Turkish ( Türkçe [ˈtyɾctʃe] , Türk dili ; also known as Türkiye Türkçesi 'Turkish of Turkey' ) is the most widely spoken of the Turkic languages , with around 90 million speakers. It is the national language of Turkey and one of two official languages of Cyprus . Significant smaller groups of Turkish speakers also exist in Germany , Austria , Bulgaria , North Macedonia , Greece , other parts of Europe , the South Caucasus , and some parts of Central Asia , Iraq , and Syria . Turkish is the 18th most spoken language in the world.
152-571: The Bosporus or Bosphorus Strait ( / ˈ b ɒ s p ər ə s , ˈ b ɒ s f ər ə s / BOSS -pər-əs, BOSS -fər-əs ; Turkish : İstanbul Boğazı , lit. 'Istanbul strait', colloquially Boğaz ) is a natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in Istanbul , Turkey . The Bosporus connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and forms one of
304-466: A Black Sea undersea river . The Golden Horn is an estuary off the main strait that historically acted as a moat to protect Constantinople from attack, as well as providing sheltered anchorage for the imperial navies of various empires until the 19th century, after which it became a historic neighbourhood at the heart of Istanbul. Before the 20th century it was already known that the Black Sea and
456-521: A Pseudo-Plutarch , in this case "a great collector of slanders"), including the allegation that the historian was prejudiced against Thebes because the authorities there had denied him permission to set up a school. Similarly, in a Corinthian Oration , Dio Chrysostom (or yet another pseudonymous author) accused the historian of prejudice against Corinth , sourcing it in personal bitterness over financial disappointments – an account also given by Marcellinus in his Life of Thucydides . In fact, Herodotus
608-478: A submarine channel , for the first time. Submarine channels are similar to land rivers, but they are formed by density currents—underwater flow mixtures of sand, mud and water that are denser than sea water and so sink and flow along the bottom. These channels are the main transport pathway for sediments to the deep sea where they form sedimentary deposits. The team studied the detailed flow within these channels and its findings included that: The channel complex and
760-615: A 13.7 km (8.5 mi) long undersea railway tunnel , opened on 29 October 2013. Approximately 1,400 m (4,593 ft) of the tunnel runs under the strait, at a depth of about 55 m (180 ft). An undersea water supply tunnel with a length of 5,551 m (18,212 ft), named the Bosporus Water Tunnel , was constructed in 2012 to transfer water from the Melen Creek in Düzce Province (to
912-403: A common ancient Greek cultural assumption that the way events are remembered and retold (e.g. in myths or legends) produces a valid kind of understanding, even when this retelling is not entirely factual. For Herodotus, then, it takes both myth and history to produce truthful understanding. On the legacy of The Histories of Herodotus , historian Barry S. Strauss writes: He is simply one of
1064-475: A form of consonant mutation whereby a voiced obstruent, such as /b d dʒ ɡ/ , is devoiced to [p t tʃ k] at the end of a word or before a consonant, but retains its voicing before a vowel. In loan words, the voiced equivalent of /k/ is /g/; in native words, it is /ğ/. This is analogous to languages such as German and Russian , but in the case of Turkish it only applies, as the above examples demonstrate, to stops and affricates, not to fricatives. The spelling
1216-606: A historical document, the writings of Herodotus are seriously defective, and that he was working from "inadequate sources." Nielsen writes: "Though we cannot entirely rule out the possibility of Herodotus having been in Egypt, it must be said that his narrative bears little witness to it." German historian Detlev Fehling questions whether Herodotus ever traveled up the Nile River, and considers doubtful almost everything that he says about Egypt and Ethiopia. Fehling states that "there
1368-579: A large collection of loanwords from Arabic and Persian . Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Divan poetry , was heavily influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters and a great quantity of imported words. The literary and official language during the Ottoman Empire period ( c. 1299 –1922) is termed Ottoman Turkish , which was a mixture of Turkish, Persian, and Arabic that differed considerably and
1520-469: A leading intellectual, voicing his concern that Turkish language has "already started to take over the national and natural dialects of Azerbaijan". However, the presence of Turkish as foreign language is not as high as Russian. In Uzbekistan, the second most populated Turkic country, a new TV channel Foreign Languages TV was established in 2022. This channel has been broadcasting Turkish lessons along with English, French, German and Russian lessons. Turkish
1672-712: A lengthy campaign during which the Ottomans constructed fortifications on each side of the strait, the Anadoluhisarı (Anatolian Castle, 1393) and the Rumelihisarı (European Castle, 1451), in preparation for not only the primary battle but to assert long-term control over the Bosporus and surrounding waterways. The final 53-day campaign, which resulted in Ottoman victory, constituted an important turn in world history. Together with Christopher Columbus 's first voyage to
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#17327584352991824-550: A major flood. As the waters surged, they scoured a network of sea-floor channels less resistant to denser suspended solids in liquid, which remains a very active layer today. The first images of these submarine channels showing them to be of great size, were obtained in 1999 during a NATO SACLANT Undersea Research project using jointly the NATO RV Alliance , and the Turkish Navy survey ship Çubuklu . In 2002,
1976-584: A multitude of Turkish companies and authorities investing there, while the influence of Turkey in the country is very high. The rising presence of this very similar language in Azerbaijan and the fact that many children use Turkish words instead of Azerbaijani words due to satellite TV has caused concern that the distinctive features of the language will be eroded. Many bookstores sell books in Turkish language along Azerbaijani language ones, with Agalar Mahmadov,
2128-415: A negative suffix -me to the verb (the suffix comes after the stem but before the tense): Necla okula gitmedi ('Necla did not go to school'). In the case of a verbal sentence, an interrogative clitic mi is added after the verb and stands alone, for example Necla okula gitti mi? ('Did Necla go to school?'). In the case of a nominal sentence, then mi comes after the predicate but before
2280-642: A number of conflicts in modern history, notably the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) , as well as of the attack of the Allied Powers on the Dardanelles during the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli in the course of World War I . In 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine the Bosporus' importance as a route by which grain reached the world was thrown into sharp profile. The strategic importance of
2432-517: A passage in Antigone that resembles Herodotus's account of the death of Intaphernes ( Histories 3.119 ~ Antigone 904–920). However, this point is one of the most contentious issues in modern scholarship. Homer was another inspirational source. Just as Homer drew extensively on a tradition of oral poetry, sung by wandering minstrels, so Herodotus appears to have drawn on an Ionian tradition of story-telling, collecting and interpreting
2584-613: A strong T–V distinction which distinguishes varying levels of politeness, social distance , age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a single person out of respect. Turkish is a member of the Oghuz group of the Turkic family. Other members include Azerbaijani , spoken in Azerbaijan and north-west Iran , Gagauz of Gagauzia , Qashqai of south Iran and
2736-474: A survey carried out on board the Ifremer RV Le Suroit for BlaSON project (Lericolais, et al., 2003) completed the multibeam mapping of this underwater channel fan-delta. A complete map was published in 2009 using these previous results together with high quality mapping obtained in 2006 (by researchers at Memorial University of Newfoundland who were project partners in the study). The project
