thought compared to other languages. XVIII. century, identified with W. Humboldt, partially followed in linguistics circles, XX. It came to the fore again in the 19th century with the names Sapir and Whorf. The theory, which has been criticized for being away from cognitive evidence, is seen as a radical way in the interaction of culture and language.[4]
Linguistic relativity has the hypothesis that a speaker of one language cannot understand the world of another language. Accordingly, there is a bilateral interaction between language and culture. Different languages are different systems of thought. Since thought depends on language, fundamental differences between languages will affect our experience and expression of the world.[5] Culture affects the way of thinking through language.[6] Humboldt, one of the famous names of this view, rejects the language as a product. He sees language as an activity. According to him, language should also characterize people, just as human language characterizes them.[7] Linguistic relativity attributes this one side effect as a two way interaction.
Objection on the merits
Those who argue that languages are effective on opinions are content with emphasizing that it should be so instead of giving objective evidence about it. The examples given are in accordance with the influence of the agreed cultures on the languages. For example, the claims of Lucy, Niemeier, and Dirven about linguistic relativity are inference.[8] While comparative studies between European languages in the similar cultural group will be misleading, the fact that they are lexicographic rather than structural also reduces credibility. It is clear that a structural influence by language has not yet convinced the linguistic community.
According to Chomsky, who takes place with the theory of universal grammar against linguistic relativity, human has an innate universal grammar. The structural schema for language acquisition is present when the child is born. This is a person’s linguistic ability rather than any language.[9] Chomsky opposed Wharf and Sapir, the representatives of linguistic relativity theory.[10] According to Chomsky, when a Martian looks at the world, he will infer that people speak different dialects of the same language. According to him, all languages share the same grammar, have the same foundations and systemic complexity. The study of languages is the study of expressions. The claim that mother tongue influences our way of thinking is worthless and we all think basically the same way.[11] Chomsky says that language ability has a genetic component. After birth, the acquisition of the linguistic one among very different sounds is possible with an innate talent like other developmental processes. In this respect, it is not possible to talk about a dictating difference between languages.
In the fictional world in Orwell’s novel 1984, thoughts are changed by changing the language.[12] Although the destruction of the words related to revolution in this novel has eliminated the possibility of revolution, considering that the word revolution is formed with revolution in real life, it can be understood that only a fictional relativity is mentioned. People will not wait for the word revolution to make radical change.
Language and Culture Relationship
Human means language, language means society. Society and language make each other possible. Language is literally a social phenomenon and every dictionary expresses a civilization. The way of life and view of a nation manifests itself in the language. Each language reflects a certain society.[13] Reflections from culture to language are known to the public as well as linguistic circles.
While language is a type of interpersonal relationship carried out with specific sound signs peculiar to the society, it also provides our inner speech, that is, our thoughts.[14] Although language is inclusive of all people, it is used exclusively for members of society.[15] While thought is possible thanks to language, languages stand out as local differences in language structure. Local differences are the Hawaiian natives having sixty-five different words for fishing net, forty-seven different words for banana, and the Baniwa tribe having twenty-nine different words for ants.[16]
The fact that Arabs have many words about camel, Eskimos about snow, Italians about pasta stems from their lives. Culture is reflected in language. The language tool also affects thinking in general. As a matter of fact, language, which is a tool of thought, has become one of the modern problems of philosophy and philosophy of language has emphasized that language is limited in this regard. The influence of language is influence in the general structure of the notion of language and in the sense of limiting the human world. Different languages have different effects, as Chomsky says, unfounded and unimportant.
Turkish Example
Language and culture interaction can be observed bilaterally by examining Turkish. Considering the vital needs of the Turks throughout history, one can guess that there will be many words related to horses in this language. 820 names related to horse underpants have been identified in the Turkish language.[17] The fact that there are so many words about the colors of only one animal emphasizes its importance for this culture. However, from an ethnolinguistic point of view, it is seen that language and culture interaction is only one-way.
