The Power of Words

I've been interested in it for a long time. But especially lately I like to look up words in dictionaries.

Recently, I learned that the word "söğüt" is originally Turkish. It is not certain, but "Söğüş" may come from the same root, and the dictionary says "kızartmak", "kebap etmek" as its equivalent.

For "willow", the etymological dictionary says "any kind of firewood". Probably related words. We say let's have a barbecue, we say we made kebabs on the barbecue.

I wish we could say let's go to make söğüş instead, both barbecue and kebab are Arabic words.

Russians call barbecuing "shashlik" without knowing that this is a Turkish word. They are surprised when I tell them it is Turkish. We know it as skewered meat. They only left out the meat part, and "şişlik" became "şaşlık" with a sound change.

We speak in words, we put our thoughts and ideas into words, we convey the thoughts in our minds to the other person with words.

Sometimes, even if we don't want anyone to hear it, we write it down somewhere, sometimes we leave notes to ourselves, to our future selves in words. At least that's what I do sometimes. I write down my feelings at that moment, an idea that comes to my mind, something I plan to do later so that I don't forget.

Sometimes I want to share my thoughts, no matter who they are with, so I write them down, it's like having a conversation with a friend. In a sense, I pour my heart out at that moment.

Words are like magic fairy sticks that sometimes connect us to ourselves, but mostly connect us to those around us and those around us to us.

That's why it's important that the words we choose, whether they come out of our mouths or are written down, are carefully chosen to ensure that the other person perceives the subject we want to convey in the best way possible. Otherwise, they will not understand what we really want to say.

Sometimes we may have storms raging inside us, we may be angry about something or the subject may be something we strongly oppose. At such times, we should still be very careful with the words that come out of our mouths, even when we explode, even when we shout and scream, if we use words that can be misunderstood in the excitement of the moment, it is impossible not to be misunderstood depending on the perception and understanding of the other person. Because even though the words spilled from our tongues are our words, as soon as they reach the other person, they become understandable to them depending on their perception. In a way, we can call words a means of conveying our thoughts and ideas.

Of course, it's not just words, there are many other things we use to communicate with others, many other things we use as communication tools.

Sometimes even silence sends a message to the other person. Sometimes a sweet look, sometimes a smile on our face, sometimes an angry look on the contrary. The important thing is not the way of transmission, but the feeling, idea, thought we want to convey.

I read somewhere recently, I'm not sure if it's true or not, that our noses can sense over a million smells, that everything has a smell, if we sit next to a person who is bored, for example in a movie theater, in a park, next to someone we don't know, on a bench. Even boredom has a smell, we feel the tension in the environment immediately in the subconscious, the article said. In fact, the article said that it is the smell of tension that makes you feel the tension. Even if we don't see his face, the tension of the person we sit next to creates a feeling of tension in us. Some people call it a sixth sense for such situations, but it is actually a chemical reaction.

In the end, even though our other emotions are important, I think our main method of communication is words.

Words should be common, they should mean the same thing to everyone, in a broader definition, we should use a common language together, our language should be common.

Language naturally does not stand still, it changes and develops according to the conditions of the day. We think about how best to express the concepts we have in mind, we find the appropriate word from somewhere in our memory, and then that word spills out of our tongues. We do this so fast that we are not even aware of these physical stages.

This is best known to those who are learning a new language; at first they find it very difficult to find the right word in their minds, to remember the appropriate word for what they want to say. Over time, as you learn the new language, as you get used to it, you start to think in the language you have just learned, words begin to spontaneously pour out of your tongue.

Of course, the society we live in has its own, unique words, and we adapt to the environment we grow up in. For some, this becomes a genetic trait.

When I was young, we lived in Erzurum for a while, we stayed there for two or three years, I started primary school there, when we used to go to Kandıra with my sisters in the summers, my mother and I would be told that I had become a native of Erzurum, they would make fun of me, I used to add the suffix "da" to the end of words when I spoke, my parents still remind me of those days by making fun of me when they talk about it. Maybe that's why we call people from Erzurum "dadaş".

Some regions have their own dialect, some cities speak with a different accent, even the schools we attend have their own language and style of address. For example, all of my classmates from Kuleli are my brothers, and at METU we call everyone "hocam". Even the minibus driver calls us "hocam".

In Izmir it's çiğdem, gevrek, in Adana it's gevşek, in Izmit it's asyap booolum, façan yansın, in Kastamonu it's mırt mırt, tiride dönmek, in Urfa it's aspap, in Gaziantep it's topak.