2888-654: A vast geographical region stretching from Siberia all the way to Europe and the Mediterranean . The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks , in particular, brought their language, Oghuz —the direct ancestor of today's Turkish language—into Anatolia during the 11th century. Also during the 11th century, an early linguist of the Turkic languages, Mahmud al-Kashgari from the Kara-Khanid Khanate , published
3040-407: A verb in the form of the copula ol or y (variants of "be"). Examples of both are given below: The two groups of sentences have different ways of forming negation. A nominal sentence can be negated with the addition of the word değil . For example, the sentence above would become Necla öğretmen değil ('Necla is not a teacher'). However, the verbal sentence requires the addition of
3192-506: A walled garden and then a water sports centre, before it was given to the Galatasaray Sports Club , hence its name. However, in the 2010s it was completely overbuilt with nightclubs. In another change, the government had these torn down in 2017. It reopened to the public in the summer of 2022. The exact cause and date of the formation of the Bosporus remain a subject of debate among geologists. One recent hypothesis, dubbed
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#17327584352993344-453: A width of 3,329 m (1.798 nmi) at the northern entrance and 2,826 m (1.526 nmi) at the southern entrance. Its maximum width is 3,420 m (1.85 nmi) between Umuryeri and Büyükdere Limanı, and minimum width is 700 m (0.38 nmi) between Kandilli Point and Aşiyan . The depth of the Bosporus varies from 13 to 110 m (43 to 361 ft) in midstream with an average of 65 m (213 ft). The deepest point
3496-609: A world-view of a balance between conflicting forces, upset by the hubris of kings, and they provided his narrative with a model of episodic structure. His familiarity with Athenian tragedy is demonstrated in a number of passages echoing Aeschylus 's Persae , including the epigrammatic observation that the defeat of the Persian navy at Salamis caused the defeat of the land army ( Histories 8.68 ~ Persae 728). The debt may have been repaid by Sophocles because there appear to be echoes of The Histories in his plays, especially
3648-422: Is a mode of story-telling and narration that has been passed down from generations prior: Herodotus' sense of what was 'going to happen' is not the language of one who holds a theory of historical necessity, who sees the whole of human experience as constrained by inevitability and without room for human choice or human responsibility, diminished and belittled by forces too large for comprehension or resistance; it
3800-531: Is based on the dialect of Istanbul . This Istanbul Turkish ( İstanbul Türkçesi ) constitutes the model of written and spoken Turkish, as recommended by Ziya Gökalp , Ömer Seyfettin and others. Dialectal variation persists, in spite of the levelling influence of the standard used in mass media and in the Turkish education system since the 1930s. Academic researchers from Turkey often refer to Turkish dialects as ağız or şive , leading to an ambiguity with
3952-484: Is between Kandilli and Bebek , at 110 m (360 ft). The shallowest locations are off Kadıköy İnciburnu at 18 m (59 ft) and off Aşiyan Point at 13 m (43 ft). The southbound flow of water is 16 000 m/s (fresh water at the surface) and the northbound flow is 11 000 m/s (salt water near the bottom). Dan Parsons and researchers at the University of Leeds School of Earth and Environment describe
4104-457: Is clear from the beginning of Book 1 of the Histories that Herodotus uses (or at least claims to use) various sources in his narrative. K. H. Waters relates that "Herodotos did not work from a purely Hellenic standpoint; he was accused by the patriotic but somewhat imperceptive Plutarch of being philobarbaros , a pro-barbarian or pro-foreigner." Herodotus at times relates various accounts of
4256-567: Is considered the founding work of history in Western literature . Although not a fully impartial record, it remains one of the West's most important sources regarding these affairs. Moreover, it established the genre and study of history in the Western world (despite the existence of historical records and chronicles beforehand). The Histories also stands as one of the earliest accounts of
4408-650: Is how it happened because I heard it from the Delphians myself." Throughout his work, Herodotus attempts to explain the actions of people. Speaking about Solon the Athenian, Herodotus states "[Solon] sailed away on the pretext of seeing the world, but it was really so that he could not be compelled to repeal any of the laws he had laid down ." Again, in the story about Croesus and his son's death, when speaking of Adrastus (the man who accidentally killed Croesus' son), Herodotus states: "Adrastus ... believing himself to be
4560-418: Is important in understanding the sedimentology and layers of sediment deposited by these systems. The central tenet of the Black Sea deluge hypothesis is that as the ocean rose 72.5 metres (238 ft) at the end of the last Ice Age when the massive ice sheets melted, the sealed Bosporus was overwhelmed by a spectacular flood that increased the then fresh water Black Sea Lake by 50%, and drove people back from
4712-712: Is not justified by the ancient Greek name, and dictionaries prefer the spelling with -p- . However -ph- occurs as a variant in medieval Latin (as Bosphor , and occasionally Bosphorus or Bospherus ), and in medieval Greek sometimes as Βόσφορος , giving rise to the French Bosphore , the Spanish Bósforo , the Italian Bosforo and the Russian Босфор . The 12th-century Greek scholar John Tzetzes calls it Damaliten Bosporon (after Damalis ), but he also reports that in popular usage
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4864-607: Is not the slightest bit of history behind the whole story" about the claim of Herodotus that Pharaoh Sesostris campaigned in Europe, and that he left a colony in Colchia . Fehling concludes that the works of Herodotus are intended as fiction. Boedeker concurs that much of the content of the works of Herodotus are literary devices. However, a recent discovery of a baris (described in The Histories ) during an excavation of
5016-468: Is now used to mean " script " in computer science . Some examples of modern Turkish words and the old loanwords are: Turkish is natively spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey and by the Turkish diaspora in some 30 other countries. The Turkish language is mutually intelligible with Azerbaijani . In particular, Turkish-speaking minorities exist in countries that formerly (in whole or part) belonged to
5168-569: Is possible that Herodotus borrowed much material from Hecataeus, as stated by Porphyry in a quote recorded by Eusebius . In particular, it is possible that he copied descriptions of the crocodile , hippopotamus , and phoenix from Hecataeus's Circumnavigation of the Known World ( Periegesis / Periodos ges ), even misrepresenting the source as "Heliopolitans" ( Histories 2.73). But Hecataeus did not record events that had occurred in living memory, unlike Herodotus, nor did he include
5320-503: Is rather the traditional language of a teller of tales whose tale is structured by his awareness of the shape it must have and who presents human experience on the model of the narrative patterns that are built into his stories; the narrative impulse itself, the impulse towards 'closure' and the sense of an ending, is retrojected to become 'explanation'. The accuracy of the works of Herodotus has been controversial since his own era. Kenton L. Sparks writes, "In antiquity, Herodotus had acquired
5472-696: Is the official language of Turkey and is one of the official languages of Cyprus . Turkish has official status in 38 municipalities in Kosovo , including Mamusha, , two in the Republic of North Macedonia and in Kirkuk Governorate in Iraq. Cyprus has requested the European Union to add Turkish as an official language, as it is one of the two official languages of the country. In Turkey,
5624-421: Is true of Greek thinking in general, at least from Homer onward. Gould notes that invoking the supernatural in order to explain an event does not answer the question "why did this happen?" but rather "why did this happen to me?" By way of example, faulty craftsmanship is the human cause for a house collapsing. However, divine will is the reason that the house collapses at the particular moment when I am inside. It
