# Turkish Naval Force



## Selim Yavuz

Hi everyone. I am a aspiring student of Turkish, and I have a simple request, though it might not be so simple to answer. Can someone please trans-scribe this into the Ottoman Turkish Script? "_Türk Deniz Kuvvetleri" _I'm sure that you'll know that is Turkish Naval Force. I much prefer the uniqueness and mystery of the original script Turkish was written in, but unfortunately I have no idea where to learn this script, so can someone be so kind as to help me with this small request? Thank you very much.


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## aslan

Selim Yavuz said:


> Hi everyone. I am a aspiring student of Turkish, and I have a simple request, though it might not be so simple to answer. Can someone please trans-scribe this into the Ottoman Turkish Script? "_Türk Deniz Kuvvetleri" _I'm sure that you'll know that is Turkish Naval Force. I much prefer the uniqueness and mystery of the original script Turkish was written in, but unfortunately I have no idea where to learn this script, so can someone be so kind as to help me with this small request? Thank you very much.



*Donanma-yı Hümâyûn*
This term is used for the Ottomon Naval Forces, *Donanma* means "naval forces" and *Hümâyûn* is a term which is used for the top level governors (padisah, sultan) in the meaning of  "protector, tutelary" 

So I can roughly translate "Donanma-yı Hümâyûn" as Naval Forces of Protector 
I am not sure whether It gives you what exactly you want You may had better wait  for other responses as well 

 I hope it helps


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## Selim Yavuz

Thank you immensely. I simply looked up Turkish Navy in wikipedia and that is the Turkish words they said, but I should have known better than to trust that site, unless of course it is simply referring to the Navy of the modern Republic. Either way I am looking for the name of the Ottoman Navy, whatever the Ottomans themselves called their fleet, in the time of the Great Corsairs such as Barbarossa and Turgut Reis. Is there anyone who knows what the name is, and can they write it in Ottoman Script please?


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## yasemin

Selim Yavuz,
Welcome to forum  I would love to be able to help you but I do not know ottoman (well, yet ). I only want to remind you, as perhaps the moderator should have made, the title of thread you open should be self explanatory about the content. You could say, ottoman navy or naval forces, for example... So, anyone that might be interested in this information can find it simply by searching in the future. 

p.s. Meanwhile, as Aslan said, what you are looking for is most probably Donanma-yı Hümâyûn, and the ottoman script and arabic script of this frase would be equal since it does not include any p, ç, or j. Therefore, you can ask this question in arabic forum as well... Hope they will help better.


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## Selim Yavuz

Thank you for being so helpful, I will take your advice and ask in the Arabic Forum.


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## tristero

Here's Donanma-yi Humayun in Ottoman script:  دونانمايى همايون

If you're interested in learning Turkish in the Ottoman script, I'd advise you to download the Ottoman-Turkish Conversation Grammar by Hagopian, which is available via Googlebooks, just go to Googlebooks and search for Hagopian Ottoman Grammar and it'll be the first one that pops up.

It was a book intended to teach the Turkish language to English-speakers at a time when the language was written in Ottoman (Arabic) script, so it teaches the alphabet as well as the grammar, vocabulary, etc., in short lessons.  It also includes a Latin transcription, which is different from the Latin alphabet used in Turkish today, but all in all, it's a very easy introduction to Ottoman -- and you don't even have to know any Turkish at all to use it.  (There was a separately published answer key for the exercises, but it's not available on Googlebooks, as far as I know.)


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## Selim Yavuz

Oh thank you so much. I have to ask though, is Ottoman the same as modern Turkish? Someone told me that due to the reforms of Mustafa Kemal, the Turks attempted to purge their language of as many Persian, Arabic and western words as possible, so is Ottoman kind of like a dead langauge, in the same sense as Ancient Greek? But I would love to learn how to speak Turkish/Ottoman using it's old script.


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## tristero

Ottoman Turkish was used for several centuries, and so the language as used in its earlier stages was quite different from modern Turkish, especially in vocabulary but to some extent in grammar as well.  The common spoken language of the end of the Ottoman period was very similar to modern Turkish, but the vocabulary has changed greatly, not just from the late Ottoman period to the Republic, but throughout the period of the Republic as well, to the extent that younger Turks today may have considerable difficulty understanding things written in the 1940s or 1950s.  

This is largely, as you note, due to the effort to get rid of Arabic and Persian words, in particular, as well as some Western words, and to replace them with "pure" Turkish words.  Still, it's largely the same language grammatically, with the main difference being in vocabulary.  Ottoman per se, though, is essentially a "dead" language, in that no one writes or speaks in that way any longer.  It's primarily of interest to historians of the Ottoman period, and to people studying classical Turkish literature.

That said, you should be aware that what we normally mean by "Ottoman" is the literary language, which was normally quite different from what most people spoke in daily life.  Ottoman writers took pains to demonstrate their sophistication by using all sorts of Persian and Arabic vocabulary, and the sentences tended to be very long and complicated, usually needlessly so.  Most young Turks find literary Ottoman Turkish almost incomprehensible, and few, I think, really enjoy learning it, due largely to the excessively ornate style. So, the further you get "into" Ottoman Turkish, the more removed you'll be from everyday Turkish spoken today.

That's why I recommend the Hagopian book so highly; the first part of it teaches everyday Turkish (but with more Arabic and Persian vocabulary than is normally used today), and only afterwards does it get into the Persian and Arabic elements used in "high" Ottoman.  It was primarily intended to teach foreigners to get along in spoken Turkish, and not to produce poets, and so it's a much more "user-friendly" introduction to Ottoman than you'll likely find elsewhere.


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## Selim Yavuz

Excellent, thank you for clarifying that. I would indeed like to learn Ottoman, and I think I shall get this. Is what you're talking about solely for the computer, or can I get it in physical book form. I find it very difficult to concentrate on something on the computer screen but, conversely I can easily concentrate on a book, so naturally I would prefer to have an actual book than simply an on-line "book." If there is no other alternative though I would be satisfied.


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## yasemin

A small addition...
Ottoman was kind of a noble language, which was spoken at the palace and among the upper-crust Istanbul gentilmen. The people of Anatolia, however, spoke always Turkish, which was NOT that much different from the modern Turkey Turkish (I mean, we could probably communicate without big problems).
And, Ottoman still lives (well, maybe only) in the oldest pieces of Turkish Classical Music (what we call Türk Sanat Müziği or Musiki). Even young people, who cannot speak and apperently read Ottoman, knows sevaral songs and commonly enjoy them in accompany with a glass of rakı.


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