Wednesday, April 14, 2010
About Language Change (from Emel and Gulseren) #1
Language is dependent on its speakers and writers; therefore, it is affected by any changes made by its users. Taking this fact and the situation of today’s youth into consideration can you say that the young people are ruining Turkish? Can you give any concrete examples of such a situation?
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ReplyDeleteIt depends what you mean by "today's youth". ıf you mean their adding foreign words into sentences such as " O çocuğu görünce irite oluyorum" I don't think it is ruining Turkish. I know such sentences do not sound good, but in the past Turkish was under the effect of Arabian,Persian and Ottoman Turkish and today we do not use many words from these languages. What I want to say is that intra-sentential code mixing does not ruin the language.I believe that languages can purify themselves from other languages over time.
ReplyDeleteHowever, it will be ruining if today's teenagers apply a foreign language's syntactic rules to Turkish sentences. For example, "ben yemek elma".
The changes made by the new generation should not necessarily be taken as destructing or ruining the language. Language is more alive than any living creature and the only way it maintains its existence is the contemporary changes. From this aspect, I believe, the changes made by the most active and productive ones- the young people, in fact, help language develop. That’s how modern Turkish took a long way from the core Turkish which cannot be understood by any Turkish people but linguists. Here are some forms manipulated by some singers who prefer to use contractions rather than long and formal forms. e.g. “yazcam”(I’m gonna write), “kayıt alıom şimdi”( I’m recording now) “vesileylen” (by means). Listening to those songs affect the way I speak and I use them a lot. I also like to contribute to the dictionary with making up some new words such as “mümkansız” (impossible), “çopçok” (extremely much), “hephemen”(with the greatest quick ever). The older people are shocked upon hearing these words while the younger find them cool.
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