Cleanser of the Turkish Language

Hagop Martaryan, born May 22, 1895, was a specialist in the Turkish languages and thus called upon by Ataturk to help cleanse it of Persian and Arabic influences. He was appointed to the First Turkish Language Convention and his surname changed to Dilicar, literally meaning “language opener”. He was known as Agop Dilicar, or A Dilicar after his death when his Armenian origins were concealed from the public.

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Hagop Martayan, a philologist and an expert in the science of encyclopedia, was born in Istanbul in 1895. A graduate of the American Robert College, he dedicated his entire life to the study of languages and was an expert in the Turkish language. He studied the etymology of Turkish words, meticulously tracing their origins since their earliest recorded coinage, their transmissions from one language to another, analyzing the words into their component parts, identifying their cognates in other languages, and tracing them to a common ancestral root.

Later, Mr. Martayan became an instructor and an administrator at the Robert College. He participated in World War I as a reserve officer. Then he lived in Europe for a while. In 1932, Ataturk was impassioned with a project to give back the Turkish language its true identity, and clear it from the shadow of Ottoman Turkish. He was aware of the expressive power of Turkish and he had a burning desire to liberate it from the shackles of Arabic and Persian influence. He himself an admirer and a master in using the Turkish, when learned about Hagop Martayan, who was at that time in Bulgaria, invited him to Turkey, and he became impressed with the knowledge and expertise of Mr. Martayan. He appointed him to the First Turkish Language Convention (Türk Dil Kurultayi). Around that time, a law making the surnames mandatory was at the legislature. Ataturk suggested that Mr. Martayan take the last name DILACAR, meaning “tongue opener”, which Martayan graciously accepted.

After the Turkish Language Convention, Mr. Dilacar became the Head Expert in the Turkish Language Association (Türk Dil Kurumu). Later, he taught languages at the universities and high schools. Starting in 1936, he taught for fifteen years The History of Linguistics, and General Linguistics at the Philology Department of the Language, History & Geography Department (Dil,Tarih & Cografya Fakultesi) of the University of Ankara. He was the advisor to the Turkish Encyclopedia, and later he became its chief editor. Mr. Dilacar passed away on September 12, 1979 in Istanbul.
Hagop Martayan Dilacar contributed enormously to the enrichment of the Turkish language and culture. He worked tirelessly to elevate and refine the Turkish.

(source: http://armenians-1915.blogspot.com/2009/06/2892-hagop-martayan-dilacar-tribute-to.html)

Ayhan Ozer, From….. THE TURKISH TIMES January 15, 1996

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Agop Martayan Dilaçar (May 22, 1895 – September 12, 1979) was an Armenian-Turkish linguist who specialized in Turkic languages and the first Secretary General and head specialist of the Turkish Language Association.

Biography
Agop Dilaçar was born in İstanbul, as Agop Martayan, in 1895. He graduated from the Robert College in 1915. In addition to Armenian and Turkish, he knew English, Greek, Spanish, Latin, German, Russian and Bulgarian. He worked as a lecturer of the English language at the Robert College, and of Ottoman Turkish and ancient East languages at Sofia University in Sofia, Bulgaria.

He was invited on September 22, 1932, as a linguistics specialist to the First Turkish Language Congress held in Dolmabahçe Palace supervised by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder and first president of the Republic of Turkey, together with two other linguists of Armenian ethnicity, İstepan Gurdikyan and Kevork Simkeşyan. He continued his work and research on the Turkish language as the head specialist and Secretary General of the newly founded Turkish Language Association in Ankara. Following the issue of the Law on Family Names in 1934, Atatürk suggested him the surname Dilaçar (literally meaning language opener), which he gladly accepted.

He taught history and language at Ankara University between 1936 and 1951. He also was the head advisor of the Türk Ansiklopedisi (Turkish Encyclopedia), between 1942 and 1960. He held his position and continued his research in linguistics at the Turkish Language Association until his death in 1979.