Turks settled down and reduced horse riding. According to linguistic relativity, the elements related to the nomadic life in Turkish should affect the worldview and lifestyle of the Turks. On the other hand, there is no world view regarding horses or nomadic life. Just as the vocabulary is formed in accordance with the steppe life; In terms of phonology, morphology, pronouns and syntax, qualities suitable for this life are seen. However, in our modern life, we do not aim to adapt ourselves to these qualities.
The anthropology of Turkish progresses in parallel with the history of the Turks. It can be thought that the equestrian steppe life necessitates an agglutinative Turkish with plenty of vowels. When considered structurally, the influence of culture on language can be proven. The effect of language on culture is invalidated by the structure of Turkish and comparative studies. It is clear that the features that fall, change and quote with geographical effects do not change the way of thinking of the Turks.
The effect of language on worldview raises doubts when we look at the Turkish culture spreading from the Pacific coast to Central Europe and Africa. Yakuts in the Altaic language family live in Siberia[18] and Karaites live in Lithuania and their worlds of thought are not similar. The Tuvans in Central Asia have very different worlds of thought with the Kashkays[19] in Iran. Even Oghuz dialects do not have the quality of providing a similar world of thought in themselves. If this were the case, the Ottoman remnant Algerian Turks, the Kipchak Turks who settled in Egypt, and the Turkish tribes in Desht-i Kipchak would not have been assimilated or at least could have preserved their culture.
Ottoman Turkish offers interesting data on the subject. Once the language of nomadic culture, Turkish was able to establish the world state Ottoman. The abundance of foreign elements in the Ottoman intellectual language may arouse suspicion, but this is just an influence from culture to language. If language formed the world of thought, nomadic Turks would have to change the structure of the language for such an organization. However, the folk language is plain Turkish spoken by Yunus throughout history, and society has organized the world with this nomadic-based Turkish for hundreds of years.
The Ottomans did not become tribalists and tyrants. They showed this in Ottoman Turkish as well. The Ottomans also conquered the words of the places they conquered with the intention of ruling the earth. Sami Banarlı says that the conquered words of Ottoman Turkish point to the greatness of Turkish and that none of the major languages are the original language.[20] Indeed, while empires spoke the same language throughout the country, it cannot be said that the mentality of different ethnic elements changed. The fact that the language we call Turkish does not have a single indicator in any period of history, and that it is used in different states and with different phonetic features proves the unilateral influence of cultures on languages.
Finally, we can say that contemporary Turkish also falsifies linguistic relativity. After the Republic, Turkish hosted the most comprehensive language reform among languages.[21] It is obvious that the words produced and derived and the changed phonological aspects do not affect the way of thinking. If languages were binding on people, people who could not communicate would not have been able to develop, even language would have been closed to development in itself.
When we look at the Turkish vocabulary today, there are words from many different languages and different structural features in Turkish. For example, there are words left over from Sogdian and Aramaic, and they do not cause any change in our thinking life. The Persian and Arabic compositions that still exist do not force people to think like Persians or Arabs. Sounds from Arabic, Persian grammar elements have not caused any change of opinion since Ottoman.
Languages related to Turkish have a similar structure and are a matter of curiosity in terms of influence on their speakers. Mongolian, Manchu and Tungusic languages are also of Altaic origin, but there is no similarity in thought with Turkish speakers. The world of thought of the Japanese and Korean languages[22], which are considered within the Altaic language family, is not very similar to the Turks. This language family spread over a very wide geography and made any common life impossible. It is possible to see the same situation in the diversity of Indo-European languages and in isolated languages.
While there is a mutual interaction between language and culture, the effect of culture on language is more. However, the argument that languages in language create different worlds is unfounded. Turkish culture has always changed Turkish, and natural and artificial changes have made the language completely different. However, the Turks did not experience a deficiency due to the Turkish language.
