Hi ladies and gentlemen,

I know you are following things about Turkish here, so I am sure you will like this e-book as your Turkish handbook. I don´t know if you know the site Middle East Language Resource Center:

http://www.nmelrc.org

They have a handbook, in PDF format. I didn´t read them all but I like this part:

It is not a grammar book exactly but an exciting handbook for every learner, as it gives the answer of the question: "How to learn Turkish?".

You can get the book from this page:

http://www.nmelrc.org/index.php?module=pagemaster&PAGE_user_op=view_page&PAGE_id=53&MMN_position=36:34

Kolay gelsin!

Thank you very much caliptrix.  I´ve downloaded the manual and found it very informative.  Great stuff.

Thanks Caliptrix,very useful

I think this is fascinating!  So please correct me if im wrong here.. Before 1928 it was a different way of speaking Turkish ?  If so, how on earth did the millions of people in Turkey adapt and learn to speak this ´new´ Turkish?

Also can the older grammar and vocabulary still be learned

No, whats really amazing is that they learned this new language in justr 80 yrs! Thats just like what? 2 generations or one??? And millllions of people!! Thats just amazing!!! Imagine all the books signs documents everything translated!!!WOW!!!

"different way of Turkish ?"

Yes, a kind of. That´s why the language was called "Ottomanish" that was a mix of Turkish, Arabic and Persian. But the base was Turkish still.

"how adapt and learn?"

Answer is simple: by education.

Do you think i is "fascinating" really? Well, I confess, it is pretty good, yes. But I think we should accpet the negative effects as well. We forget our history, we don´t know how to read the lives of our race from Ottoman, and we don´t have enough information from their ages.

I know some people will be offended about this but that´s true. As an example, we should ask this questions to Turks: How many Turks can understand the original texts from the years of Atatürk exactly? I don´t think that the answer would be a high number. I know there are many people who don´t understand even the writings from 1950s of Turkey.

We were tought that "Ottoman was uneducated and bad with some things". As we don´t understand the old texts, old books from Turkish history, we thought that Ottomans can´t write good novels etc. Especially the ages of the ending of the Ottoman State. But, as an example, I found a "translation" of the book "Araba Sevdası" (The love for the car) by Recaizade Mahmut Ekrem, who is a writer of that ages, and I became excited so much. That was one of the great books I have ever read. But, as it was not "modern Turkish", I can´t understand the original text and I had to read it as a "translation".

Now, don´t think that I wished I were using Arabic letters, but I confess that I wish I could understand these literature books, writings etc. from Ottomans so easly. And when I think about this, I can´t say that it was "fascinating" really.

hay thats a really good topic tanks all

i wanted to say that iam arabian and i learn the old turkish language too i mean turkish with an arabic letters and i think after i become good at turkish i can turn any ottumon books into latin

thats easy to from now just when i understand coz its my main letters

so i think i can help in any texts in arabic letters to turn it into latin

How come every time i try t comes in this wierd language????

Its so wierd, first it asks me what i wanna open it with so isa id microsoft word and once i tried microsoft word reader but it comes and tells me to cgoose which transcript so once i chose  english and i chose turkish and i tried lots of stff but nthg worked? should i open it using something else?

İts PDF,you can open it with adobe not word

Thx canli im horrible at these things anyway u know on that site for the ahndbook they have smthg called turkish tutor, ITS AWESOME!!!