5776-642: Is usually made to match the sound. However, in a few cases, such as ad 'name' (dative ada ), the underlying form is retained in the spelling (cf. at 'horse', dative ata ). Other exceptions are od 'fire' vs. ot 'herb', sac 'sheet metal', saç 'hair'. Most loanwords, such as kitap above, are spelled as pronounced, but a few such as hac 'hajj', şad 'happy', and yad 'strange' or 'stranger' also show their underlying forms. Native nouns of two or more syllables that end in /k/ in dictionary form are nearly all /ğ/ in underlying form. However, most verbs and monosyllabic nouns are underlyingly /k/. The vowels of
5928-431: Is usually referred to as yumuşak g ("soft g"), written ⟨ğ⟩ in Turkish orthography , represents a vowel sequence or a rather weak bilabial approximant between rounded vowels, a weak palatal approximant between unrounded front vowels, and a vowel sequence elsewhere. It never occurs at the beginning of a word or a syllable, but always follows a vowel. When word-final or preceding another consonant, it lengthens
6080-713: The Aegean region, with its usage extending to Antalya . The nomadic Yörüks of the Mediterranean Region of Turkey also have their own dialect of Turkish. This group is not to be confused with the Yuruk nomads of Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey, who speak Balkan Gagauz Turkish . The Meskhetian Turks who live in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Russia as well as in several Central Asian countries, also speak an Eastern Anatolian dialect of Turkish, originating in
6232-566: The Black Sea deluge hypothesis , which was launched by a study of the same name in 1997 by two scientists from Columbia University , postulates that the Bosporus was flooded around 5600 BCE (revised to 6800 BCE in 2003) when the rising waters of the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Marmara broke through to the Black Sea, which at the time, according to the hypothesis, was a low-lying body of fresh water. Many geologists, however, claim that
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6384-767: The Dardanelles Strait at the opposite end of the Sea of Marmara are together known as the Turkish Straits . Sections of the shore of the Bosporus in Istanbul have been reinforced with concrete or rubble and those sections of the Strait prone to deposition are periodically dredged. The name of the strait comes from the Ancient Greek Βόσπορος ( Bósporos ), which was folk-etymologised as βοὸς πόρος , i.e. "cattle strait" (like "Ox-ford"), from
6536-771: The Deosai Plateau in Gilgit–Baltistan province, there is a species of marmot – the Himalayan marmot , a type of burrowing squirrel – that may have been what Herodotus called giant ants. The ground of the Deosai Plateau is rich in gold dust, much like the province that Herodotus describes. According to Peissel, he interviewed the Minaro tribal people who live in the Deosai Plateau, and they have confirmed that they have, for generations, been collecting
6688-578: The First World War , the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres demilitarised the Strait and made it an international territory under the control of the League of Nations . This was amended by the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) , which restored the straits to Turkey but allowed all foreign warships and commercial shipping to traverse the straits freely. Turkey eventually rejected the terms of that treaty, and remilitarised
6840-560: The Iliad by asking: Both Homer and Herodotus begin with a question of causality. In Homer's case, "who set these two at each other's throats?" In Herodotus's case, "Why did the Greeks and barbarians go to war with each other?" Herodotus's means of explanation does not necessarily posit a simple cause; rather, his explanations cover a host of potential causes and emotions. It is notable, however, that "the obligations of gratitude and revenge are
6992-623: The Laz language ). Kastamonu is spoken in Kastamonu and its surrounding areas. Karamanli Turkish is spoken in Greece, where it is called Kαραμανλήδικα . It is the literary standard for the Karamanlides . At least one source claims Turkish consonants are laryngeally-specified three-way fortis-lenis (aspirated/neutral/voiced) like Armenian, although only syllable-finally. The phoneme that
7144-773: The Ottoman Empire , such as Iraq, Bulgaria, Cyprus , Greece (primarily in Western Thrace ), the Republic of North Macedonia , Romania, and Serbia. More than two million Turkish speakers live in Germany; and there are significant Turkish-speaking communities in the United States, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. Due to the cultural assimilation of Turkish immigrants in host countries, not all ethnic members of
7296-607: The Persian Empire . This region, he reports, is a sandy desert, and the sand there contains a wealth of fine gold dust. These giant ants, according to Herodotus, would often unearth the gold dust when digging their mounds and tunnels, and the people living in this province would then collect the precious dust. Later Pliny the Elder would mention this story in the gold mining section of his Naturalis Historia . Peissel reports that, in an isolated region of northern Pakistan on
7448-529: The Suez Canal , making it a crucial international waterway, in particular for the passage of goods coming from Russia . There is one very small island in the Bosporus just off Kuruçeşme. Now generally known as Galatasaray Island ( Galatasaray Adası), this was given to the Armenian architect Sarkis Balyan by Sultan Abdülhamid II in 1880. The house he built on it was later demolished. The island became
7600-539: The Trabzon region of northeastern Turkey follows the reduced vowel harmony of Old Anatolian Turkish , with the additional complication of two missing vowels (ü and ı), thus there is no palatal harmony . It is likely that elün meant "your hand" in Old Anatolian. While the 2nd person singular possessive would vary between back and front vowel, -ün or -un, as in elün for "your hand" and kitabun for "your book",
7752-756: The Trans-European Motorway . The third and most recent bridge, the Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge , is 2,164 m (7,100 ft) long and was completed in 2016. It is located near the northern end of the Bosporus, between the villages of Garipçe on the European side and Poyrazköy on the Asian side, as part of the " Northern Marmara Motorway ", integrated into the existing Black Sea Coastal Highway, and allowing transit traffic to bypass city traffic. The Marmaray project, featuring
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#17327584352997904-478: The Turkmen of Turkmenistan . Historically the Turkic family was seen as a branch of the larger Altaic family, including Japanese , Korean , Mongolian and Tungusic , with various other language families proposed for inclusion by linguists. Altaic theory has fallen out of favour since the 1960s, and a majority of linguists now consider Turkic languages to be unrelated to any other language family, though
8056-970: The "father of history" a place among the famous on the Island of the Blessed in his Verae Historiae . The works of Thucydides were often given preference for their "truthfulness and reliability", even if Thucydides basically continued on foundations laid by Herodotus, as in his treatment of the Persian Wars. In spite of these lines of criticism, Herodotus' works were in general kept in high esteem and regarded as reliable by many. Many scholars, ancient and modern (such as Strabo , A. H. L. Heeren , etc.), routinely cited Herodotus. To this day, some scholars regard his works as being at least partly unreliable. Detlev Fehling writes of "a problem recognized by everybody", namely that Herodotus frequently cannot be taken at face value. Fehling argues that Herodotus exaggerated
8208-621: The 1,074 m (3,524 ft) long 15th July Martyrs Bridge was completed in 1973 when it was called the Bosporus Bridge. The second, named Fatih Sultan Mehmet (Bosporus II) Bridge , is 1,090 m (3,576 ft) long, and was completed in 1988 about 5 km (3 mi) north of the first bridge. The first Bosporus Bridge forms part of the O1 Motorway , while the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge forms part of
8360-488: The 19th century. Until the early 20th century most were only accessible by boat (known as caiques) along the Bosporus since there were no coast roads. Today the villages are no more than suburbs of Greater Istanbul but many retain the memory of their original village status in the suffix '- köy ( village' to their names. e.g. Ortaköy , Yeniköy , Arnavutköy , Çengelköy and Vaniköy. These villages often had distinct identities associated with agriculture: Arnavutköy, for example,
