# Ottoman: spelling of Mustafa



## freyja01

my middle name is Mustafa. i lived in Turkey as a child. i would really like to get the Turkish spelling of Mustafa for a tattoo on my back. any help u can provide me would be gratefully appreciated. i have searched high and low and i would like to show respect in this way to a country that showed me every ounce of respect. this would mean a great deal for me...thank u!


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## ymisa

The Turkish spelling is "Mustafa", the way you have written it...


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## freyja01

thank u for ur reply. i guess what i mean is arabic spelling. how "mustafa" looks in Turkish language.


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## freyja01

how is "mustafa" spelt in arabic/turkish language? not using english letters or spelling. this is where i have been having difficulty.


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## ukuca

In modern Turkish, we use latin scripts (latin alphabet). So "Mustafa" looks like exactly as you see it = Mustafa. But maybe you're looking for the ancient written form of "Mustafa" in Ottoman Turkish alphabet which I'm not familiar of.


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## freyja01

yes! thk u !! i am looking for the ancient form of "mustafa" in ottoman turkish alphabet. if there is anyone that could provide me with the ancient ottoman spelling of "mustafa" i would be forever in your debt. again thank you all for all your help.


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## seyyah

freyja01 said:


> yes! thk u !! i am looking for the ancient form of "mustafa" in ottoman turkish alphabet. if there is anyone that could provide me with the ancient ottoman spelling of "mustafa" i would be forever in your debt. again thank you all for all your help.



It's not exactly "ancient" - Turkish was written in the Arabic alphabet only 80 yeras ago. In any case, here it is:

مصطفى‎

How you see this depends on your web browser, but it should be ok. There are many different Arabic calligraphic styles and not all can be rendered by computers. You could try displaying the text with a different typeface to see some variations.


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## freyja01

*T*hank *yo*u for *yo*ur help*.*


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## Spectre scolaire

The first question “How is the Turkish spelling of Mustafa” was answered by _ymisa_. It is Mustafa. 

There is no “ancient” form of this name. The name is of Arabic origin, and until 79 years 3 months and 12 days ago it was written in Turkish exactly like it is still written in Arabic. 

So the question should have been: “How do you write the Turkish name Mustafa in Arabic?” This question was answered by _seyyah_: مصطفى‎.

 I am just trying to save this thread from clearly belonging to the Arabic forum. 

With the _harf inkılabı_, literally: “letter revolution”, the _Latinization of the alphabet_ in Turkey which became compulsory from November 1, 1928, signified the most important break with the Ottoman past. Today, practically everybody in Turkey – except scholars of Ottoman history and language – would have to admit –-



ukuca said:


> [the] Ottoman Turkish alphabet which I'm not familiar of with.


 When some people in today’s Turkey learn how to read the Qur’an in Arabic, this has - interestingly – no bearing whatsoever on their ability to read Ottoman Turkish (which is an exercise in its own right). They may be able to read the name مصطفى, but they can’t write it correctly unless they specifically learn it (like _freyja01_ is now doing).

It is like a child in pre-school age learning how to write his name Mustafa; he may often produce it in his brain as a whole, as one _logo_, as it were. If you then suggest the sequence _musafaa_ (which incidentally means an “embrace” _in Ottoman Turkish_), he will not recognize the “logo”, and will fail to read it.

This example could serve as an allegory to what Mustafa(!) Kemal Atatürk wanted with his reform of the alphabet: to extirpate from school sterile knowledge. He wanted an alphabet which was functional for Turkish. To write Turkish with Arabic letters means to learn an awful lot of words _ad hoc_ – or, alternatively, to learn both Arabic and Persian which, incidentally, was compulsory knowledge in the traditional school. Without such knowledge, you couldn’t generate writing freely.

A Turk of today will have no idea how to write _musafaa_ in Arabic even if he knows how to write _Mustafa_. And the reason is that he can’t possibly know that --

*1*) the two words do not have the same *s* in Arabic script,
*2*) there is a “missing letter” which has to be supplied between the last two ‘*a*’s, and
*3*) there is a long ā in _musāfaa_ which has to be accounted for in the Arabic script.
There is also a fourth point which requires knowledge of Arabic grammar. 

All of it totally unproductive knowledge.

As every Arabic word in Turkish _in principle_ was written as it was written in Arabic – lots of simplifications came along in late Ottoman times; it was like reforming communism under Gorbachev instead of skipping the system altogether – but mostly pronounced in a very different way in Turkish, Atatürk clearly had a good vision when he gave his fellow citizens a couple of months to get used to the new alphabet, a modified Latin alphabet, after which the old one was outright banned for writing Turkish. 

To write Mustafa today with Arabic letters means to write the name _in Arabic_. _ymisa_’s trivial answer was symptomatically reflecting the reality that today, the knowledge of how to write Mustafa “in the old script” – _eski yaz__ıda_, as people commonly say – is completely obsolete. If you come across a Turkish nonagenarian, he may have spent his early childhood composing Turkish words with Arabic letters. A better alternative would be to ask _seyyah_. 
 ​


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## freyja01

*T*hank *yo*u for all* yo*ur help.


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## seyyah

Spectre scolaire said:


> A better alternative would be to ask _seyyah_ ...


... but even then, he'll probably check a dictionary just to be sure!


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## freyja01

*H*ow do you write the *T*urkish name "*M*ustafa" in* A*rabic and how do I make it larger and make a copy to take to tattoo shop?


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## Chazzwozzer

freyja01 said:


> *H*ow do you write the *T*urkish name "*M*ustafa" in* A*rabic


Hasn't this question already been answered in this thread, dear *مصطفى*?


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## Nu90

Here you go my dear friend;


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## badgrammar

Wow.  You all are still here, making it happen.  Spectre scolaire, affersiniz!  (Sorry for spelling).  Forgot my password, but I've been keeping an eye, and you have never failed to be there.  A scholar, indeed. Mustafa, I hope you will wear your name in Arabaic/Persian script proudly and surely...  As S.scolaire has noted...

Sara


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