Thrace, the Aegean region, the Eastern Black Sea region and Eastern Anatolia have their own dialects.

The dialects of Afyon, Kastamonu, Erzurum, Antep, Diyarbakır, Iğdır, Burdur and even Cyprus are also different. All of them have developed their own unique way of speaking over time. I guess I don't need to mention Trabzon, Ordu and Rize. The dialect of these places is already in our minds all the time.

All of them are the colors of our culture. Our cultural richness.

The dialects of those who were born and raised in Azerbaijan and now live in Turkey, the words they use, all of them fascinate me sometimes.

Azerbaijanis in Moscow do not speak so beautifully. Of course, I will not write some words now, there are words in Azerbaijan that are normal words in daily use there, but have different meanings in our country. Let me conclude this topic by reminding you that they say "the plane is falling" for a plane that has just started to land.

Here in Russia, there are all kinds of Turkish dialects. It is difficult at first, but when you listen to them a little, you start to understand them gradually. I once met some Yakut Turks, it was when I first came to Russia. I was very surprised when I heard them saying "come here" when they were talking among themselves, I didn't know these places so well at that time, I can say that I didn't know our own culture so well. Those were the first years I came, late 90s, after 95.

Now there are some efforts for the Cultural Union, but I think these efforts are rather inadequate. As far as I understand, these efforts continue with some reservations.

I think our unity scares many countries, after all, many countries know Turkish history better than us, so maybe that's why they are afraid. They all take their own measures to prevent unity without realizing it.

I think we all need to address this issue. Our future lies in our common cultural unity, our strength lies in our common unity.

For now, only the current wrong domestic policies, wrong foreign policies, that is, our own problems are taking up more than enough of our time, but as I said, we need to unite, at least for now, we need to find ways to establish cultural unity.

I don't mean established organizations, I don't mean annual meetings, I mean we all individually need to internalize that we are one with our brothers and sisters, we need to feel our unity inside us. We need to internalize the importance of this. These are deep topics, we will come back another day when there is time, we will examine our brothers and sisters in detail.

Let's go back to the words for now. There are a few other issues I want to talk about.

Once upon a time, back in the days when we were an empire, back in the days when we were "Devlet Âliyye", we were a very culturally rich community. In fact, the cultural richness of those days still keeps us under its influence. The codes of why we have so many different cultural regions today are hidden in those old days. But in the end, a huge empire collapsed and those days were buried in the pages of history. Today, there is no going back. Every society is now aware that it is a society in its own right.

History writes down the mistakes made.

Many mistakes were made in those days and many similar mistakes are being made today.

Among all the mistakes made, I think the most important one is the Ottoman Palace's detachment from the people, and when I say people, I don't just mean Turks, I'm talking about the imperial period, all Ottoman people, all of them have different beliefs, different cultures. There are Muslims and Muslims, Jews and Christians. From Rumelia to Tripoli, from Fezzan to Arabia, Egypt, Crimea, Serbia. Entire lands. One by one, they were all lost. But they were all Ottoman people.

The rich courtiers were blindfolded by the glorious palace life and could not see what was going on.

The tulip era, new palaces built with debt, luxurious life!

"Life of luxury" as in the opera written by Cemal Reşit Rey.

Control was out of hand, the palace could not make the people feel that they could be stronger together, the promise of a common future, prosperity and quality of life. He lived a completely different life with the people.

Therefore, all the different peoples had separate dreams of establishing their own destiny. The spirit of the time also paved the way for this. Nationalist movements!

The unity of faith did not work either; both Muslim Arabs and Christian Serbs, Croats, Albanians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Greeks, all were caught up in nationalist movements. The result was the Balkan War, Tripoli and then the First World War. The result was the collapse of a huge empire!

When I think about those days, in fact, when I try to imagine those days in the right way, on the one hand I feel proud, we had built a huge empire. But at the same time, I feel a deep ache inside me. We couldn't keep it, it's a pity.

Fortunately, we were able to establish a young Turkey afterwards and we still live as a free nation in today's world. Even though there are cadres today who take care not to mention his name in sermons, I say that these days will pass, I am endlessly grateful to both Atatürk and his comrades-in-arms.

Anyway, no matter how much we lament the collapse of the empire, those old days are long gone, we need to look ahead.

Today, not only empires but even the structures of states are slowly changing. It is as if we are going back to ancient times.

I think in time we will return to city-states, just like we once had. Maybe I am wrong. Anyway, my dream is to establish a cultural and power union with our compatriots, a peaceful life together. My dream is not a giant Turkish country, we all have our differences. A unity of culture, a unity of power.