8512-466: The Altaic hypothesis still has a small degree of support from individual linguists. The nineteenth-century Ural-Altaic theory, which grouped Turkish with Finnish , Hungarian and Altaic languages, is considered even less plausible in light of Altaic's rejection. The theory was based mostly on the fact these languages share three features: agglutination , vowel harmony and lack of grammatical gender. The earliest known Old Turkic inscriptions are
8664-435: The Americas in 1492, the 1453 conquest of Constantinople is commonly noted as among the events that brought an end to the Middle Ages and marked the transition to the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery . The event also marked the end of the Byzantines —the final remnants of the Roman Empire —and the transfer of the control of the Bosporus into Ottoman hands. The Ottomans then made Constantinople their new capital, and
8816-424: The Bosporus "Stenon" and used the following major toponyms in the area: The strategic significance of the Strait was one of the factors in the decision of the Roman Emperor Constantine the Great to found his new capital, Constantinople , there in AD 330. This then became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire . On 29 May 1453, the then-emergent Ottoman Empire conquered the city of Constantinople following
8968-419: The Bosporus connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and thence to the Aegean and Mediterranean seas via the Dardanelles. It also connects various seas along the Eastern Mediterranean , the Balkans , the Near East , and Western Eurasia . Thus, the Bosporus allows maritime connections from the Black Sea all the way to the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean via Gibraltar, and to the Indian Ocean through
9120-402: The Bosporus dates back millennia. In the 5th century BC the Greek city-state of Athens , which depended on grain imports from the Black Sea ports of Scythia , maintained critical alliances with cities which controlled the straits, such as the Megarian colony of Byzantium . In an attempt to subdue the Scythian horsemen who roamed across the north of the Black Sea, the Persian King Darius I
9272-404: The Egyptians and Assyrians, historian and fiction writer Henry T. Aubin used Herodotus' accounts in various passages. For Aubin, Herodotus was "the author of the first important narrative history of the world." Herodotus provides much information about the nature of the world and the status of science during his lifetime, often engaging in private speculation likewise. For example, he reports that
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#17327584352999424-505: The Great ( r. 522 BC – 486 BC ) crossed the Bosporus, then marched towards the River Danube . His army crossed the Bosporus using an enormous bridge made by connecting boats. This bridge essentially connected the farthest geographic tip of Asia to Europe, encompassing at least some 1,000 metres of open. Years later, Xerxes I would construct a similar boat bridge across the Dardanelles ( Hellespont ) strait (480 BC), during his invasion of Greece . The Byzantines called
9576-409: The Latin alphabet for speakers of eastern dialects. Some immigrants to Turkey from Rumelia speak Rumelian Turkish , which includes the distinct dialects of Ludogorie , Dinler, and Adakale, which show the influence of the theorized Balkan sprachbund . Kıbrıs Türkçesi is the name for Cypriot Turkish and is spoken by the Turkish Cypriots . Edirne is the dialect of Edirne . Ege is spoken in
9728-567: The Latin script, encoded for many of the dialectal variations between Turkish dialects, the modern Latin script fails to do this. Examples of this are the presence of the nasal velar sound [ŋ] in certain eastern dialects of Turkish which was represented by the Ottoman letter /ڭ/ but that was merged into /n/ in the Latin script. Additionally are letters such as /خ/, /ق/, /غ/ which make the sounds [ɣ], [q], and [x], respectively in certain eastern dialects but that are merged into [g], [k], and [h] in western dialects and are therefore defectively represented in
9880-618: The Milesian speaks thus: I write these things as they seem true to me; for the stories told by the Greeks are various and in my opinion absurd. This points forward to the "folksy" yet "international" outlook typical of Herodotus. However, one modern scholar has described the work of Hecataeus as "a curious false start to history," since despite his critical spirit, he failed to liberate history from myth. Herodotus mentions Hecataeus in his Histories , on one occasion mocking him for his naive genealogy and, on another occasion, quoting Athenian complaints against his handling of their national history. It
10032-407: The Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878, but were regained with the Treaty of Kars in 1921), was a consideration in Turkey's decision to abandon neutrality in foreign affairs . Turkey declared war against Germany in February 1945, but did not engage in offensive actions. Turkey joined NATO in 1952, thus affording the straits even more strategic importance as a commercial and military waterway. During
10184-505: The SOV structure has diminished relevance and may vary. The SOV structure may thus be considered a "pragmatic word order" of language, one that does not rely on word order for grammatical purposes. Consider the following simple sentence which demonstrates that the focus in Turkish is on the element that immediately precedes the verb: Ahmet Ahmet yumurta-yı Histories (Herodotus) The Histories ( Greek : Ἱστορίαι , Historíai ; also known as The History ) of Herodotus
10336-472: The Sea of Marmara flow into each other in a geographic example of "density flow". Then in August 2010, a continuous 'underwater channel' of suspension composition was discovered flowing along the floor of the Bosporus, which would be the sixth largest river on Earth if it were on land. The 2010 team of scientists, led by the University of Leeds , used a robotic "yellow submarine" to observe detailed flows within this "undersea river", scientifically referred to as
10488-403: The Strait. Under the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi of 8 July 1833, the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits were to be closed to the naval vessels of other powers on Russian demand. By the terms of the London Straits Convention , concluded on 13 July 1841 between the Great Powers of Europe ( Russia , the United Kingdom , France , Austria and Prussia ), the "ancient rule" of the Ottoman Empire
10640-412: The TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace fırka , "political party"—also failed to meet with popular approval ( fırka has been replaced by the French loanword parti ). Some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings; for example betik (originally meaning "book")
10792-471: The Turkish Government started to discuss creating a man-made canal roughly 80 kilometres (50 mi) long that would run north–south through the western edges of Istanbul Province as a second route from the Black Sea to the Marmara. It was suggested that this would reduce the risk from shipping to the Bosporus. The controverislal Kanal İstanbul project continues to be debated. In 2022 the dues levied by Turkey for freight ships increased 500% to US$ 4 per ton,
10944-539: The Turkish language are, in their alphabetical order, ⟨a⟩ , ⟨e⟩ , ⟨ı⟩ , ⟨i⟩ , ⟨o⟩ , ⟨ö⟩ , ⟨u⟩ , ⟨ü⟩ . The Turkish vowel system can be considered as being three-dimensional, where vowels are characterised by how and where they are articulated focusing on three key features: front and back , rounded and unrounded and vowel height . Vowels are classified [±back], [±round] and [±high]. The only diphthongs in
11096-493: The adoption of the new Turkish alphabet in 1928, shaped the modern Turkish language spoken today. The TDK became an independent body in 1951, with the lifting of the requirement that it should be presided over by the Minister of Education. This status continued until August 1983, when it was again made into a governmental body in the constitution of 1982 , following the military coup d'état of 1980 . Modern standard Turkish
11248-509: The ancestor of the greatest of all heroes, Heracles (Hercules). Io supposedly went ashore near Chrysopolis (present-day Üsküdar ), which was named Bous 'the Cow'. The same site was also known as Damalis ( Δάμαλις ), as it was where the Athenian general Chares had erected a monument to his wife Damalis, which included a colossal statue of a cow (the name δαμάλις translating to 'heifer'). The English spelling with -ph- ( Bosphor )
