# Why did the Turkish culture and language not spread? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 2, 2023, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505 "2023-09-02T14:13:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/21 "2023-09-02T17:11:37Z")
It’s a joke, playing on the Byzantine as in Byzantine Empire, and “byzantine” as overly complicated. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/22 "2023-09-02T17:12:54Z")
Oh, dear, you want me to explain a pun? OK, I’ll go for it. Look up the definition of the word Byzantine: Merriam Webster’s, for instance. 1. something related to Byzantium (former name of Constantinople, today’s Istanbul, Turkey, wink, wink) or [definitions 2 and 3 are irrelevant in this case] or 4.a “of, or related to, or characterized by devious and usually surreptitous manner of operation” or 4.b “intricately involved: labyrinthine” (as the Turkish language can be) ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/23 "2023-09-02T17:27:17Z")
Because Turkish is agglutinative, which is friggin’ hard to learn. > **[Agglutinative language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutinative_language)** > > An agglutinative language is a type of synthetic language with morphology that primarily uses agglutination. Words may contain different morphemes to determine their meanings, but all of these morphemes (including stems and affixes) tend to remain unchanged after their unions, although this is not a rule: for example, Finnish is a typical agglutinative language, but morphemes are subject to (sometimes unpredictable) consonant alternations called consonant gradation. Despite the occasional outlier... I kinda like the sound of it though. I don’t understand anything, but it sounds happy, in the same way Korean does. At least to my ears. ---
**Author:** ![Jagraze1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jagraze1/32/14870_2.png) [@Jagraze1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jagraze1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/24 "2023-09-02T17:33:33Z")
That’s why? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/25 "2023-09-02T17:36:43Z")
I wouldn’t take “technical difficulty” too seriously. Language competency is driven mostly by need, not ease of learning. If Turkish were required to conduct business, people would learn it. Look at English, which is so irregular and inconsistent it’s probably actually harder to learn than any agglutinative language, but it’s also #1 most popular language in the world if you include second-language speakers. Which is a good measure of how “necessary” a language is: how many people speak it as a non-native language? Because that’s a direct measure of the functional necessity of the language. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/26 "2023-09-02T17:59:59Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > What language did the Ottomans use for administrative purposes, Greek or Turkish or local languages? [Ottoman or Osmanli Turkish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Turkish), which was functionally a distinct court language not intelligible to most rural Turkish speakers. As with many things having to deal with Ottoman court culture, it was a highly cosmopolitan mix of Turkish, Persian and Arabic (mostly via Persian). ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/27 "2023-09-02T18:23:21Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > > [@Dr.Drake](#): > > > > What language did the Ottomans use for administrative purposes, Greek or Turkish or local languages? > > Would it not have been the holy language of Arabic? It’s not “the holy language of Arabic”; it’s called Ottoman Turkish > **[Ottoman Turkish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Turkish)** > > Ottoman Turkish (Ottoman Turkish: لِسانِ عُثمانى, romanized: Lisân-ı Osmânî, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}Turkish pronunciation: \[liˈsaːnɯ osˈmaːniː\]; Turkish: Osmanlı Türkçesi) was the standardized register of the Turkish language used by the citizens of the Ottoman Empire (14th to 20th centuries CE). It borrowed extensively, in ... which did have up to 88% of its vocabulary influenced by Arabic and Turkish. After the foundation of the Republic of Turkey there were deliberate reforms to replace the alphabet/script and to Turkify the vocabulary. ---
**Author:** ![markn\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/28 "2023-09-02T18:47:56Z")
Turkish is pretty easy to learn. Just repeat after me as we learn three new words in Turkish: “towel” … “bath” … “border” … ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/29 "2023-09-02T21:40:26Z")
Very interesting. Hungarian is also an agglutinative language, which I guessed since Finnish was mentioned in your quote. Curiously, the proto Hungarian people were also thought to have originated near Siberia. Agglutinative languages are common to that area for some reason? ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/30 "2023-09-02T21:46:47Z")
> [@gnoitall](#): > > I wouldn’t take “technical difficulty” too seriously. Language competency is driven mostly by need, not ease of learning. Also, “difficult for English speakers to learn” is not the same as “difficult for anybody to learn.” ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/31 "2023-09-02T21:47:40Z")