There are many factors that hold the state together. The most important one, in my opinion, is the unity of language. Some countries have two or three languages, I think there are even countries in Africa with more official languages. In today's world political environment, these countries can stand together even if they have different languages. In fact, if they had the opportunity, their separation would be stolen immediately. If you remember, they hardly stopped Catalonia. That is why language unity is important. We need to speed up the work for common language unity with our cognates. Although these things take time, it is not so easy. Even within Turkey, there are differences from region to region and from generation to generation. Sometimes I don't even understand what my daughters are saying. There may be different words that young people use among themselves.

So I don't know what can be done, but I think first we need to ensure unity of language within Turkey.

When I say unity of language, I mean that we use the same language but we still have difficulties in understanding each other.

One of the consequences of politically motivated polarization is our divisions within the same language we speak.

Those who identify themselves as conservatives have recently started to use Arabic words.

Especially when the topic of conversation touches on religious issues, the Arabic is spoken first, followed by a Turkish description. But in the description, our Arabic words are still predominantly used. Those who define themselves as conservative use Arabic or Persian words in daily life.

Moreover, there is a lot of pressure, as if they want to make society an Arab society. I think it is useful to return to our roots. I think we all need to think a little bit about this and decide. Who are we? Who do we want to be?

Even the word "God" is a cause of division, whereas the Turkish word for the Almighty Creator is "God", the proof is in the Orkhon inscriptions, carved on the rocks by our ancestors about 1300 years ago. The word "God" is authentically Turkish! I will never understand why some people are afraid to use it.

"God" in English, "Gott" in German, "Dios" in Spanish, "Dieu" in French, "Dio" in Italian, "Bog" in Russian, "Kuday" in Kyrgyz, "Hüda" in Persian and "Allah" in Arabic. Actually, it is Al-ilah, there were once many gods in the Arab world. Historians know these matters better than me. Old Arabic history books describe those days in detail. But I am not very interested in Arab history.

The important thing is that I think they are all the same, they are all the same, they all mean the same in every language, it is just that they are all their own definitions of the Almighty Creator in different languages, they are all names of the Almighty Creator in different languages. So I don't see any problem for us to use the Turkish version.

Even in our holy book, the Qur'an, doesn't it say "We have revealed it in your language so that you may understand" (Zuhruf 43/89). So Allah says that understanding should be the basis, that if we pray, we should pray with understanding, not memorization, that we should worship with understanding. How many of us do our prayers with understanding?

In Kuleli, we used to pray before eating, "Praise be to our God, may our nation exist." They even changed our prayer. Society is divided even on this issue.

My objection is not only to the conservatives, the other side is not that innocent either.

Those who define themselves as modern are also in wannabe European languages.  Mostly people in this group consider it a virtue to use English words when they speak. I think this is not right either.

Knowing a foreign language is good and very useful, but if you are talking to a foreigner, use that language, let's speak Turkish among ourselves.

I don't know, I care about our language. If I don't know the meaning of a word or if I am curious about a word, I look it up in the dictionary of the Turkish Language Association.

Although I find the TDK dictionary very inadequate, even when I open it for the meaning of a simple word, I have difficulty understanding it for some reason. Sometimes I understand what I am looking for more easily in etymological dictionaries. I am sure it is being worked on, but I still wanted to touch upon this issue while I am thinking about it.

It has been almost 100 years since the foundation of the Republic, and it seems to me that we are not paying enough attention to eliminate foreign words from our language, to purify our language from foreign words. I am also aware of this, but if the society adopts the use of a word, if it starts to use it in some way, then there will be a change in the language. You cannot change the language by force.

But we also have our duties, we can contribute to the efforts to purify our language. Maybe we should start with ourselves first. The important thing is to take care to use the words in our own language when choosing words for what we want to express.

If you notice, I have already started, our topic is "WORDS", "word" is Arabic, Turkish is "word", I think it is more understandable. I was careful to use "word" instead of "word" in the article.

I couldn't find an exact word for noticing, "fark" is Arabic, maybe I could say "if you paid attention", but "dikkat" is also Arabic. You could also say "as you are interested in", but I don't perceive exactly the same meaning when you say "as you are interested in". In Azerbaijan they say "to be agah", but that is also Persian. Let's think a little more, maybe I'll find a better word later.

Our language is very beautiful, not just my opinion, linguists say so too. It deserves to be taken care of.

Let's take care of our language.

And if we want to be understood correctly, let's choose and use the right words, words are important.

Love and regards from Moscow.