11400-421: The animal ... is the urbane and responsible classical historian; the body indissolubly united to it is something out of the faraway mountains, out of an older, freer and wilder realm where our conventions have no force. Herodotus is neither a mere gatherer of data nor a simple teller of tales – he is both. While Herodotus is certainly concerned with giving accurate accounts of events, this does not preclude for him
11552-597: The annual flooding of the Nile was said to be the result of melting snows far to the south, and he comments that he cannot understand how there can be snow in Africa , the hottest part of the known world, offering an elaborate explanation based on the way that desert winds affect the passage of the Sun over this part of the world (2:18ff). He also passes on reports from Phoenician sailors that, while circumnavigating Africa , they "saw
11704-484: The areas of Kars, Ardahan, and Artvin and sharing similarities with Azerbaijani , the language of Azerbaijan. The Central Anatolia Region speaks Orta Anadolu . Karadeniz , spoken in the Eastern Black Sea Region and represented primarily by the Trabzon dialect, exhibits substratum influence from Greek in phonology and syntax ; it is also known as Laz dialect (not to be confused with
11856-476: The base from which they expanded their empire in the centuries that followed. At its peak between the 16th and 18th centuries, the Ottoman Empire was able to use the strategic importance of the Bosporus to wrest control of the entire Black Sea area, which they regarded as an "Ottoman lake", from which Russian warships were prohibited. Subsequently, several international treaties have governed access to
12008-575: The canal even though a route for it had been established. The Bosphorus takes its name from the Greek mythological story of Io , who was transformed into a cow and, pursued by a gadfly, was condemned to wander the Earth until she reached the Strait. There she met the Titan Prometheus , who comforted her by telling her that she would be restored to human form by Zeus and become the ancestor of
12160-502: The continental boundaries between Asia and Europe . It also divides Turkey by separating Asia minor from Thrace . It is the world's narrowest strait used for international navigation . Most of the shores of the Bosporus Strait, except for the area to the north, are heavily settled, with the city of Istanbul 's metropolitan population of 17 million inhabitants extending inland from both banks. The Bosporus Strait and
12312-402: The course alteration, making it impossible for ships approaching from the opposite direction to see around the bends. The risks posed by this geography are further multiplied by the heavy ferry traffic across the Strait, linking the European and Asian sides of the city. As such, all the dangers and obstacles characteristic of narrow waterways are present and acute in this vital sea lane. In 2011,
12464-410: The density flow provide the ideal natural laboratory for investigating and detailing the structure of the flow field through the channel. Our initial findings show that the flow in these channels is quite different to the flow in river channels on land. Specifically, as flow moves around a bend it spirals in the opposite direction in the deep sea compared to the spiral found in river channels on land. This
12616-506: The diaspora speak the language with native fluency. In 2005, 93% of the population of Turkey were native speakers of Turkish, about 67 million at the time, with Kurdish languages making up most of the remainder. Azerbaijani language , official in Azerbaijan, is mutually intelligible with Turkish and speakers of both languages can understand them without noticeable difficulty, especially when discussion comes on ordinary, daily language. Turkey has very good relations with Azerbaijan, with
12768-594: The early 21st century, the Turkish Straits have become particularly important for the oil industry. Russian oil, from ports such as Novorossiysk , was exported by tankers primarily to the U.S. via the Bosporus and the Dardanelles straits. In 2011, Turkey proposed to build a 50 km (31 mi) canal west of the Bosporus, suggesting that it would reduce the risk presented to the Bosporus by oil tankers and other cargo ships. The project proved highly controversial and, as of 2022, work had not been started on building
12920-603: The early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Perso-Arabic script -based Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with the Latin script -based Turkish alphabet . Some distinctive characteristics of the Turkish language are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination . The basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb . Turkish has no noun classes or grammatical gender . The language makes usage of honorifics and has
13072-411: The east of the Bosporus strait, in northwestern Anatolia ) to the European side of Istanbul, a distance of 185 km (115 mi). Turkish language To the west, the influence of Ottoman Turkish —the variety of the Turkish language that was used as the administrative and literary language of the Ottoman Empire —spread as the Ottoman Empire expanded. In 1928, as one of Atatürk's reforms in
13224-402: The extent of his travels and invented his sources. For Fehling, the sources of many stories, as reported by Herodotus, do not appear credible in themselves. Persian and Egyptian informants tell stories that dovetail neatly into Greek myths and literature, yet show no signs of knowing their own traditions. For Fehling, the only credible explanation is that Herodotus invented these sources, and that
13376-409: The first change since 1983. The Bosporus is fairly deep and there is no definite limit on the depth and length of a ship, but ships over 150 metres long or 10 metres deep must pre-book their passage. Those over 300 metres long must follow a special clearance procedure. There is an air draft limit of 57 metres. Two suspension bridges and a cable-stayed bridge cross the Bosporus. The first of these,
13528-574: The first comprehensive Turkic language dictionary and map of the geographical distribution of Turkic speakers in the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk ( ديوان لغات الترك ). Following the adoption of Islam around the year 950 by the Kara-Khanid Khanate and the Seljuq Turks , who are both regarded as the ethnic and cultural ancestors of the Ottomans , the administrative language of these states acquired
13680-412: The formal style of Ottoman Turkish that had been common at the time amongst statesmen and the educated strata of society in the setting of formal speeches and documents. After the language reform, the Turkish education system discontinued the teaching of literary form of Ottoman Turkish and the speaking and writing ability of society atrophied to the point that, in later years, Turkish society would perceive
13832-494: The foundation of the modern state of Turkey and the script reform , the Turkish Language Association (TDK) was established in 1932 under the patronage of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk , with the aim of conducting research on Turkish. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a language reform to replace loanwords of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents. By banning
13984-639: The fundamental human motives for Herodotus, just as ... they are the primary stimulus to the generation of narrative itself." Some readers of Herodotus believe that his habit of tying events back to personal motives signifies an inability to see broader and more abstract reasons for action. Gould argues to the contrary that this is likely because Herodotus attempts to provide the rational reasons, as understood by his contemporaries, rather than providing more abstract reasons. Herodotus attributes cause to both divine and human agents. These are not perceived as mutually exclusive, but rather mutually interconnected. This
14136-425: The genitive of boûs βοῦς 'ox, cattle' + poros πόρος 'passage', thus meaning 'cattle-passage', or 'cow passage'. This is a reference to the Greek mythological story of Io , who was transformed into a cow and condemned to wander the Earth until she crossed the Bosporus, where she met the Titan Prometheus , who comforted her by telling her that she would be restored to human form by Zeus and become
14288-472: The gods take part in the affairs of man" (IX, 100). In Book One, passages 23 and 24, Herodotus relates the story of Arion , the renowned harp player, "second to no man living at that time," who was saved by a dolphin. Herodotus prefaces the story by noting that "a very wonderful thing is said to have happened," and alleges its veracity by adding that the "Corinthians and the Lesbians agree in their account of