Funny😊 ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/32 "2023-09-02T21:55:28Z")
Ok, I looked up _agglutinative_ I hate that meaning. So I looked up _agglutination_ “The act of agglutinating” Come on Merriam, we must do better! Some obscure meaning that says "yada, yada…something to do with words spoken…yakkity, yakkity. And something to do with blood particles sticking together. I wanna know how it sounds. Someone describe it, please. (God, I hope it means gutteral) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/33 "2023-09-02T21:57:50Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > French is a terrible example actually. > It is spoken by less people than Turkish. > It is overwhelmingly spoken in France, Belgium and Switzerland. Overseas the numbers are smallish. I think you’re forgetting France’s former African colonies. French is the sole official language of several African nations: Côte d’Ivoire (pop. 29,344,847) Gabon, (2,397,368) and Benin (13,754,688) for example. It’s also an official language in Cameroon (30,135,732), Rwanda (13,400,541) and Burundi (13,162,952). May not be 1st language in those countries, but certainly second language. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/34 "2023-09-02T22:03:54Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > I hate that meaning. > So I looked up _agglutination_ > “The act of agglutinating” > Come on Merriam, we must do better! From Wikipedia: > [@](#): > > In [linguistics](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistics), **agglutination** is a [morphological](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphology_(linguistics)) process in which words are formed by stringing together [morphemes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morpheme), each of which corresponds to a single [syntactic](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax) feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called [agglutinative languages](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agglutinative_language). For example, in the agglutinative language of [Turkish](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_language), the word _evlerinizden_ (“from your houses”) consists of the morphemes _ev-ler-iniz-den,_ literally translated morpheme-by-morpheme as _house-plural-your(plural)-from_ . ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/35 "2023-09-02T22:14:42Z")
Yeah, I saw that. Tells me nothing. ETA: oh wait. I think I get it now. It’s not a sound but a way of saying a word that explains a big idea. Stringing the morphemes together. Yay! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/36 "2023-09-02T22:26:37Z")
Right. English is a synthetic language and doesn’t merge sounds that way to make new words. We rely on pronouns and prepositions, as separate words: « From » (preposition); « your » (pronoun); « houses » (noun), to give the same example but in English. ---
**Author:** ![Beckdawrek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beckdawrek/32/3647_2.png) [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/37 "2023-09-02T22:53:04Z")
So proud of the Dopers. 😊. My ignorance been fought twice today!! ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 11:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/38 "2023-09-02T23:12:34Z")
I just say “Lego language” to those unfamiliar. You build up words like lego bricks. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2023, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/39 "2023-09-02T23:41:01Z")
Inuit languages are agglutinative. I’ve read somewhere that one of the marks of experience and wisdom is that young people tend to use short words, while elders tend to use longer words, building more qualifications and explanatory bits into the longer word. ---
**Author:** ![Die\_Capacitrix](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/die_capacitrix/32/9_2.png) [@Die\_Capacitrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Die_Capacitrix)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2023, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505/40 "2023-09-03T11:59:45Z")
> [@What\_Exit](#): > > It is overwhelmingly spoken in France, Belgium and Switzerland. Only 23% of the people in Switzerland speak French as their first language. The primary language of Switzerland is German (Swiss German or standard German). [Languages of Switzerland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Switzerland) In Belgium, Dutch is the primary language, then French. [Languages of Belgium.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Belgium) Of course, this means that French as a second language is very popular in both Switzerland and Belgium. Considering how many native Turkish speakers there are, it is rather surprising to see how few there are in Switzerland, compared to other languages which has far fewer native speakers. For example, Switzerland has more native Albanian speakers (approximately 7 million native speakers worldwide) compared to the number of native Turkish speakers (82 million native speakers worldwide. Perhaps Turkey is (was?) stable enough that people just want to stay there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-did-the-turkish-culture-and-language-not-spread/989505.md?page=3)