Turkish Forum

Author: Aylin D. Miller

  • This Drone Will Change Everything

    This Drone Will Change Everything

    A drone is a flying robot that can be remotely controlled or fly autonomously using software-controlled flight plans in its embedded systems, that work in conjunction with onboard sensors and a global positioning system (GPS).

    TAI Drone

    Drones now have many functions, ranging from monitoring climate change to carrying out search operations after natural disasters, photography, filming, and delivering goods. But their most well-known and controversial use is by the military for reconnaissance, surveillance and targeted attacks.

    Here is an amazing invention that will change everything.

  • Is there anyone who can speak Turkish?

    Is there anyone who can speak Turkish?

    Biraz. (very little!)

    Seriously, though, Turkish is a language well worth studying. Wrapping your brain around a completely different syntax will definitely stretch it! The grammar is heavenly, since the parts of speech snap neatly into place like Lego blocks, always in the same order. The vocabulary, tho, is from the “other” place! Don’t count on finding too many cognates.

    Still, the Latin-based alphabet is easy to learn. And it’s a lot more phonetic than English (let alone French!)

    And there are 80 million or so citizens of the Turkish Republic, and nearly that many people who speak languages in the same family. The Turks have a genius for friendship, and are heirs to an imperial culinary tradition.

    Look into a local university’s “language partners program” to find sharp and motivated tutors. Help them with their English, and let them introduce you to their world.

    Studying Turkish this way is a great home school family project, BTW. Your children will learn that the world does NOT divide into white hats and black turbans.

    And your Turkish friends will learn that, contrary to what Hollywood preaches, there ARE Americans who take faith and family seriously.

    Thomas Smedley

  • How is it to be Armenian in Turkey?

    How is it to be Armenian in Turkey?

    It’s definitely an interesting experience.

    The Armenian community of today’s Turkey is tight-knit, and the vast majority of us live in a few upper-middle-class neighborhoods in Istanbul. Being in Istanbul certainly helps our community. People here are used to being surrounded by people of wide variety of backgrounds, so we face less bigotry here than if we lived in a city like Konya or Kayseri where there are almost no Armenians and non-Muslims. We tend to have above-average incomes and live comfortable lifestyles.

    Most Turkish-Armenian express their identity through their religion. The Church really is what keeps our community together and our identity alive. I’d say most Armenians are more religious than the average Turk of the same upper-middle-class background that we are. Most Turkish-Armenians can no longer speak Armenian and are pretty much fully switched over to Turkish. Roughly 18% of the community speaks the language, and those are mostly older people. I’m one of the around 8% of Armenian youth in Turkey who can still speak the language fluently. My parents made my siblings and I learn it, and I’m grateful for it. Armenian has been spoken in Turkey for millennia, and I’m doing my part to keep it alive.

    There is a lot of vitriolic rhetoric against Armenians in Turkey. My church has repeatedly found racist, anti-Armenian graffiti on the church walls. It’s disgusting, and no one ever talks about it. Sometimes I’ll have acquaintances say something very xenophobic about Armenians but they’ll say when they realize that I’m Armenian, “But Ani, you’re not like those other Armenians…” Historically, many Armenians were forced to adopt Turkish surnames including my family, but after that law was repealed, my family reverted back to our traditional family name of Manukyan. My parents are extremely proud of being Armenian, and they wanted their children’s names to go before them, indicating that they are Armenian, so when they had me, they named me Ani, a very common Armenian name that comes from the name of the historic capital of the Armenian Empire. My parents actually took me to Ani over the summer, and I just remember sobbing as I was walking through the ruins of this once grand city. It seemed like the physical embodiment of what happened to the Armenian community of Anatolia, just in ruins, with barely anything left. That’s a potent, emotional symbol for us.

    It’s not all gloom and doom though! There has been more curiosity about Armenian culture and religion from Turks over recent years, and the Armenian community is more than happy to tell them about us. I’ll often get good questions about my faith, language, culture, and traditions, and I just love talking about it. My culture is something I’m proud of. There has also been a greater level of acceptance of us among the Turkish, secular upper-middle-classes. There is no longer as much social isolation for Turkish-Armenians. The Turkish upper-middle-class used to exclude us, and now, we are becoming an accepted part of it, at least in Istanbul. Another good thing about living here is we have a lot more economic opportunity in Turkey than we ever would in Armenia. In Armenia, we would have lower incomes and less available, quality employment.

    It’s really a mixed bag, but I’m optimistic that things will get better for us. The young Armenian people of Turkey are determined to stay here, continue the presence of the Armenian community in Turkey, and do our best with our circumstances.

    Ani Manukyan

  • PUTIN IS DEAD MEAT

    PUTIN IS DEAD MEAT

     Vladimir Putin’s days as Russia’s leader are very few.

