alist policies sought to build a strong Turkish
identity, which involved attempts at assimilating
non-Turkish Muslim peoples such as the Kurds.
As Turkey’s first president, Ataturk pushed
through a series of reforms designed to modernize
and Westernize the country, a process that affected
state institutions, legal codes, education, women’s
rights, language, and even dress. Adopting a policy
of secUlarism, Ataturk’s government reduced the
role of islam in political and social life by abolishing
the caliphate and closing the dervish lodges, among
other measures. Turkey has been a representative
democracy since the first multiparty elections were
held in 1950, though its powerful military staged
coups in 1960 and 1980, when it was felt politi-
cians were departing from the principles laid down
by Ataturk. Since 1980 Turkish politics has been
dominated by center-right parties. In 1996 Necmet-
tin Erbakan (b. 1926) became Turkey’s first Islamist
prime minister. Though his reFah party was soon
forced to close by the staunchly secular military,
members of this party later formed the Justice and
Development Party (AKP), which controlled a
majority of parliament seats in 2006.
Turkey’s economy is dominated by agriculture,
industry, and commerce sectors, and it is in a pro-
cess of rapid modernization. With its long Medi-
terranean coastline and abundance of historic
sites, Turkey is also a major tourist destination.
In recent decades Turkey has faced problems such
as economic instability, marked by rampant infla-
tion, and mass migrations of people from rural
areas to urban centers such as Istanbul, Ankara,
and Izmir. Issues that are presently debated in
Turkey include the possibility of Turkey being
admitted into the European Union, and the role
of Islam in social and political life.
See also alaWi; armenians; christianity and
islam; eUrope; Janissary; mevlevi sUFi order; otto-
man dynasty; selJUk dynasty; Westernization.
Mark SoileauFurther reading: Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Mod-
ern Turkey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968);
Adil Ozdemir and Kenneth Frank, Visible Islam in
Modern Turkey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000);
Hugh Poulton, Top Hat, Grey Wolf and Crescent: Turkish
Nationalism and the Turkish Republic (London: Hurst,
1997); Erik J. Zurcher, Turkey: A Modern History (Lon-
don: I.B. Tauris, 1997).Turkish language and literature
Turkish is the official language of the Republic
of tUrkey, and it is also spoken among Turk-
ish minorities in surrounding countries such
as Cyprus, Syria, Greece, and Bulgaria. It is a
member of the Altaic branch of the Ural-Altaic
family, which also includes Mongolian. It is part
of the Turkic subbranch, so it is related to many
languages of Central Asia, such as Uzbek, Kazakh,
and Kyrgyz, but it is most closely related to Azeri
and Turkmen. Like other languages of this family,
Turkish is marked by the features of agglutina-
tion (multiple suffixes are added to roots, often
producing very long words) and vowel harmony
(suffix vowels are either front or back, according
with the vowels of root syllables).
When the Turks converted to islam, they
adopted the Arabic alphabet, and the Turkish
language absorbed many Arabic words. Through
contact with iran, Persian vocabulary and gram-
matical structures also entered Turkish. By the time
the Turks had migrated to Anatolia and the Otto-
man Empire was established, such foreign elements
came to dominate the written court language,
though the spoken language of the common people
was less affected. After the Republic of Turkey was
founded in 1923 a series of language reforms were
introduced, intended to promote progress and
influenced by the Turkish nationalist movement.
In 1928 the Arabic alphabet was officially replaced
with a modified Latin alphabet, which was thought
to be more suitable to the Turkish language which
and also established a link with the Western world.
Attempts were also made to remove many Arabic
and Persian elements, and new words based on
Turkic roots were created to replace them.Turkish language and literature 675 J