14440-400: The gold dust that the marmots bring to the surface when they are digging their burrows. Peissel offers the theory that Herodotus may have confused the old Persian word for "marmot" with the word for "mountain ant." Research suggests that Herodotus probably did not know any Persian (or any other language except his native Greek) and was forced to rely on many local translators when travelling in
14592-546: The greatest of all heroes, Heracles (Hercules). According to ancient Greek mythology , it was said that colossal floating rocks known as the Symplegades , or Clashing Rocks, once guarded both sides of the Bosporus and destroyed any ship that attempted to pass through the strait by crushing them. Their destructive power was finally overcome by the Argonaut hero Jason who managed to pass between them unscathed, whereupon
14744-476: The greatest storytellers who ever wrote. His narrative ability is one of the reasons ... those who call Herodotus the father of history. Now that title is one that he richly deserves. A Greek who lived in the fifth century BC, Herodotus was a pathfinder. He traveled the eastern Mediterranean and beyond to do research into human affairs: from Greece to Persia, from the sands of Egypt to the Scythian steppes, and from
14896-564: The hot, humid summer months. Most of these summer embassies were on the European shore at Yeniköy (Austrian), Tarabya (German, English, French, Italian) and Büyükdere (Spanish, Russian). Some of the buildings still survive today although the British Summer Embassy burnt down in 1911 and the Italian Summer Embassy, a fine building by Raimondo d'Aronco , survives in very dilapidated condition. Following
15048-557: The ideal of total history." Discoveries made since the end of the 19th century have generally added to Herodotus' credibility. He described Gelonus , located in Scythia , as a city thousands of times larger than Troy ; this was widely disbelieved until it was rediscovered in 1975. The archaeological study of the now-submerged ancient Egyptian city of Heracleion and the recovery of the so-called "Naucratis stela" give credibility to Herodotus's previously unsupported claim that Heracleion
15200-409: The insertion of powerful mythological elements into his narrative, elements which will aid him in expressing the truth of matters under his study. Thus to understand what Herodotus is doing in the Histories , we must not impose strict demarcations between the man as mythologist and the man as historian, or between the work as myth and the work as history. As James Romm has written, Herodotus worked under
15352-473: The lack of ü vowel in the Trabzon dialect means -un would be used in both of these cases — elun and kitabun . With the exceptions stated below, Turkish words are oxytone (accented on the last syllable). Turkish has two groups of sentences: verbal and nominal sentences. In the case of a verbal sentence, the predicate is a finite verb, while the predicate in nominal sentence will have either no overt verb or
15504-466: The language are found in loanwords and may be categorised as falling diphthongs usually analyzed as a sequence of /j/ and a vowel. The principle of vowel harmony, which permeates Turkish word-formation and suffixation, is due to the natural human tendency towards economy of muscular effort. This principle is expressed in Turkish through three rules: The second and third rules minimize muscular effort during speech. More specifically, they are related to
15656-515: The language on the inscriptions was the Old Turkic language written using the Old Turkic alphabet , which has also been referred to as "Turkic runes" or "runiform" due to a superficial similarity to the Germanic runic alphabets . With the Turkic expansion during Early Middle Ages ( c. 6th –11th centuries), peoples speaking Turkic languages spread across Central Asia , covering
15808-525: The linguistic concept of accent , which is also covered with these words. Several universities, as well as a dedicated work-group of the Turkish Language Association, carry out projects investigating Turkish dialects. As of 2002 work continued on the compilation and publication of their research as a comprehensive dialect- atlas of the Turkish language. Although the Ottoman alphabet, being slightly more phonetically ambiguous than
15960-425: The matter." Having become very rich while at the court of Periander, Arion conceived a desire to sail to Italy and Sicily. He hired a vessel crewed by Corinthians, whom he felt he could trust, but the sailors plotted to throw him overboard and seize his wealth. Arion discovered the plot and begged for his life, but the crew gave him two options: that either he kill himself on the spot or jump ship and fend for himself in
16112-534: The most ill-fated man he had ever known , cut his own throat over the grave." Although Herodotus considered his "inquiries" a serious pursuit of knowledge, he was not above relating entertaining tales derived from the collective body of myth, but he did so judiciously with regard for his historical method , by corroborating the stories through enquiry and testing their probability. While the gods never make personal appearances in his account of human events, Herodotus states emphatically that "many things prove to me that
16264-510: The older theory of a perfectly circular earth with Europe and Asia/Africa equal in size ( Histories 4.36 and 4.42). However, he retains idealizing tendencies, as in his symmetrical notions of the Danube and Nile . His debt to previous authors of prose "histories" might be questionable, but there is no doubt that Herodotus owed much to the example and inspiration of poets and story-tellers. For example, Athenian tragic poets provided him with
16416-402: The oldest records of Indian civilization by an outsider. After journeys to India and Pakistan, French ethnologist Michel Peissel claimed to have discovered an animal species that may illuminate one of the most bizarre passages in the Histories . In Book 3, passages 102 to 105, Herodotus reports that a species of fox-sized, furry " ants " lives in one of the far eastern, Indian provinces of
16568-416: The oral histories he chanced upon in his travels. These oral histories often contained folk-tale motifs and demonstrated a moral, yet they also contained substantial facts relating to geography, anthropology, and history, all compiled by Herodotus in an entertaining style and format. Herodotus writes with the purpose of explaining; that is, he discusses the reason for or cause of an event. He lays this out in
16720-501: The oral traditions of Greek history within the larger framework of oriental history. There is no proof that Herodotus derived the ambitious scope of his own work, with its grand theme of civilizations in conflict, from any predecessor, despite much scholarly speculation about this in modern times. Herodotus claims to be better informed than his predecessors by relying on empirical observation to correct their excessive schematism. For example, he argues for continental asymmetry as opposed to
16872-489: The personal ending, so for example Necla, siz öğretmen misiniz ? ('Necla, are you [formal, plural] a teacher?'). Word order in simple Turkish sentences is generally subject–object–verb , as in Korean and Latin , but unlike English, for verbal sentences and subject-predicate for nominal sentences. However, as Turkish possesses a case-marking system, and most grammatical relations are shown using morphological markers, often
17024-435: The phenomenon of labial assimilation: if the lips are rounded (a process that requires muscular effort) for the first vowel they may stay rounded for subsequent vowels. If they are unrounded for the first vowel, the speaker does not make the additional muscular effort to round them subsequently. Grammatical affixes have "a chameleon-like quality", and obey one of the following patterns of vowel harmony: Practically,
17176-409: The preamble: "This is the publication of the research of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, so that the actions of people shall not fade with time, so that the great and admirable achievements of both Greeks and barbarians shall not go unrenowned, and, among other things, to set forth the reasons why they waged war on each other ." This mode of explanation traces itself all the way back to Homer, who opened