Publications
* Les bases Bio-Psychologiques de la Theorie Güneş Dil (1936)
* Azeri Türkçesi (Azerbaijani Turkish, 1950)
* Batı Türkçesi (Western Turkish, 1953)
* Lehçelerin Yazılma Tarzı (Writing Style of Dialects)
* Türk Dil ve Lehçelerinin Tasnifi Meselesi (Classification Issue of the Turkish Languages and Dialects, 1954)
* Devlet Dili Olarak Türkçe (Turkish as a State Language, 1962)
* Wilhelm Thomsen ve Orhon Yazıtlarının Çözülüşü (Wilhelm Thomson and Encoding of the Orkhon Inscriptions, 1963)
* Türk Diline Genel Bir Bakış (A General Look at the Turkish Language, 1964)
* Türkiye’de Dil Özleşmesi (Language Purification in Turkey, 1965)
* Dil, Diller ve Dilcilik (Language, Languages and Linguistics, 1968)
* Kutadgu Bilig İncelemesi (Research of the Kutadgu Bilig, 1972)
* Anadili İlkeleri ve Türkiye Dışındaki Uygulamalar (Native Language Principles and Applications Outside Turkey, 1978)

Sayat Nova’s 300th Anniversary

Sayat-Nova, born as Harutyun Sayatyan on 14 June 1712 in Tiflis, was an Armenian poet, musician and ashugh who composed in a number of languages, including Armenian, Georgian, Persian and Turkish. His adopted name Sayat Nova meant “Master of Songs” in Persian. This year marks the 300th anniversary of his birth.

Sayat-Nova’s mother, Sara, was born in Tbilisi, and his father, Karapet, either in Aleppo or Adana. He himself was born in Tbilisi. Sayat Nova was skilled in writing poetry, singing, and playing the kamanchah, Chonguri, Tambur. He performed in the court of Erekle II of Georgia, where he also worked as a diplomat and, apparently, helped forge an alliance between Georgia, Armenia and Shirvan against the Persian Empire. He lost his position at the royal court when he fell in love with the king’s sister, and spent the rest of his life as an itinerant bard.

In 1759 he was ordained as a priest in the Armenian Apostolic Church. His wife Marmar died in 1768, leaving behind four children. He served in various locations including Tbilisi and Haghpat Monastery. On November 22, 1795, at the age of 83, he was killed in the monastery by the invading army of Mohammad Khan Qajar, the Shah of Iran, for refusing to denounce Christianity and convert to Islam. He is buried at the Cathedral of Saint George, Tbilisi.

In Armenia, Sayat Nova is considered a great poet who made a considerable contribution to the Armenian poetry and music of his century. Although he lived his entire life in a deeply religious society, his works are mostly secular and full of romantic expressionism. About 220 songs have been attributed to Sayat-Nova, although he may have written thousands more.

Sayat-Nova is considered by many to be the greatest ashugh (folk singer-songwriter) that ever lived in the Caucasus. Composer Alexander Arutiunian wrote an opera called “Sayat Nova”. There is a street and a music school named after him in Yerevan, Armenia, as well as an Armenian-American dance ensemble in the United States, and a pond located in Mont Orford, Quebec, Canada. In Armenia, Sayat Nova is considered a poet who made a considerable contribution to the Armenian poetry of his century. Although he lived his entire life in a deeply religious society, his poems are mostly secular and full of Romantic expressionism. A book on his life and work by Charles Dowsett was published in 1997 titled Sayat’-nova: An 18th-century Troubadour: a Biographical and Literary Study. After the 18th c., the Armenian odes were first translated in France by Elisabeth Mouradian and the french poet Serge Venturini in 2006 ; the book was dedicated to Sergei Parajanov.

One of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th century, Sergei Parajanov’s “Color of the Pomegranate”, a biography of the Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova (King of Song) reveals the poet’s life more through his poetry than a conventional narration of important events inSayat Nova’s life. We see the poet grow up, fall in love, enter a monastery and die, but these incidents are depicted in the context of what are images from Sergei Parajanov’s imagination and Sayat Nova’s poems, poems that are seen and rarely heard.

Book on Armenian Genocide becomes bestseller in Turkey

The prominent Turkish journalist Hasan Cemal’s recent book titled “1915: Armenian Genocide,” which was published last month, has become a bestseller in Turkey, Today’s Zaman daily’s columnist writes in his article.

The daily stresses that the author of this controversial book is the grandson of Cemal Pasha, a key figure in the Young Turk government. In his book, Hasan Cemal not only presented factual data on the tragedy, but, also, he spoke about how his personal views have changed and how he turned from a genocide denier to a recognizer.