Conclusion
Culture survives around language. However, language-oriented change in thinking and living is not a constant to be determined. It cannot be said that the Turkish language has structurally changed the Turkish people. Because it is known that Turkish speakers substitute both words and structural features by means of citation and derivation when needed. Discussions about the effect of language on culture and human thought draw attention to the fact that thinking activity is limited when language is limited. Although the lack of concepts affects progress in a particular discipline, this is artificial. A person can name everything he needs and can diversify the language as much as he needs. There is no primitive language, only the diversification of words with the diversification of culture. While culture is the source of language, language is the tool of culture. Considering that languages have developed in terms of lexicography and grammar throughout history and that no language has remained stable, it will be seen that the effect of ethnic difference on the way of thinking is only a temporal error.
It has not been proven that different languages affect the way of thinking. For example, the argument that German speakers have a different worldview than Turkish speakers is not conclusive. However, Germans have a different worldview and it is a more robust thesis that culture rather than language influences worldview. As we can see from the Turkish example, the experiences are reflected in the language. Another point we see from the Turkish example is that the structure in the language does not change the mentality. As a result, the claim that differences in languages will lead to different worlds in thought is refuted with examples from Turkish.
Source
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[1] Turkish literature teacher
[2] Berke Vardar, Açıklamalı Dilbilim Terimleri Sözlüğü, Multilingual Yay., 2002, s. 51.
[3] James W. Underhill, Humboldt, Worldview and Language , Edinburgh University Press, 2009, s. 148
[4] John J. Gumperz, Stephen C. Levinson, Linguistic Relaticity Re-Examined, Cambridge University Press, 1996, s.4.
[5] James W. Underhill, a.g.e., s. 149.
[6] John J. Gumperz, a.g.e., s.1.
[7] James W. Underhill, a.g.e., 30.
[8] Susanne Niemeier- Rene Dirven, Evidence For Linguistic Relativity, John Benjamıns Publıshıng Company, 2000, ix.
[9] Noam Chomsky, Language and Mind, Cambridge University Press, 2006, s.170.
[10] John J. Gumperz, a.g.e., s.177.
[11] Guy Deutscher, Through The Language Glass, Metropolitan Books, 2010, s. 6.
[12] Kristen Fairchild, “Dystopian Language and Thought: The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Applied to Created Forms of English” (2014). Student research. Paper 7, s.8.
[13] Berke Vardar, Dilbilimin Temel Kavram ve İlkeleri, Türk Dil Kurumu Yayınları, 1982, s. 12.
[14] Teoman Duralı, Kutadgubilig- Türkçenin Felsefe Bilim Sözlüğü, Dergah Yay., 2013, s. 435
[15] Teoman Duralı, a.g.e., s. 458.
[16] Adam Jacot de Boinod, Cultural Vocabularies, https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/apr/29/what-vocabularies-tell-us-about-culture Erişim tarihi:11.10.2017.
[17] Hatice Eminoğlu, Tarihî Lehçelerden Günümüze At Donları ve Nişane Adları, Turkish Studies – International Periodical For The Languages, Literature and History of Turkish or Turkic Volume 8/9 Summer 2013, p. 1371-1412, s.1371.
[18] Giray Saynur Derman, Sibirya Türkleri Üzerine Genel Bir Değerlendirme, Siberian Studies (SAD) 2016, Cilt 4, Sayı 9, Volume 4 , Number 9, s. 18.
[19] Dilek Erenoğlu, Kaşkay Türklerinde Sosyal Tabakalaşma, Turkish Studies – International Periodical For The Languages, Literature and History of Turkish or Turkic Volume 6/4 Fall 2011, p.123-137, s.127.
[20] Nihad Sami Banarlı, Türkçenin Sırları, Kubbealtı Neşriyatı, 2007, s.22.
[21] Geoffrey Lewis, Trajik Başarı, Gelenek Yayıncılık, 2004, s. 17.
[22] Osman Nedim Tuna, “Altay Dilleri Teorisi”, Türk Dünyası El Kitabı, TKAE Yay., 2. Baskı, C. 2, Ankara, s. 7-58, Ankara 1992. s.10.