17328-638: The preceding vowel. In native Turkic words, the sounds [c] , [ɟ] , and [l] are mainly in complementary distribution with [k] , [ɡ] , and [ɫ] ; the former set occurs adjacent to front vowels and the latter adjacent to back vowels. The distribution of these phonemes is often unpredictable, however, in foreign borrowings and proper nouns. In such words, [c] , [ɟ] , and [l] often occur with back vowels: some examples are given below. However, there are minimal pairs that distinguish between these sounds, such as kar [kɑɾ] "snow" vs kâr [cɑɾ] "profit". Turkish orthography reflects final-obstruent devoicing ,
17480-570: The primary, often only, source for events in the Greek world, Persian Empire, and the broader region in the two centuries leading up to his own days. So even if the Histories were criticized in some regards since antiquity, modern historians and philosophers generally take a more positive view as to their source and epistemologic value. Herodotus is variously considered "father of comparative anthropology," "the father of ethnography," and "more modern than any other ancient historian in his approach to
17632-440: The principles of i-type vowel harmony in practice: Türkiye' dir ("it is Turkey"), kapı dır ("it is the door"), but gün dür ("it is the day"), palto dur ("it is the coat"). These are four word-classes that are exceptions to the rules of vowel harmony: The road sign in the photograph above illustrates several of these features: The rules of vowel harmony may vary by regional dialect. The dialect of Turkish spoken in
17784-463: The reader from the rise of the Persian Empire to its crusade against Greek independence, and from the stirrings of Hellenic self-defense to the beginnings of the overreach that would turn Athens into a new empire of its own. He goes from the cosmos to the atom, ranging between fate and the gods, on the one hand, and the ability of the individual to make a difference, on the other. And then there
17936-543: The regulatory body for Turkish is the Turkish Language Association ( Türk Dil Kurumu or TDK), which was founded in 1932 under the name Türk Dili Tetkik Cemiyeti ("Society for Research on the Turkish Language"). The Turkish Language Association was influenced by the ideology of linguistic purism : indeed one of its primary tasks was the replacement of loanwords and of foreign grammatical constructions with equivalents of Turkish origin. These changes, together with
18088-601: The reliability of Herodotus's work (such as on the Nile Valley ) and demonstrate corroboration of Herodotus' writings by modern scholars. A. H. L. Heeren quoted Herodotus throughout his work and provided corroboration by scholars regarding several passages (source of the Nile, location of Meroë , etc.). Cheikh Anta Diop provides several examples (like the inundations of the Nile) which, he argues, support his view that Herodotus
18240-526: The reputation of being unreliable, biased, parsimonious in his praise of heroes, and mendacious". The historian Duris of Samos called Herodotus a "myth-monger". Cicero ( On the Laws I.5) said that his works were full of legends or "fables". The controversy was also commented on by Aristotle , Flavius Josephus and Plutarch . The Alexandrian grammarian Harpocration wrote a whole book on "the lies of Herodotus". Lucian of Samosata went as far as to deny
18392-437: The results of the enquiry carried out by Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The purpose is to prevent the traces of human events from being erased by time, and to preserve the fame of the important and remarkable achievements produced by both Greeks and non-Greeks; among the matters covered is, in particular, the cause of the hostilities between Greeks and non-Greeks. In his introduction to Hecataeus ' work, Genealogies : Hecataeus
18544-428: The results of the language reform. Owing to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the older terms of Arabic or Persian origin, the younger generations favor new expressions. It is considered particularly ironic that Atatürk himself, in his lengthy speech to the new Parliament in 1927, used
18696-587: The rise of the Persian Empire , as well as the events and causes of the Greco-Persian Wars between the Persian Empire and the Greek city-states in the 5th century BC. Herodotus portrays the conflict as one between the forces of slavery (the Persians) on the one hand, and freedom (the Athenians and the confederacy of Greek city-states which united against the invaders) on the other. The Histories
18848-427: The rivers of Lydia to the dry hills of Sparta. The Greek for "research" is historia, where our word "history" comes from ... Herodotus is a great historian. His work holds up very well when judged by the yardstick of modern scholarship. But he is more than a historian. He is a philosopher with three great themes: the struggle between East and West , the power of liberty, and the rise and fall of empires. Herodotus takes
19000-681: The rocks became fixed, opening Greek access to the Black Sea. The Bosporus is traversed by numerous passenger and vehicular ferries daily, as well as by recreational and fishing boats ranging from dinghies to yachts owned by both public and private entities. The Strait also serves a significant amount of international commercial shipping traffic in the form of freighters and tankers . Between its northern limits at Rumeli Feneri and Anadolu Feneri and its southern ones at Ahırkapı Feneri and Kadıköy İnciburnu Feneri , there are numerous dangerous points for large-scale maritime traffic that require sharp turns and management of visual obstructions. Famously,
19152-520: The same story. For example, in Book 1 he mentions both the Phoenician and the Persian accounts of Io. However, Herodotus at times arbitrates between varying accounts: "I am not going to say that these events happened one way or the other. Rather, I will point out the man who I know for a fact began the wrong-doing against the Greeks." Again, later, Herodotus claims himself as an authority: "I know this
19304-460: The sea. Arion flung himself into the water, and a dolphin carried him to shore. Herodotus clearly writes as both historian and teller of tales. Herodotus takes a fluid position between the artistic story-weaving of Homer and the rational data-accounting of later historians. John Herington has developed a helpful metaphor for describing Herodotus's dynamic position in the history of Western art and thought – Herodotus as centaur: The human forepart of
19456-411: The shores for many months. This hypothesis was supported by the findings of undersea explorer Robert Ballard , who discovered settlements along the old shoreline; scientists dated the flood to 7500 BP or 5500 BC from fresh-salt water microflora. Driven out by the rapidly rising water, which must have been terrifying and inexplicable, people spread to all corners of the Western world carrying the story of
19608-503: The speech to be so alien to listeners that it had to be "translated" three times into modern Turkish: first in 1963, again in 1986, and most recently in 1995. The past few decades have seen the continuing work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language, mostly from English. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance. However,
19760-436: The stories themselves were concocted by Herodotus himself. Like many ancient historians, Herodotus preferred an element of show to purely analytic history, aiming to give pleasure with "exciting events, great dramas, bizarre exotica." As such, certain passages have been the subject of controversy and even some doubt, both in antiquity and today. Despite the controversy, Herodotus has long served and still serves as
19912-536: The strait include Chalcedonian Bosporus ( Bosporus Chalcedoniae , Βόσπορος τῆς Χαλκηδονίης [ Bosporos tes Khalkedonies ], Herodotus 4.87), or Mysian Bosporus ( Bosporus Mysius ). The term eventually came to be used as the common noun βόσπορος , meaning "a strait", and was also formerly applied to the Hellespont in Classical Greek by Aeschylus and Sophocles . As a maritime waterway,
20064-506: The strait is much older, even if relatively young on a geologic timescale. The limits of the Bosporus are defined as the line connecting the lighthouses of Rumeli Feneri and Anadolu Feneri in the north, and between the Ahırkapı Feneri and the Kadıköy İnciburnu Feneri in the south ("Fener" is Turkish for lighthouse). Between these limits, the strait is 31 km (17 nmi) long, with