    Russia is in deep trouble because of him. He dates back to Josef Stalin.

    For almost a decade in the 1930s, Stalin had his despised purges that plundered the freedom-thinking population into zombies. Anyone left died during WW II.

    Communism has little regard for human life.

    After the war, it got even worse with his Secret Service which Vladimir was the star performer.

    Instead of taking Russia forward into the 21st century, he has leapfrogged backward into the 1930s.

    Today Russia is just a gas station. Alcoholism is rampant, and women are highly suspected when entering a foreign country because of many diseases.

    President Trump treated him as a Second Lieutenant in the arm services, and he obeyed. “Don’t embarrass me, I won’t you- Understand?” He agreed, and we had peace- except our Congress kept putting the lid on him.

    When Trump was president, that was the time to expand peaceful business enterprises that employed the citizens’ endeavors.

    I have taken a “cab ride” across Russia by railroad on the internet. Russia is a beautiful country with all sorts of potential, from mining to exploring lakefront villages for vacations. Imagine ski resorts and lakeshore areas with all kinds of family fun.

    All the government has to do is stand back and watch as its economy expands and provides miscellaneous income.

    Under Obama, Putin annexed Crimean without one nation objecting. No one objected when Hitler “took back” the Rhineland with 22,000 troops in violation of the Versailles Treaty. If one soldier had fired just one shot, the German High command would dispose of Hitler. Instead, the Generals accepted Hitler as their leader since there were no causalities. Germany was expanding without casualties.

    When Biden capitulated in Afghanistan, leaving tons of secret military hardware against us in future engagements, Putin saw his opportunity for further expansion with little effort.

    UKRAINE!

    Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

    Ukraine is a freedom-loving democracy with all kinds of politicians.

    They fought back, and thanks to Trump’s policies concerning NATO, they had backers that would support Ukraine.

    General Douglas MacArthur Paraphrased- was correct when he said democracy will always outlast a dictatorship in battles once the field commanders are removed or killed in action because no one wants to assume command. In a democracy, a command is a token of respect and achievement – not a death warrant.

    Russian soldiers were poorly trained and did not know how to drive a tank, as one could see them crashing into each other during battle. They are useless against drones who bomb a turret almost to perfection.

    No supply lines left tanks open to attack from drones. Living in a tank without proper food or water for days can be demoralizing.

    Please forget about the media about China. China would love to take back Vladivostok, which they lost over 100 years ago. Ha Ha.

    Estonia just held an election. Estonia borders Russia and Ukraine. Guess what?

    A Lady Tiger, Kaja Kallas, was elected Prime Minister, and with her coalition, she now controls 70 seats in a 101-seat parliament. She has been a constant critic of Putin.

    Mysteriously Russian supply depots are catching on fire.

    Riots in mass in many cities with the police are just watching. Riots are a severe threat and flaw to any dictatorship.

    A few years ago, through a Deutsche Bank branch in Moscow and London, V. Putin sold one million shares of Gazprom in Russia and at the same time bought one million shares on the London Stock Exchange at the same equivalent price. He converted his Russian Ruble into the English Pound at total commissions. It cost Deutsche bank dearly as its stock sold for over 100 Euros; today, it is 11.91 USD.

    Imagine what Vladimir did with these funds. If he opened a Swiss bank account, what would happen?

    The Swiss are contemplating or have frozen all Russian bank accounts. OMG!!!!

    The Russians need more supplies for long-term battles: tanks, ammunition, food, and, most important, men. Russians are immigrating to other countries by the thousands, and it already has a declining population.

    Putin has been playing musical chairs, and he now finds out that when the music stops, there are no chairs!

    Cheerio !!!

    IN GOD WE TRUST

    Richard C De Graff

  • Origins of Ak & Kara

    Origins of Ak & Kara

    In Turkish, what’s the difference between ak/kara and siyah/beyaz? What is their origin? How can they be used?

    Siyah (black),

    Beyaz (white),

    Mavi (Blue),

    are not original Turkish words.

    Turkish originals were/are:

    Black: Kara

    White: Ak

    Blue: Gök

    Foreign loanwords exclusively used to mean colors, nothing else.

    Turkish words can be used as adjectives, to define color, but also to give meaning other than colors.

    “Black Friday” can be translated only as “Kara Cuma”, but not “Siyah Cuma”.

    Because the “black” in “Black Friday” is not related with color.

    Original Turkish words have deep meanings, probably loanwords also have deep meanings in their respective languages, but they are exclusively used for colors in Turkish.

    Turkish original words have deeper meaning and meaningful connection with other words.

    *

    For example:

    Blue: Gök

    Gök also means Sky, because sky is blue. Gök also means “heavens”, because “skies” are “heavens”.

