Turkey is a land of dichotomies. It is neither European nor Asian, neither secular Christian nor religiously Muslim. Its history is one of conquest and invasion, of great civilizations covering the land and deep cultural depressions. And today, Turkey is a land inching toward membership in the European Union.
Turkey is a country whose modern-day vibrancy and excitement exist hand-in-hand with its past. There are few more interesting places in the world for the adventurous student looking to study abroad.
Learn Turkish in Turkey
The sole official language of Turkey is Turkish. Turkish is an Altaic language and its closest living relatives are other Turkic languages, which are spoken in southwestern, central and northern Asia; and to a lesser degree by small communites in the Balkans. Because Turkish is an agglutinative language, native speakers of Indo-European languages generally find it difficult to learn. Since 1928, Turkish is written in a variant of the Latin alphabet (after so many centuries of using the Arabic one, evident in many historical texts and documents) with the additions of ç/Ç, ğ/Ğ, ı/I, i/İ, ö/Ö, ş/Ş and ü/Ü, and with the exclusions of Q, W and X.
Other Languages Spoken in Turkey
Kurdish is spoken by an estimated 7-10% of the population. Several other languages exist, like Laz in the North-East (also spoken in adjacent Georgia), and in general people living near borders will often be speaking the language at the other side too, like Arabic in the South-East.
Thanks to migration, even in rural areas most villages will have at least somebody who has worked in Germany and can thus speak German. The same goes for other West-European languages like Dutch (often mistakenly called Flemish there) or French. Recent immigration from Balkans means there is also a possibility to come across native Serbo-Croatian, Bulgarian, and Albanian speakers mainly in big cities of western Turkey, but don’t count on this.
English is also increasingly popular among the younger generation. The Universities that train pupils for a job in tourism pour out thousands of youngsters who want to practice their knowledge on the tourist, with varying degrees of fluency. Language universities produce students that nowadays are pretty good at their chosen language.
Study in Istanbul
Istanbul, the capital of Turkey, is one of the most fascinating cities in the world. Common wisdom is that a two-week break in the city is barely enough to scratch the surface. From the ruins and remnants of all the civilizations that have made the site of the city their home to the bustling metropolis that is modern-day Istanbul, it is the perfect city in which to undertake a language course or full-time college education. The stimulation of attending school in Istanbul-or, for that matter, anywhere in Turkey-is likely unrivalled in the world. There are 85 universities in the country and more than 820 institutes of higher education, so no matter what you would like to study, there is sure to be a school that matches your needs.
History
Turkey is not the first country most people think of when the subject of major civilisational crossroads comes up. Indeed it had, one could legitimately argue, fallen into disregard and ill-repute after the first world war: The combination of the crumbling of the Ottoman-Turkish Empire and the still-disputed Armenian genocide of 1915 both led to Turkey being perceived as a quasi-civilized country with loosely-kept ethical standards and a reputation as a cultural backwater. In the year 2006, of course, this could not be further from the truth.
The Turkish Republic was established on 29 October 1923 from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. The origins of modern Turkey can be traced back to the arrival of Turkish tribes in Anatolia in the 11th century, under the Seljuks. Following the defeat of the Seljuk Turks by the Mongols, a power vacuum allowed for the new Ottoman dynasty to establish itself as a powerful force in the region.
The history of the civilizations that have occupied the land, however, goes back much farther. Constantinople was the name of the modern-day city of Istanbul, Turkey, over the centuries that it served as the second capital of the unified Roman Empire. In fact, the first settlements in what is now known as Istanbul date to the 7th century B.C.E.
Modern-day Turkey is one of the most fascinating countries in the world. Officially a secular state, Turkey is nonetheless facing many of the same problems that other countries are dealing with these days. However, the government, under the leadership of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdog(an, has managed to quell much of this restiveness. This, of course, is largely because of Turkey’s desire to be admitted into the European Union. So despite the occasional act of terrorism, Turkey has, nonetheless, managed to remain more peaceful and prosperous than many people ever thought possible.
Turkey, then, is one of those countries that provides such a wide range of potential experiences for full-time students that it is difficult to find much of a down-side. Perhaps the only real problem could potentially be overstimulation. Which, in the context of a education, is not a bad thing at all.