//Ed. Note: Atatürk, in particular, revived awareness
of the Turks' Central Asian history and Turkish
names for men and women have increased since
his time.
But as Şerefeddin Mağmumi pointed out in the
newspaper column he wrote in Cairo in October
1906, Turkish names and the Turks' Central Asian
origins had been neglected during Ottoman times.//
I'm Thinking That...
"Türk" newspaper: 2 October 1906
Our Ottoman forebears forgot our own national names and
took Arab and Jewish names instead. In fact, they nearly lost
our language and bid farewell to Turkishness. Thankfully, due
to the work and efforts of a few patriots, our language has been
rescued from this fate. In a short time, by means of an
amazingly progressive work, equalibrium was restored. But
we are, nevertheless, still trying to prevent our own names
from being throw in the ditch of oblivion.
In this regard, though, as yet momentum is still lacking. Some
of our readers are asking me in writing, and most of them
verbally, what is meant by the penname "Oğuz" that I've
adopted. Many of them think that it's a typo, in that the 'z' at
the end should actually be 'r', forming the word 'uğur'
(auspiciousness).
The fact that Oğuz Khan was a very famous Turkish ruler has
been lost within our historical records. In any case, the weakest
link in our knowledge of our history is awareness of our own
nation, our origins and the Turks in general. The history books
in our schools begin with "Sultan Osman", with passing
mention of his grandfather Süleyman Shah's movement to the
east. That's about it. Prior to that it's all darkness. There is
nothing written or taught about our origins in Turkistan six
centuries ago, just a few pages about the Mongols and the
Turks of those times.
Fortunately, a few years ago an industrious and patriotic man
named Necip Asım succeeded in writing a detailed Turkish
history, starting from our origins. But what a strange country
and goverment we have: rather than honoring the writer who
rectified this shortcoming and putting his book in the schools,
the Ministry of Education has withheld permission for a second
printing of the work. The reason is quite a puzzle and a hidden
secret.
In any event, our topic is Turkish names so let's return to that
matter. Just as the Turks, a separate nation of 25-30 million
people, have their own language, certainly there are hundreds
of Turkish names for men and women, as well. In Central Asia,
no one was named with Arab and Jewish names like Ahmet,
Hasan, Yusuf and Musa. It was only after the acceptance of
Islam that they gradually began to adopt Arab names, based on
religion. The Selçuks took Turkish names and added a second
Arab name. Then, the members of the tribe of Süleyman Shah,
who was the grandfather of Sultan Osman, adopted Turkish
names like Ertuğrul, Orhan, Durmuş, Gündoğdu, Aydın and
Alparslan.
However, following the establishment of the Ottoman sultanate,
these national names gradually disappeared to the point that they
were rarely heard again. It is worth noting that there was not a
second Sultan named Orhon, nor was the name Ertuğrul or any
of the other Turkish name given to any of the subsequent
Ottoman sultans' children.
//Ed. Note: The French scholar Joseph de Guignes
wrote a comprehensive history of the Turks in 1750
but it wasn't until 173 years later that Hüseyin
Cahit Yalçin, at the urging of Ziya Gökalp,
translated de Guignes's work into Turkish in 1923-
1925.//
//END of PART ONE//
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