This was again posted on another topic and I decided to copy this here. Thanks to mlashkar for this link. It is a comercial website but the clickable Turkia map works good:
http://www.voyagerbook.com/eng/iller/34/34.asp

This was posted in another message. So, let's move it here. Thanks to slavica for the links.

Greetings elf,

Nice to see you here. I'm sure many of our foreign members will contribute to your survey.

Ankete yardımcı olamadığım için üzgünüm. HoşÃ§akalın.

nere: this is the slang version of neresi. With time the nominative changed from "nere to neresi". So we don't use nere (except locals) but we use neresi.


neresi : nominative : what place
nere-y-i : -i case > what place
nere-de : -de case > in/at/on what place
nere-y-e : -e case > to what place
nere-den : -den case > from what place

"ne" is a different question word.

ne : nominative : what
ne-y-i : -i case > what
ne-y-de : -de case > in/at/on what
ne-y-e : -e case > to what
ne-y-den : -den case > from what

kim : nominative: who
kim-i : -i case > who
kim-de : -de case > in/at/on whom
kim-e : -e case > to whom
kim-den -den case > from from whom


Notice that the question matches the same case as answer:

Nere-den geliyorsun? Ankara'dan.
from where...? From...

Nere-y-e gidiyorsun? İstanbul'a
to where...? To...

I don't think so. People are just curious about strangers. Especially a tourist in a local kahve would be a big surprise if it is not a touristic town.

In a big city or in a touristic town nobody would care much. On the other hand, an ordinary traditional town or village would be very different.

I think what would happen is that, they would all think that you have lost your way and would try to help you. First they would offer you a seat. Then some tea and maybe water, afterwards some cigarettes of course. I think if you would talk a few words Turkish they would be so surprised that even people outside the cafe would come to see you.

"Çok az Türkçe biliyorum " is a good sentence, very good indeed.

"Only" can be translated as "sadece" or "yalnızca". "Sadece" is more common. They have the same meaning.

"Sadece biraz Türkçe biliyorum." (I only know a little Turkish) would be a normal Turkish sentence and pretty much the equalent to the English one. The difference is that this second sentence implies that people were expecting me to know more but I don't know more.

melody, harmony, rhythm

With such a nice picture in your profile it is not a surprise I think. Please report them as spam by pressing the "spam" button on the message.

You can also consider removing or changing your picture but this is your choice. Bye.

Academically the Ottoman language is now not seen as Turkish. I agree that the Ottomans didn't call it as Ottoman langauge at their time. They said it was Turkish. But now authorities see it as an independent langauge because unique grammar rules.

It is seen as an artificial mixture of three languages which are fifty percent Turkish, thirty percent Arabic and twenty percent Farsian.

Because it was half Turkish it is only natural that Ottoman language had many things in common. But there were many differences.

Ottoman language had many letters that were not existing in Turkish. It is not only the alphabet that was different but letters, sounds, vocabulary, tenses, negatives, conjugations were different. In short the a whole grammar was different.

Even after the langauge reform when we returned to Turkish there were too many problems that couldn't be solved in an instant. The language reform is unfortunately not understood by many Turks. It was more than changing the alphabet. It was more than replacing Arabic words. It was return to pure Turkish.

Because both vocabulary and grammar was mixed the Ottoman Turkish was uniquie and different than any of those three languages. Because it had a unique vocabulary and grammar the language qualifies to be called with its own name.

In fact all academical circles in Turkia see Ottoman Turkish something different than Turkish. As I said we call this language Osmanlıca.

In short:
"Ottoman Turkish was an artificial langauge that was created mixing up the three languages, Turkish, Arabic and Farsian."
Ottoman Empire collapsed and we have stopped using Ottoman language but returned to Turkish.