Communication patterns in the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of a modern-day linguistic area (Istanbul)
As a linguist I have a particular interest in language contact, i.e. how languages change as a result of prolonged and intensive interaction with other languages, especially to the extent we can correlate linguistic similarity with shared cultural and political identity. In this project, I want to find out whether a distinct linguistic area in West/South Asia can be correlated to the extension of the former Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires, collectively referred to as the Islamic Gunpowder Empires. A property of prime interest is the use of complex predicates with a light verb – such as DO, GIVE, HIT – and another lexical element (e.g. a noun) to jointly express a distinct verbal meaning. These are frequent in languages of wider communication: cf. Turkish dua etmek (prayer+DO) ‘to pray’, Persian zang zadan (bell+HIT) ‘to call’ and Hindi zor denaa (pressure+GIVE) ‘to emphasize’. The construction is not restricted to a single language or language family but seems to be very “contagious”, functioning as a mechanism for verb borrowing, from one language to another, appearing in many languages between the Eastern Mediterranean and the Bay of Bengal. My stay in Istanbul is a pilot phase of this larger project. The focus will be on acquiring an understanding of the sociolinguistic situation and patterns of language use – especially across communities and localities – in the Ottoman Empire, and to draw from the expertise on Turkic languages, and the region’s history and culture.
Final report
My main focus for the guest researcher stay at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII) was to lay the foundation for a more extensive research project on the emergence of a linguistic convergence area in southern Eurasia. It included acquiring a deeper and broader understanding of the sociolinguistic situation and language use in the Ottoman Empire, as well as benefiting from the research environment's collective resources and expertise in language, history and culture in the Ottoman area.
My research stay was divided into two periods, a first 3-month period in autumn 2020 and a second 6-week period in autumn 2023. The original plan was to schedule a six-month research stay in Istanbul within 2020--2021, but due to the Covid pandemic and other assignments it was not possible to carry it out within that time frame. However, RJ showed great flexibility and extended the scholarship's disposition time so that I could utilize a total of four and a half months on site.
Despite strict Covid restrictions during my first period in Istanbul, which meant that I could not utilize any collections other than SRII's own, I was able to achieve most of my goals, thanks in large part to the peace of mind that being at the institute offered, collaboration with the few researchers who were on site at the same time, as well as the excellent Gunnar Jarring Central Eurasia Collection that the institute hosts
The primary activities – consistent with my original plan – were as follows: a) research collaboration, b) literature reviewing, c) construction and testing of an elicitation tool, and d) initial data mining. Below I give a brief summary of these.
Research collaboration was only possible in a limited sense. It included conversations and exchange with other research fellows, active in other disciplines, e.g. history and religious studies, which gave me insights into both Ottoman society and into modern Turkish. This was complemented by visits to various museums and exhibitions related to the Ottoman period. I also participated in a seminar at the institute where I contributed a presentation under the title: "The Islamic Gunpowder Empires and South Eurasia as a putative linguistic area".
Primarily based on the Gunnar Jarring collection, I acquired a much-needed historical overview of the parallel Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires during their heydays, with a focus on communication, language use and multi-ethnicity in the Ottoman-dominated areas. As far as possible, I have also tried to trace the historical use of light-verb constructions - which is itself the core of my research idea - in the more important and state-bearing languages, Ottoman Turkish, Persian and Urdu.
The main tool for a larger future area-typological study is a survey or list of verb meanings that can be applied to a representative sample consisting of 80--100 languages with the aim of comparing the proportion of complex predicates with those of simple verbs across languages, as well as be able to draw conclusions and generalize about light verb inventories. I constructed a list of 100 verb meanings which were tested in about ten languages, among other things by consulting native speakers.
Closely related to the design and testing of the elicitation tool in a smaller number of languages, I also gathered data by consulting databases, grammars and lexicons from a larger selection of southern Eurasian languages, mostly to ascertain the occurrence and relative frequency of light verb constructions in these.
Already based on the preliminary results of the two last-mentioned activities, I have been able to form a starting hypothesis, namely that there is a clear epicentre of linguistic innovation, which is strongly linked to Persian, which exhibits a very high proportion of verb meanings corresponding to complex predicate with light verbs, and where the frequency gradually decreases the further away from the distribution of Persian you move. There are also strong indications of structural copying, where the corresponding combination of (native) light verbs combined with identical lexical material (e.g., a noun or adjective, often of Persian-Arabic origin) has been borrowed from a larger state-bearing communication language (e.g., Urdu) to a regionally influential language (e.g., Pashto) and further to local languages in areas regionally dominated by the former.
All this culminates in a well-founded research application that I intend to submit in 2024.
My research stay was divided into two periods, a first 3-month period in autumn 2020 and a second 6-week period in autumn 2023. The original plan was to schedule a six-month research stay in Istanbul within 2020--2021, but due to the Covid pandemic and other assignments it was not possible to carry it out within that time frame. However, RJ showed great flexibility and extended the scholarship's disposition time so that I could utilize a total of four and a half months on site.
Despite strict Covid restrictions during my first period in Istanbul, which meant that I could not utilize any collections other than SRII's own, I was able to achieve most of my goals, thanks in large part to the peace of mind that being at the institute offered, collaboration with the few researchers who were on site at the same time, as well as the excellent Gunnar Jarring Central Eurasia Collection that the institute hosts
The primary activities – consistent with my original plan – were as follows: a) research collaboration, b) literature reviewing, c) construction and testing of an elicitation tool, and d) initial data mining. Below I give a brief summary of these.
Research collaboration was only possible in a limited sense. It included conversations and exchange with other research fellows, active in other disciplines, e.g. history and religious studies, which gave me insights into both Ottoman society and into modern Turkish. This was complemented by visits to various museums and exhibitions related to the Ottoman period. I also participated in a seminar at the institute where I contributed a presentation under the title: "The Islamic Gunpowder Empires and South Eurasia as a putative linguistic area".
Primarily based on the Gunnar Jarring collection, I acquired a much-needed historical overview of the parallel Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires during their heydays, with a focus on communication, language use and multi-ethnicity in the Ottoman-dominated areas. As far as possible, I have also tried to trace the historical use of light-verb constructions - which is itself the core of my research idea - in the more important and state-bearing languages, Ottoman Turkish, Persian and Urdu.
The main tool for a larger future area-typological study is a survey or list of verb meanings that can be applied to a representative sample consisting of 80--100 languages with the aim of comparing the proportion of complex predicates with those of simple verbs across languages, as well as be able to draw conclusions and generalize about light verb inventories. I constructed a list of 100 verb meanings which were tested in about ten languages, among other things by consulting native speakers.
Closely related to the design and testing of the elicitation tool in a smaller number of languages, I also gathered data by consulting databases, grammars and lexicons from a larger selection of southern Eurasian languages, mostly to ascertain the occurrence and relative frequency of light verb constructions in these.
Already based on the preliminary results of the two last-mentioned activities, I have been able to form a starting hypothesis, namely that there is a clear epicentre of linguistic innovation, which is strongly linked to Persian, which exhibits a very high proportion of verb meanings corresponding to complex predicate with light verbs, and where the frequency gradually decreases the further away from the distribution of Persian you move. There are also strong indications of structural copying, where the corresponding combination of (native) light verbs combined with identical lexical material (e.g., a noun or adjective, often of Persian-Arabic origin) has been borrowed from a larger state-bearing communication language (e.g., Urdu) to a regionally influential language (e.g., Pashto) and further to local languages in areas regionally dominated by the former.
All this culminates in a well-founded research application that I intend to submit in 2024.