“The book starts with the first column Hasan Cemal wrote on the topic on Feb. 18, 1985, largely loyal to the official view of Ankara, which maintains that the question has to do with ‘reciprocal massacres’ between Armenians and Muslims, and ends with the talk he gave at the University of California, Los Angeles on March 31, 2011, in which he recognized the ‘Armenian genocide,’” the columnist writes.

The book also quotes passages from Cemal Pasha’s memoirs published in Germany in 1919, in which Cemal Pasha—who is considered to be one of the organizers of the genocide—specifically claimed that, “The real blame [for the Genocide] is with the Russian policy which rascally incited them to attack each other [that is, the Armenians and the Turks].

Pointing to the fact that so far no prosecutions were launched in Turkey against the book’s author, or its publisher, Today’s Zaman states: “Turkey is moving on to leave no taboos unbroken on the other.”

“The late Hrant Dink, a prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist, who fell victim to a racist plot in 2007, said, ‘Neither denial nor recognition first, but cognition.’ I believe those words are still relevant,” Today’s Zaman’s columnist concluded in his article.

 

Source: 
http://news.am/eng/news/126656.html

Murderers to Heroes

Father of Turkish Classical Music

Hampartsoum Limondjian was born in 1768 on Çukur Sokak in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul. His father’s name was Sarkis and his mother’s, Gaderina, both of whom had recently moved to Istanbul from Harput, were poor, and could only send their son to primary school. Soon after, Hampartsoum Limondjian started working for a tailor. A lover of music, he began attending Armenian churches, where he managed to receive some music lessons. He took lessons in Armenian music from Armenian musicians such as Krikor Karasakalyan (1736–1808) and Zenne Bogos (1746–1826), soon coming under the patronage of Hovhannes Çelebi Düzyan, director of the Ottoman Imperial Mint. This gave him the freedom he required to devote himself fully to music and continue his education within the Düzyan family mansion in the Kuruçeşme district of Istanbul. After serving dutifully in the choir of the Armenian Church, he was made Precentor (first singer) and chief musician.

Around this time, Hampartsoum Limondjian started attending mevlevihanes, places of gathering for dervishes of the Mevlevi order, to learn Ottoman music. In the Beşiktaş Mevlevihanesi, he took lessons from Dede Efendi, one of the greatest Ottoman composers. He was then accepted at the court of Ottoman Sultan Selim III, himself a composer whose music is still performed today, becoming a regular member of the music circles of his day. Sultan Selim III was concerned about the lack of a comprehensive notation system for music and encouraged members of his court to work on one that would be both easy to learn and easy to transcribe in. Two music systems were developed as a result and presented to Selim III, by Hamparsum Limonciyan and Abdulbaki Nasir Dede. Abdulbaki Nasir Dede’s system was based on the abjad system, differing in the ordering of the notes. Hampartsoum Limondjian’s notation that he developed in two years between 1813 and 1815 was preferred over the other and became the dominant notation for Turkish and Armenian music. Using his own system, Hampartsoum Limondjian transcribed most of 18th century Turkish music compositions in a collection of six books, which he presented to Selim III. Only two of the originals survive to date and are preserved at the Istanbul Municipal Conservatory Library.

He worked as a master of music and educated a number of Turkish and Armenian musicians of his day. Besides being known as a leading composer, he was a famous vocal performer and played the violin and the tanbur. 31 of his Armenian hymns, composed with Armenian lyrics in the Turkish melodic system (makam) survive to this day. He has composed a large number of Turkish music pieces, most of which are regularly performed today.

The Hampartsoum notation uses symbols derived from an older notation called խազ khaz used by the Armenian Church. Pitch is indicated by one of forty-five symbols. There are fourteen notes per octave over a range of three octaves and a minor second; a tilde is used in place of a sharp and also to raise or lower a note an octave. All twelve notes of the Western chromatic scale are represented, but in the case of F-sharp (fa diyez in Turkish) and B-natural (si), two enharmonic symbols are used for each, because Middle Eastern music uses microtonal intervals called commas. Above each note is written another symbol, marking its duration. Other symbols are used for rests, repeats and phrases.