20216-809: The strait was known as Prosphorion during his day, the name of the most ancient northern harbour of Constantinople . In English, the preferred spelling tends to be Bosphorus. Historically, the Bosporus was also known as the "Strait of Constantinople", or the Thracian Bosporus to distinguish it from the Cimmerian Bosporus in Crimea . These are expressed in Herodotus 's Histories , 4.83; as Bosporus Thracius , Bosporus Thraciae , and Βόσπορος Θρᾴκιος ( Bósporos Thráikios ), respectively. Other names used by Herodotus to refer to
20368-667: The straits area. The reversion was formalised under the Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits of 20 July 1936. That convention - which is still in force - treats the straits as an international shipping lane except that Turkey retains the right to restrict the naval traffic of non–Black Sea states. Turkey was neutral in the Second World War until February 1945, and
20520-497: The straits were closed to the warships of belligerent nations during this time, although some German auxiliary vessels were permitted to transit. In diplomatic conferences, Soviet representatives had expressed an interest in obtaining naval bases on the straits. This, together with Stalin's demands for the restitution of the Turkish provinces of Kars , Artvin and Ardahan to the Soviet Union (which were lost by Turkey in
20672-402: The stretch between Kandilli Point and Aşiyan requires a 45-degree course alteration in a location where the currents can reach 7 to 8 knots (3.6 to 4.1 m/s). To the south, at Yeniköy , the necessary course alteration is 80 degrees. Compounding these difficult changes in trajectory, the rear and forward sight lines at Kandilli and Yeniköy are also completely blocked prior to and during
20824-400: The sun on the right side while sailing westwards", although, being unaware of the existence of the southern hemisphere, he says that he does not believe the claim. Owing to this brief mention, which is included almost as an afterthought, it has been argued that Africa was circumnavigated by ancient seafarers, for this is precisely where the sun ought to have been. His accounts of India are among
20976-562: The sunken Egyptian port city of Thonis-Heracleion lends credence to Herodotus's travels and storytelling. Herodotus' contribution to the history and ethnography of ancient Egypt and Africa was especially valued by various historians of the field (such as Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney , W. E. B. Du Bois , Pierre Montet , Martin Bernal , Basil Davidson , Derek A. Welsby, Henry T. Aubin). Many scholars explicitly mention
21128-568: The three monumental Orkhon inscriptions found in modern Mongolia . Erected in honour of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khagan , these date back to the Second Turkic Khaganate (dated 682–744 CE). After the discovery and excavation of these monuments and associated stone slabs by Russian archaeologists in the wider area surrounding the Orkhon Valley between 1889 and 1893, it became established that
21280-432: The twofold pattern (also referred to as the e-type vowel harmony) means that in the environment where the vowel in the word stem is formed in the front of the mouth, the suffix will take the e-form, while if it is formed in the back it will take the a-form. The fourfold pattern (also called the i-type) accounts for rounding as well as for front/back. The following examples, based on the copula -dir ("[it] is"), illustrate
21432-410: The usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred foreign words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, it also opted for reviving Old Turkish words which had not been used for centuries. In 1935, the TDK published a bilingual Ottoman-Turkish /Pure Turkish dictionary that documents
21584-480: The vast multilingual Persian Empire. Herodotus did not claim to have personally seen the creatures which he described. Herodotus did, though, follow up in passage 105 of Book 3 with the claim that the "ants" are said to chase and devour full-grown camels. Some "calumnious fictions" were written about Herodotus in a work titled On the Malice of Herodotus by Plutarch , a Chaeronean by birth, (or it might have been
21736-598: Was "quite scrupulous, objective, scientific for his time." Diop argues that Herodotus "always distinguishes carefully between what he has seen and what he has been told." Diop also notes that Strabo corroborated Herodotus' ideas about the Black Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Colchians. Martin Bernal has relied on Herodotus "to an extraordinary degree" in his controversial book Black Athena . British egyptologist Derek A. Welsby said that "archaeology graphically confirms Herodotus's observations." To further his work on
21888-499: Was associated with strawberry-growing while Çengelköy was famous for its sweet cucumbers. As part of the only passage between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the Bosporus has always been of great importance from a commercial and military point of view, and it remains strategically important today. It is a major sea access route for numerous countries, including Russia and Ukraine . Control over it has been an objective of
22040-426: Was at some point divided into the nine books that appear in modern editions, conventionally named after the nine Muses . Herodotus claims to have traveled extensively around the ancient world , conducting interviews and collecting stories for his book, almost all of which covers territories of the Persian Empire. At the beginning of The Histories , Herodotus sets out his reasons for writing it: Here are presented
22192-747: Was founded during the Egyptian New Kingdom . Herodotus claimed to have visited Babylon . The absence of any mention of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in his work has attracted further attacks on his credibility. In response, Dalley has proposed that the Hanging Gardens may have been in Nineveh rather than in Babylon. The reliability of Herodotus's writing about Egypt is sometimes questioned. Alan B. Lloyd argues that, as
22344-463: Was going to happen" reveals a "tragic discovery" associated with fifth-century drama. This tragic discovery can be seen in Homer's Iliad as well. John Gould argues that Herodotus should be understood as falling in a long line of story-tellers, rather than thinking of his means of explanation as a "philosophy of history" or "simple causality." Thus, according to Gould, Herodotus's means of explanation
22496-407: Was in the habit of seeking out information from empowered sources within communities, such as aristocrats and priests, and this also occurred at an international level, with Periclean Athens becoming his principal source of information about events in Greece. As a result, his reports about Greek events are often coloured by Athenian bias against rival states – Thebes and Corinth in particular. It
22648-483: Was largely unintelligible to the period's everyday Turkish. The everyday Turkish, known as kaba Türkçe or "vulgar Turkish", spoken by the less-educated lower and also rural members of society, contained a higher percentage of native vocabulary and served as basis for the modern Turkish language. While visiting the region between Adıyaman and Adana , Evliya Çelebi recorded the "Turkman language" and compared it with his own Turkish: Reforms Kemalism After
22800-650: Was led by Jeff Peakall and Daniel Parsons at the University of Leeds , in collaboration with the University of Southampton , Memorial University of Newfoundland , and the Institute of Marine Sciences . The survey was run and coordinated from the Institute of Marine Sciences research ship, the R/V Koca Piri Reis . The shores of the Bosporus were once lined with small fishing villages that had grown up since Byzantine times but really came into their own in
22952-597: Was re-established by closing the Turkish Straits to all warships , barring those of the Sultan 's allies during wartime. This benefited British naval power at the expense of the Russians, as the latter then lacked direct access to the Mediterranean. During the 19th century many of the foreign powers represented in Constantinople maintained second embassies up the Bosporus and would relocate their staff there during
23104-518: Was the will of the gods that the house collapsed while a particular individual was within it, whereas it was the cause of man that the house had a weak structure and was prone to falling. Some authors, including Geoffrey de Ste-Croix and Mabel Lang , have argued that Fate, or the belief that "this is how it had to be," is Herodotus's ultimate understanding of causality. Herodotus's explanation that an event "was going to happen" maps well on to Aristotelean and Homeric means of expression. The idea of "it
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