    (Even I can claim that, in Western and especially in Hollywood film culture it is believed that “dead people goes to heaven as stars” has its roots in Turkic/Hunnic culture. Because in Turkic belief , “uçmak” (to fly away) is used, to say somebody is passed away. You can fly into sky, not into ground. I don’t know if there is not such belief in Semitic/Indian/Aryan/Greek culture. There is “underworld” in these cultures)

    *

    Green: Yeşil

    The word for “Green” in Turkish (YEŞİL) is a miraculous word. If linguists and scientists tried to devise/produce a word, which connects “Green”, “Water”, “Life”, “to Live” “Greenary” “Spring/Summer” and “Age (length of “life”)”, they could not devise a better word.

    Old form of YEŞİL: YAŞIL (Green)

    (Following this pattern: Replacing the original back vowels with front vowels

    Çak-ıç => Çek-iç “hammer”

    Yaş-ıl => Yeş-il “green”)

    Yaş: means “moisturized”/”watered”/”watery”/”wet”.

    Green is YAŞIL/YEŞİL, literal meaning “watery, watered, with water”

    Can we think of a “natural green” without water? Absolutely no.

    Can we think of life, without water? Absolutely no.

    In Turkish, the words for “Water (YAŞ/SU)”, “Green (YEŞİL)” and “Life (YAŞAM)” has same root.

    YAŞA-MAK and YAŞAM: to Live and Life. These words also comes from “water” and therefore related with YEŞİL/green. How meaningful and wonderful connection. Without water, no life can exist. Without water we cannot live, we cannot “stay green/alive”. Any space exploration today looking for life in other planets directly looks for the existence of water. Therefore water-life-green connection in Turkish looks so miraculous.

    And then comes, “age/yaş” (lenght of LIFE). In Turkish, this word also related with “Water (YAŞ/SU)”, “Green (YEŞİL)” and “Life (YAŞAM)” . In Anatolian Turkish, the connection between “Age/yaş” and “green” is forgotten.

    However, age/yaş and green/yeşil is closely related in other Turkish/Turkic languages.

    We ask this question to learn the age of something :

    “How old are you” (Kaç yaşındasın) ?

    In some Turkic languages, question is asked this way, the original way:

    “How many green (season) have you seen? (Kaç yaş/yaz gördün?)”

    In the ancient Turkic culture the age of something/someone was calculated based on how many times they had seen “green season”, which is “yaz”.

    So we see, colors reveal lots of things in original language.Green (yeşil) in Turkish is not just a color name, but it has deep connection with water (su, yaş, ıslak/sulak), life (yaşam, greenary), age (yaş) and summer (yaz). They have same root in Turkish.

    Think of a desert. When you see an oasis, a “green (yeşil)” area in the desert, you automatically know that there is “water (yaş/su)” in that place, and there is “life (yaşam)” in that place.

    I am not aware of any other language, in which all these words “Water (YAŞ/SU)”, “Green (YEŞİL)” and “to live (YAŞA-MAK), “Life (YAŞAM)”, “Summer (YAZ)”, and “age -length of life (YAŞ)” are all related to each other.

    —-

    Note-1: Turkish proper name “Yaşar”, if written with today’s Anatolian Turkish phonology, would be written as “Yeşer”, because of the vowel shift like in yaşıl to yeşil. Because the name Yaşar was given to scrawny, weak babies as a desire/praying by parents for the baby “to live,to get green”.

    Note-2: Word for summer (yaz) also meant “spring” in old Turkish. “Bahar” is a Persian loanword. Probably Ancient Turkics were living in colder regions of the world and they only had 2 seasons, “yaz/summer/green season and kış/winter/non-green season, not 4 seasons)

    The connection between “yaş” and “yaz”: In Northern Branch of Turkic languages, Kıpçak/Kipchak (Kazakh, Kyrgyz) some sound shifts happened. Therefore some basic pronunciation difference arose with Southern and Western (Chaghatay and Oghuz) Turkish. However, there were not strict lines between these dialects. Words with new meaning/concepts are borrowed from each other along with new pronounciation)

    Western : Kipchak

    Baş: bas

    Yaş: yas/yaz

    Kış: kıs

    Beş: bes

    Yüz: jüz (this one lives in Anatolia only in informal pronounciation of numbers ending in ş/ç letters, beş-jüz:500, üç-cüz:300)

    Saç: saş

    Mehmet Uçar

  • Atatürk and Modern Turkiye

    Atatürk and Modern Turkiye

    Dear Friends,

    Those of you who may be interested in about foundation of Republic of Turkey and her founder, I found this link quite a good one.

    Please clink on the link below.

    Regretfully, the closing part is shadowed with the tall Armenian lie!

    There has never been the number of Armenians claimed to have lost their lives as the very well kept consensus and the Ottoman registry office rules out these lies!

    There are more than enough documentation and publication from the US, GB, French and German archives!

    Mustafa Atac